NEW YEAR...NEW ME!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, PARTY PEOPLE!!

I hope you all rang the '09 in safely in whatever you did (some partied, some went out of the country, some were in church, and some stayed home...all wonderful things). I was in A.C. (Atlantic City for those of you not in the tri-state or not familiar with it) with my crew and we had a GREAT time. We stayed at the Tropicana and it was so POPPIN' that we didn't even have to leave the hotel! When the ball dropped, balloons were dropped in the hotel and fireworks sound effects went off. It was quite crowded so we left that scene and just walked around. LAWD HELP ME but my feet were KILLING me after like 30 minutes; I think I'll be getting rid of those shoes.

Anyway, on to the point...

YES, this is a New Year and there WILL be a NEW ME. I have so many things on tap for myself and I don't want to lax in any of them. First, let me say that I paid off my credit card debt on like Monday which was a GREAT thing. It was less than 1G but I haven't had CC debt in YEARS so that was not the jumpoff for me. It felt GREAT to pay it off like a day before the bill was emailed to me and laugh it off. In continuing with the finances, I've started to balance my checkbook starting today and my NUMBER ONE resolution is to keep up with that. HSBC has horrible online banking and I never know what's going on so I need to do this for myself. Furthermore, I will also be starting a budget book. Yes, I'm talking about a black and white notebook that keeps all my purchases in and compare it to my expenses. My mom maintains that I don't get to have splurge money b/c I put too much into my savings accounts and 401(k) so I only have JUST ENOUGH to live but I don't care. I'm going to check on this myself and if it's true, I'll make some changes. While I don't spend much money on things that aren't essential to my living, even MORE cutbacks are necessary.

NEXT: the career(s). I can't tell you how much procrastinating I'm doing on this air check. Why? I'm not really sure. I think that I'm not sure of what people want to hear and don't have anything to go on besides what I already hear on the air. But I'll get it...trust me. I'm also going to be going at this writing thing...HARD. I've contacted a few online magazines and websites in regards to giving them some of that "Brooklyn Flava" and I hope it takes off. I don't mind writing for free to hone my skills and get my name out there because eventually, it WILL pay off. I believe that. It's a work in progress, ya'll!

Life changes are essential. I am going to stick to cutbacks but before I do, there are some things I really want to have for my apartment like a new TV (Lucky has never posted in the comments section to my knowledge but I'm sure she'll be itching to do so when she reads this to talk about my tv), some accent pieces, and MAYBE some daggone curtains. It doesn't sound like much but this place has really been neglected and it just ain't right! I would like to take a really big trip but I don't know where. LOL! I've been looking at the Jay/Bey pics from their vacation (or as the rick folk say, "Holiday") and I'm thinking, "Whyyyyyy can't I be away for New Year's Eve at the end of this year?" If I'm really going to do that, I need to do it quickly but if not, I'll make it a point to go SOMEWHERE nice this year. You know what would be real nice? If I could take a trip to Hawaii. Yeah, that would be cool.

I'm going to learn how to be a semi-neat freak. I keep the apartment decent but I get lazy sometimes and I HATE to clean. I'm going to try and clean like every other day. Seriously, "TRY" is the key word here.

Another real simple thing I need to do is step my fashion game up. I LOVE sneakers and jeans but I need to try something new. I want to be cute, casual, and comfortable on a regular basis (I do still want to wear my jeans/sneakers though sometimes). How do I do this while making cutbacks? When you figure it out, let me know! Hmmm, piece by piece...maybe?

Oh, and we need to get this social life of mine POPPIN on the dating tip. Things picked up a tad bit in mid '08 but it slowed down considerably at the end. I got a couple of interesting messages from unlikely people already but I'm giving them the side eye (don't act like ya'll don't know what the "side eye" is). SOME say my social life isn't popping because everything is "in place" for my life in the romantic sense (no need to elaborate...I disagree but I'm hopeful about the end result. *wink*). I don't care what "they" say but I gotta get some things going!

So, these aren't resolutions but rather, life changes that I'm trying to make. I'm determined more and more with each passing day!

Let's get our SHINE in '09! Hit it, Estelle!