A New Years Gift for You!

Set goals & the future will look rosy

It’s the last Bitch’in Suburbia blog post of 2012, and I’d like to start it out with the most important two words there are:

Mommy porn.

JUST KIDDING! That was the top oxymoron of 2012, but the truly important words I have for you are: THANK YOU.

I am enormously grateful to you for reading the Bitch’in Suburbia blog, as you have helped me fulfill my top goal for 2012. I am a writer, and now I am a published author. At first it felt a bit odd and perhaps lone-wolfish to self-publish, but you know what? Just like other forms of personal gratification, it’s pretty damn fulfilling and pleasing when you let yourself go.

My journey to becoming a blogger started around this time last year, when my “project in search of a publisher” (the best way to describe an unpublished manuscript I’ve ever heard), Suburban Rhapsody, finished making the rounds of about 30 literary agents. I got a few nibbles, a couple of deeper reads, but nobody fully took the bait. Seems that publishing, like so many other industries, has been turned upside down and sideways by the damn internets — all business models have been blown apart, and only the strongest (and most Kardashian, I suppose) survive. And breaking through the noise means having your own tribe that digs what you have to say and can help you demonstrate your “stickiness.” (By the way, Channing Tatum has my top stickiness vote for 2012.)

And so, I set a goal of launching a blog in 2012. I also set about 20 other goals for myself, some that I accomplished (like being a mothertrucker and hiking Zion with my BBFs), and others that will just have to remain on the list for 2013. Having tangible targets for growth has been amazingly effective to move me forward in so many ways, many of which were totally unexpected. Lessons learned include:

• The more I make myself cry, the stronger the blog post. Cases in point: It’s All Right to Cry, which documented watching my daughter culminate elementary school and brought in parental tearjerkers like “Puff the Magic Dragon” and Free to Be… You and Me, and Saving Face, when the Universe slipped me a invisible banana peel and slapped some sense into me.

• Everyone loves Camp!

• Parenting is surely a verb — from Shit I Say to My Kids to Go for The Gold (my ode to youth sports), to Tramps Like Us (a plea to the family style police) and the One Activity Family (a true story) — and the musings are endless.

• The biggest inspirations sometimes come in the smallest packages. And from the everlasting connections you make with the peeps you love, no matter where they are now — as the kids say, YOLO.

• Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent*, for reals.

With that in mind, I have a little something for you. It’s a Bitch’in Goal Setting Worksheet, and I encourage you to fill it in before the clock strikes midnight — but any time you decide to make a change is the right time, y’know? Kinda takes the stress out of New Years Resolutions, which are made to be broken. Click on the link below & go for it!

 Set Your Bitch’in Goals 2013

And if you see me setting the following intentions for 2013, just know that I’m thinking about all my bitches, and especially you:

• Walk the path of happiness — the journey is the destination.
• Engage in work that’s aligned with your true calling.
• Attract prosperity & abundance by being your abundant & prosperous self.
• Embrace growth & expansion.
• Make powerful and fulfilling connections, both new & renewed.
• Do for others, be the change.
• As my nana always said, use it/wear it/do it in good health. Health is the key (and when you’re under the weather — no excuses — make my nana’s chicken soup!)
• Love is the answer, always.

And… HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR, MY BITCHES!

* The full quote is this: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” ~ Calvin Coolidge — a little bit of a contradiction that I love this quote from a laissez-faire Republican president whose policies may have contributed to the Great Depression, but what the hell.