Resolutions

Location: Couch
Listening to: The Princess Bride

This past year has brought a lot of changes to my life. Some were really great, others not so much. Looking back, the one thing I can conclude is that I am an extremely blessed girl. I have been given so many fantastic opportunities, and I have so many wonderful and loving people in my life.

I've got a number of resolutions this year. I don't remember what my resolutions last year were (I think I made a post about them, but I'm too lazy to look for it), so if I made any, I'm pretty sure I didn't stick to them.

I want this year to be different, because there are some big changes I want and need to make in my life.

1.) Less junk food, more exercise. I think this is most peoples go-to resolution, but it's something I really want and need to do. My diet was terrible this year and I wasn't nearly as active as I should have been, so I've gained weight and am probably not as healthy as I should be at this point in my life. I really want to fix that. It's not so much about what I look like or what other people see when they look at me. I want to know that I'm healthy and that I'm doing good things for my body. I want to feel confident and proud of my lifestyle instead of buying pints of Ben & Jerry's when I know I'll be home alone for a while and eating it all in one sitting. Eating lots of junk is bad. Waiting  to eat lots of junk until you know no one will see you do it is a problem.

2.) Be! Assertive! B-E ASSERTIVE! One of the best things about me is also one of my greatest weaknesses: I always want to make other people happy. I want to make other people happy SO MUCH that I completely ignore how what they want will affect my own happiness. Generally, I'm proud of this fact. But in some situations, wanting to make other people happy makes you a doormat. After a while, people know you'll just go along with whatever they suggest and they begin walking all over you. And then you just get really unhappy. But it's a vicious cycle and it's hard to break. So, this year, I'm going to stand up for myself more. I'm going to find a good balance of trying to make other people happy and trying to make myself happy. Sometimes it's okay to be selfish, especially about big and important things.

3.) Answer when opportunity knocks. As those of you who've been with me the entire time I've had this blog know, I suffer from anxiety. It's not constant and I've got it pretty much under control, but there are times where I let my anxiety dictate my decisions. Sometimes opportunities come up that seem incredible, but I scare myself out of taking them. This year, I want to actually live life. I don't want to stay at home because I'm afraid that the other people my friends are hanging out with won't like me. I don't want to cancel trips to visit my friends because I'm worried that something on my trip will go wrong. I don't want to life my life in a self-inflicted bubble. I want to go and do things and have fun and live!

That's pretty much my plan for the new year. I love that each new year gives you a fresh start. It's always exciting to think about all of the great things that could happen in the next twelve months.

Do you make New Year's resolutions? What were they this year? If you don't, why not? Let me know in the comments!

Beliefs

Location(s): Work/home
Listening to: Sports Center (or some ESPN type sports show thing)

It isn't often that I trot out my personal beliefs and rant about controversial things on here. In fact, I don't think I've ever done that before. But today I read some things that really made my blood boil, and I believe that using your voice is one of the best ways to bring about change. You may not all agree with me, and I completely understand that. I just hope you respect my beliefs, and if you don't, hopefully we can have a civil conversation about out differences.

Anyway, in case you haven't heard, on Saturday a gay Marine proposed to his partner at the White House. This lovely, adorable, happy story has blown up the internet. Until recently, individuals involved in the U.S. military weren't allowed to be openly gay. And, as many are aware, most states in the U.S. don't allow gay marriage, but the Supreme Court will be hearing cases about the legality of gay marriage and many states are starting to recognize marriage between two men or two women in addition to "traditional" marriage. So it's kind of a wonderful thing that these two men were allowed to express their love openly without any fear of persecution through their jobs or their government.

I hadn't heard about this story until ten minutes ago when a friend shared this photo on Facebook. The photo was originally posted on a group, and, being the curious individual that I am, I decided to read the comments to see what people thought.

What I saw made my heart literally hurt. There was so much negativity. People were ranting that being gay is morally wrong and that these two men will rot in hell. They were saying that God doesn't approve of these men loving each other and that it's wrong that the United States is beginning to legally recognize gay marriage. They were saying that the Marine who proposed had no business being involved in the military, and that he was obviously not a good person because he "chose to be" gay.

I'm not a very religious person, but I was raised in a religious household. Personally, I believe that God doesn't care what love looks like. I think he just wants people to find love and embrace it. I think he would understand that we're born the way we're born. In fact, I know he does. He makes us people we are.

I also strongly disagree with the argument that, because the Bible describes marriage as between a man and a woman, that is the only way it can be. Marriage was around long before Christianity as the religion we know it as today. Pagans who knew nothing of the god that Christians worship celebrated marriage long before the New Testament existed.

If we all followed the Bible to the letter, fathers would be able to sell their wives and daughters like property. Incest would be okay. Eating certain foods that we now eat  all the time would be forbidden.

Especially with all of the tragedy the world has experienced lately, it really upset me to see people being so hateful about something that is supposed to be a happy and beautiful time. Marriage, no matter what religion it is in or what the beliefs are of the people getting married, is a wonderful thing. Knowing you want to spend the rest of your life with someone and loving them so much you never want to spend a day without them is a rare thing. We should be happy for anyone who finds that kind of love.

I think now, more than ever, we need to bite back our negativity and show our love instead. The world is a dark and scary place, but there is still beauty. There is still love. We need to remember that the people we share this world with are also people - not animals, not inanimate objects, but people with thoughts and feelings and lives outside of our own. When we disagree with something, there are ways we can express ourselves and our opinions without being harsh and negative.

Whether or not you believe that gay marriage (or being gay in general) is right, I hope you can still find the happiness in the love stories shared by people who identify themselves as gay. I hope you see that we are all human, and we need to respect and support each other if we ever want to heal this broken world.

Fact: Nice Things Make Me Cry

Location: Work
Listening to: Nothing

Fact: Hearing/reading about people who do extraordinary nice things for complete strangers without any expectation of something in return makes me get teary.

It's easy to forget that nice people still exist. It seems like everyone is motivated by what they can gain by doing things for other people. It seems rare to actually see someone do something nice for someone else just because they want to be nice.

I love seeing things about people who randomly pay for a stranger's meal without them knowing or help a family buy something for their kids, just because they want to. It seriously makes me cry to be reminded that wonderful, kind, loving people still exist, and they want to help others just because they feel like it, or someone else helped them once.

Have you ever heard of Pay It Forward? It's a book/movie about a little boy who is given a class assignment (I think, it's been a while since I've read it) to do something nice for someone else and then tell the class about it. When he did his random act of kindness, he asked the person he helped to pay it forward and help someone else.

This is such an amazing principle. Think of how wonderful the world would be if everyone helped each other and didn't expect to gain anything, but just asked the person to pay it forward and help out someone else.

So, I've got a challenge for you. Try to do something really nice for someone. Don't ask for anything in return, just ask them to pay it forward. The less you know the person you help, the more exciting it will be. And then let me know about your experience! Or, if you've ever helped someone or someone has helped you, tell me about it! I love these stor

Dear Readers; I Am Dead

JUST KIDDING.

I AM NOT REALLY DEAD.

JUST REALLY, REALLY EXCITED.

So, I don't know if you guys saw the latest post on my book blog,* but I found out some really exciting news the other day. I know it's really stupid to swear and it's a display of a poor vocabulary, but honestly, my first thought when I heard was, "HOLY EFFING EFF!!! THIS IS NOT REAL LIFE!!! AHHHH!!!!"

And then I died of excitement.

Why, you may ask? Well, HarperCollins has a website dedicated to books for young adults. It's called Epic Reads. They have all kinds of giveaways, book clubs, and a ton of other nerdy goodness. It's pretty much like Facebook for people aged 12-25 who prefer books over people. Which is amazing.

Well, they sent out a message via social networks earlier last week saying that they were looking for some folks who hasn't read a number of dystopian and paranormal series that they publish who would be willing to read the series in a fairly short time period and blog about their reading experience.

So I filled out the application (which included a question about how you thought the world would end. My belief: chaos followed by giant, benevolent penguins who will save us all) and made a rather silly video and then sat around and completely forgot that I even applied.

On Saturday, I just happened to check my GMail account (which I hardly ever use except for my blogs and when I sign up for things from stores and such) and I had this e-mail that I nearly deleted because it looked like junk.

Only, at the last second, I realized it was from the Epic Reads people.

And they were telling me that I was selected to review one of their series (the Full Moon series by Ellen Schreiber)!

Over 400 people applied to do this, and they only selected 14 (two for each series). So pretty much, I will be blogging on a super cool website through an actual publishing company where hopefully a lot of people will read my reviews and find my blogs and perhaps lead to a job opportunity as a book reviewer and thus fulfilling my life's dream.

You can see why this is pretty much the most exciting thing of my life. And I had to share it with you all!! And now I have to go read a book for school, which should be fun and exciting. But I'll post again soon! Don't you worry! And it won't even be about my book blog next time!

*I almost typed "boob blog," which would have been awkward. And also, sorry for only talking about my book blog here anymore. I'm just really excited about it.

SEO, yo!

Location: Couch
Listening to: Aladdin ::D

So, I was looking at my stats for this blog (because it amazes me that I continue to get views even though I post erratically at best) and I made a surprising discovery:

The #1 search term that leads people to my blog is "bear party." Or other things about bears having parties. Probably because of my bear party post.

(Also, I just searched that to see for myself what comes up. Good news: my blog post officially makes it on the first page of Google search results. Bad news: the rest of it is porn....)

It's funny how using certain tags can get people to read what you're writing. I never would have expected the fact that I mentioned the words "bear party" to bring people to my blog (although, now I'm kind of concerned about what they were looking for when they found this....)

Do you guys use the label function on your blogs? Do you find that some of your tags bring in more views than others?

For anyone who does use the labels/tags (or who might start using them after reading this), I've got a tip for you! I learned today that SEO (search engine optimization) programs will write you off if you tag too much. You should really only tag things that are mentioned a lot.

Like, if you were writing about a Susan G. Komen breast cancer walk, "cancer" or "breast cancer" are phrases that would probably bring in a lot of hits. But you'd be better off to tag it as the specific breast cancer walk you are talking about. The more specific, the better.

If you use a lot of general terms, or throw in tags you know will bring in a lot of hits just to draw traffic, SEO programs will think you aren't being accurate and they'll pretty much ignore your tags.

Just a tip! I hope you're all doing well and getting excited for the holiday season (or winter, if you don't celebrate any winter holidays).

If you've got a free second, please check out my new book review blog! I'd really appreciate some feedback and followers over there! Let me know what you think!

Irrational Irretation

Location: Work
Listening to: Some pre-football thing on TV

Ok, so, I'm about to let my crazy out. Beware!

We all have little things that irk us. A lot of them don't make much sense to other people. I'm sure everyone can think of at least one thing that they hate, even though they know it's ridiculous to hate it.

For me, that one thing is other people doing my work.

I am a very independent worker. When I'm given responsibilities, I like to do them myself. If I need help, I'll ask for it, but if it's something I can easily get done myself, I want to do it that way. By. My. Self.

This makes group projects and other group-work scenarios kind of a nightmare for me. I turn into kind of a control freak. I'd much rather be doing the entire project (or whatever the case may be) by myself. Usually it's something I could easily crank out on my own, so having to divvy up jobs with people who may or may not do them (or do them to my level of satisfaction) causes me a lot of stress.

But group projects are temporary evils. They only spring up a few times a year and only last for a few weeks. I can tolerate them long enough to ensure I get a good grade on my part of the project. Usually I can compartmentalize enough that I detach myself from whatever my partners are responsible for.

Lately, though, I've been in a situation of being stuck with an overly helpful person who I cannot get rid of. I'm an office assistant for a small business. My office manager used to be this super awesome girl named Jane. She was maybe 6 or 7 years older than me and she was super fun and nice. It was great going to work, because she was so much fun to work with.

But then Jane's husband got a job several hours away and she moved. She was replaced by an older woman named Jo. Jo is very nice as well, but she doesn't let me do my job. I don't have a lot of responsibilities as it is, but she continues to do small tasks for me. Tasks that I have to do every day. And that I've done every day in the year I've worked here. With no help from anyone, because they are so utterly simple that a monkey could do them. I have plenty of time to get all of my closing tasks done and I always do them.

The whole issue started a week or two ago. One of my closing duties is to lock up the money from the cash drawer. In the morning, Jo unlocks it and puts it back. One morning she came in and the money was already out and the drawer was open. When I got into work later that afternoon, she gave me a lecture about how I need to make sure to lock everything, because it would be terrible if something were to get stolen.

Except, I had locked up the money. One of our other co-workers had unlocked it before Jo got in because they needed to use it for something. Jo and I may be the ones responsible for putting away or taking out the money, but everyone we work with knows where it's kept and how to get it if needed.

Since then, she's condescendingly told me she will take care of locking certain file cabinet drawers that have valuable information inside (even though I've locked them without fail for the last year) because she wants to make sure it's her responsibility if something were to get left out or lost. She also always asks me if I want her to back up the computers (one of my nightly duties) before she leaves (several hours before we close).

No matter how many times I tell her she doesn't need to do any of my jobs (as politely and nicely as possible) she always asks.

I know it's a ridiculous thing to get frustrated over, because she's probably just trying to be nice, but it just rubs me the wrong way. It always feels like she's asking me if she can do these things because she doesn't trust me to do them on my own. Even though I've worked here roughly nine months longer than she has.

Alright. Rant over. Are there any weird things that annoy you for no reason? Even though you know it's completely ridiculous that they do? I'd love to hear about it (it'd make me feel like less of a crazy person, for sure).

Also, please check out my new book review blog! I've got several reviews up (one is a review of an advance copy I won a few weeks ago!) and I'd love some feedback!

Celebrate!

Hey everyone!

So, yesterday was my two year anniversary with the boyfriend. I can't believe we've been together so long. It feels like we just met. It also feels like we've known each other forever. How crazy is that?

I feel pretty lucky. I am in love with a guy who loves me and respects me and does whatever he can to make me happy. We make an awesome team and, even though we have our fights, we always get through them and come out stronger than before.

Anyway, I just wanted to share the happiness with you all! I hope you're having an awesome fall and have fun and exciting things on the horizon!

Please take a second to check out my new book review blog (abbiereadsbooks.blogspot.com)! I just started and would really love some feedback and support over there! If you know anyone who likes to read, send them my way!

Thanks so much, friends. :)