Greetings my friends and a “Happy New Year” to you all. Welcome to 2019 and our now annual well wish for the months to come. This year I’m doing my post a little differently and have decided to use my Instagram shot from our Official Profile there instead of doing double the work on a different photo for the website posting. Also, I am using this across the board on both of my websites for some consistency and ask that if you are not yet following the Gram for PiercingMetal or PiercingKen that you click the photo and open our page to do so. I’d love to have you along with me for the many adventures that each of these websites will be embarking on and to have you look back on the stuff that has already happened and you might have somehow missed.
I’m also including a bonus well-wishing photo from my beloved black cat Spooke because she is a very vocal cat and likes to have her opinion heard. She wouldn’t let me pose her with the silly glasses or hat so this tiara thingie would have to suffice. She is going to be “17” years old in March and has been a faithful companion since she was born.
I didn’t do anything last night for New Year’s Eve since I decided to give an early start to my January sober month a few days ago. When the New Year turned I snapped a couple of images from the TV and as you can see, the rainy night messed up the video feed. It stopped soon enough and I’m glad that the sun is shining today since I have a trek out to see family and raise a glass to the New Year and what’s to come. I will be drinking juice or soda of course.
Now its time to get onto some of the suggestions on good practices to have a good year. It’s not a soapbox since I follow a lot of these principles myself.
1. Keep up with Family. Some are farther away than we’d like but the power of our mobile phones, Skype and the old traditional mail work fine on staying in touch. There are also those things we call visits. Good stuff.
2. Keep up with Friends. I mean that you should do this in the real sense and not just liking a status on Facebook because that is not keeping up at all. Okay, sometimes its hard to do but give it a shot. Another thing you should do with regards to friends is be wary of the Energy Vampires or those ones who manage to find fault in everything and everyone as opposed to accepting some blame. Spend less time with those sorts because they will only be happy if you are miserable as well. We all have our bad days but if you know too many people like that its time to call upon the powerful phrase of “Bye Felicia”!!!
3. Love your Pets. Sadly, our little furry friends are not with us as long as we hope them to be so while you have them in your personal world spoil them and let them know just how special they are to your day. They deserve nothing but absolute love from you. If you are considering using this year to become a pet owner, consider rescuing one that needs you more than others as opposed to spending tons of money buying from a breeder. Maybe even fostering one if you think you can handle it. At the end of the day you are probably saving their life and what’s better than that? Nothing.
4. Go through your Facebook Profile: In 2018 I took a scythe to my personal profile on Facebook and pretty much chopped a few hundred names off of the collection. It wasn’t to be mean spirited at all and was more about keeping to real life contacts and the business ones that have decided to add me to their own friends. Since I live a very public life, I’ve found myself getting add requests some five minutes after meeting someone and well, that is not happening anymore since my profile is my away space. The political ranting has not slowed down nor has the sharing of truly fake news reports. I miss the days when it was only baby and pet photos and updates about work and romance. Also, in today’s world your Facebook profile should only be the people you know, or have worked with (if you even want workmates on there at all). Be more mindful of what posts are made to “Friends Only” as opposed to “Public”. I’ve even hidden my friends list from public view after finding some folks “shopping” and suddenly having the same people in their list. That’s too creepy even for me. Here is my challenge to the readership. Delete at least “15” people from your Facebook that you wonder why you even have there and Unfollow more than twice that if they are too far “out there” for your tast. Also, spend LESS Time On Facebook: Life is meant to be spent living and not scrolling through a Facebook Feed. Some of my friends live on this network and it shows in how they deal with real time relationships. Don’t be like those people.
5. Check Your Mobile Contacts: I’ve mentioned before that I once had hundreds and hundreds of unknown contacts after an updateour mobile device: A recent update to my device found it messing up my contacts to a massive extent. I discovered over 1000 “unknown” contacts and there was no way I was editing those so the delete button sang a new song. It’s never a bad idea to go through ones mobile and eliminate the older and unused contacts. If a mysterious text comes in you can always say “New Phone Who Dis?” to determine if you need to be reached by the party.
6. Be A Tourist: You can do this in your own town or a neighboring one. I live in NYC so there is something amazing at almost every step of the way. Find this excitement in your own locality. Of course you can come visit ours as well since we don’t mind that at all. Museums, Parks and other regional attractions all fall into the tourism aspect that I am referencing here. One thing I like to do is find out what friends might be visiting my region and seeing if I can help plan out some interesting things to do in terms of food, drink and sights.
7. Learn To Do Something New: Maybe you don’t know how to sew, cook, speak a few phrases in a different language or understand quantum mechanics. Just give a go to something that you always would have liked to know more about and give it a shot. Any effort is a win in my book and nowadays there are TONS of tutorial clips on YouTube which are spot on. I’ve learned to do some light technical things that befuddled me thanks to clips like these and say it doesn’t hurt to try.
8. Follow The Social Networks: Sure I suggested that you do some gardening on your personal profile in Facebook but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay mind to your interests and their assorted social networks. Many actors, musicians and even outlets like our own Chronicles and PiercingMetal have official accounts on numerous social networks. We use Facebook, Instagram and Twitter the most but as an active foodie, I am using Yelp a whole lot too and we’d love for you to join us for the ride on them.
9. Unsubscribe From Some Lists: I am all about being informed but I found my email address getting a ton of things that I never asked for so peruse that stuff and make sure you are not on any lists that you no longer need. There is nothing worse than missing real mail in a deluge of spam or advertisements. You might also want to reevaluate some of the older social networks. I mentioned in 2018 that I finally cancelled my pair of MySpace accounts and what I’ve done since then was dump the Vero True Social network since that was hot garbage and as previously reported on this website, 2019 will mark the end of Google+. I’m still going to use it to share my posts from the two websites until it is shut off.
10. Recycle Stuff: Bottles, Cans, Papers – All of that stuff can be recycled nowadays so don’t toss it in the regular garbage. We only have one Earth to live on and enjoy. Let’s aim at keeping it nice and neat and by the way remember that stuff like batteries, bulbs and other electronics must be disposed of properly. I’ve found that the local Staples and Best Buy outlets allow for recycling what is called e-waste. Don’t leave stuff like that on the sidewalk since someone can trip over it if its rather sizeable.
11. Donate Stuff: We all have stuff that we can donate to worthy causes and it doesn’t always need to be money. I occasionally have brought bags of clothes over to relief shelters and done the same with books and videos that cannot be sold off or even left at the local library. Nowadays you can even donate time if you have it. Two of my favorite places to donate things to are the Bowery Mission and Housing Works.
12. Eat Better and Take Better Care Of Yourself: Does this really need a little more explanation? We can all eat better things and do a little more exercise during the course of the day. Eat more fruits, vegetables and less fatty, hi calorie stuff. Drink more water, set aside a sober month if you drink or at least a couple of weeks each and every month. Your wallet will thank you. I’ve already started a sober month since last week and plan on sticking to this until close to Toy Fair which I have applied for and am awaiting the okay to attend.
13. Be The Best You That You Can Be: Listen to people as much as you like to be listened to. Take pride in the accomplishments of others as often as possible. Its not always easy since some of the people we run across in the day can be quite adept at boasting. Just smile, say “good for you” and move along if those are the types you keep seeing. I mean the regular stuff we see each day with our circle of friends. If you find that a friend can use some quick talking company, maybe go for a coffee or snack at Dunkin Donuts. That’s fine to do anytime.
So that’s all I have and I hope that I didn’t get a little too preachy because I just figure a lot of these are reminders to ourselves on things we’d like to attend to or do more of in our lives. I’ve got a bountiful year planned for you readers with this Lifestyle Blog and I hope to ramp up the content to keep you interested even more than before. I find that its a lot of fun sharing our adventures via this medium and since traffic rose exponentially last year we know you are out there and checking it out. Now let’s get down to business with this 2019 stuff and see what it has in store for us. Happy New Year.
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