DAY ONE: Let's Get This Party Started

Today is my 29th birthday.

29. One year from NOT being in my twenties anymore.

Like all of my adult birthdays, I celebrated this one with a week-long freak out about how I'm not where I wanted to be at the age that I'm turning, followed by copious amounts of drinking, a painful hangover and enormous amounts of anxiety.

But I didn't want that to be it for the last year of my 20s. I need a change, and a challenge that will force me to make the most of this year, and keep me from focusing on what I haven't done.

So here is the challenge: Everyday for one year, I am going to try to do something I've never done before and write about it.

It's a BIG goal. In a perfect scenario, I'd take take a year off to complete this challenge, visiting all of the places I've never been and experiencing foreign cultures. Unfortunately, there isn't enough vacation time or an endless supply of cash available to me to make that a reality. My project will have to be completed in the constraints of my real life. I still have to go to work, make time with friends and family all while trying to add a new something to my daily routine. I know it will not be easy, but I've been maintaining the status quo for far too long. It's time to shake things up.

It won't be easy, this I know. But since hilarity (read: stupidity) seems to follow me wherever I go, I know the journey will be worth it.

Finding 365 things that I've never done before is going to be a huge part of the challenge too, so I need your help! If you have something you think I should try, please share it. Please remember that there is a good chance my parents will be the only people that actually read this blog, so try and keep it clean.

So Day #1, thing I've never done before: Blogging

I've read a ton of blogs, I've spent a great deal of time making fun of other people's blogs. Apparently "check out my perfect life and cute kids" blogs are a requirement for young families where I live. Since I don't have a family yet, and no one seemed interested in a blog entitled, "Awkward Moments for a Single Girl Cliche," I've held off on really writing about my life until now. Unless you count journals that I've kept over the years that if you read, you'd think that nothing good ever happened to me and that my life was full of angst and despair. I tend to only journal when life has gone south.

My first day of trying new things did not get off to a great start, as I'm pretty sure my computer has the electronic equivalent of swine flu. I imagine serious bloggers NEVER get computer viruses. I also imagine them carrying their laptops with them wherever they go. But my computer is so beat, I'm embarassed to take it anywhere. Plus it's a PC, and I think to have any sort of "street cred" in the blogging world, you have to have a Mac. I'd get laughed right out of any internet cafe with this piece. I'm really torn here, because I hate to invest anymore money into my 2005 Dell, and I really would love Mac, but the financial commitment of such a big purchase freaks me out. Regardless, I've got to do something if I plan on making this project happen.

There are also my own personal insecurities that are making this first challenge difficult. I'm pretty much an open book when you talk to me in person, but the idea that my words will be out there for people to see is very intimidating. The internet is full of crazies and what if someone finds the blog and then tries to friend me on facebook and then tries to find out where I live? Or worse, and much more likely, what if people think it's stupid? I shared my idea with friends and co-workers, all who seemed receptive, but what if the idea is better than the execution? Half the time I worry that people will read it and the other half I worry that people won't.

So, Day One...blogging...I like it. It feels good to write again. Those who make a living blogging are truely onto something. I'm in my pajamas, still in bed, sharing my thoughts with you and the only difference between real bloggers and me is that they get paid to do it. What a great gig! And so far, I think I've stayed away from anything too controversial that might spark angry tirades of people leaving hateful comments like "STEPH YOU'RE GOING DOWN!" or "Stephanie, you've proven once again why you are an idiot."

Just wait till Day #156 when the thing I haven't done before is mooning people.

Happy Blogging!