Day 1: If I ruled Liechtenstein... you'll just have to put your coffee table books on a bookshelf

My oldest niece Katelyn... err Kate, sorry… refuses to answer to anything other than "Kate." She won't even answer to the nickname I have been referring to her as – Katertots – since she was born five years ago. She’s always quick to point out that “it’s NOT  Katelyn, it’s Kate” complete with an attitude to match to anyone who dares refer to her by her full first name.

My nieces have always been princesses, but never more so since they donned pink and purple Disney princess pajamas for a princess pajama party to watch Kate Middleton marry Prince William. Kate Middleton then became Princess Kate, and, according to my niece, Kate, so did she.

Little girls fantasize about growing up to be a princess, but unless you happen to find your very own and very real Prince Charming, you’re going to have to accept that your childhood dream is going to continue to be an unattainable fantasy.

That is, of course, unless you have a heck of a lot of disposable income and a whole lot of friends. Airbnb, a service that describes itself as an “eBay for space” recently partnered with Rent a Village by Xnet to offer entire villages, towns, and even an entire country for rent. That’s right – you can rent and run the entire Principality of Liechtenstein for a mere $70,000 per night.

That’s right – if you can afford it, you could rule a country. The rental permits renters to rename the city streets and town squares, print up their own temporary currency, and carve logos in the snow on the mountainside. If they so choose, they could be welcomed with a custom festival, greeted by a marching band, be handed the key to the city, and sip wine at a prince’s estate beneath a fireworks show. Those are just suggestions and that’s just the beginning.

And here’s the beginning of a weekly Wednesday segment I’m calling “If I Ruled Liechtenstein…” where I’ll be sharing my ideas for my utopian society (and the fact that this blog post coincides with spoiled rich girl Paris Hilton's World According to Paris debut today - not that I'm watching it - is completely coincidental).

First things first, in my country I will be referred to as “Empress Erika Joy Of Liechtensteinville” and several random events, objects, and a landform will be banned from my country because I hate them. In no particular order, there will not be parades, sci-fi films, sand, and coffee tables in Liechtenstein as long as I’m empress.

Therefore, I’ll have to drum up more awesome ways to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, Memorial Day and Labor Day, and Macy’s will definitely not be involved as they sponsor one of the most well-known parades in the United States.

There are plenty of other genres to watch if one of my residents is a sci-fi fan, including the Jurassic Park franchise, which is an exception to the “no sci-fi rule” because hey, it could happen – seriously.

Children will have to find other ways to amuse themselves on the sandbox-free playgrounds, and adults could swim in one of the many indoor or outdoor swimming pools if a beach is what they’re after.

And I will not be modest in taking credit for everyone suddenly realizing just how awesome it is to have so much more room in their living rooms once their coffee tables are removed and thrown into a pile for a ruler-change celebratory bonfire underneath a fireworks show (the fireworks of which will happen every night – rain or shine).

I think we’re off to a good start. Stay tuned.

It's The Year Of The Tapir

A tapir is an absolutely ridiculous animal. It’s like a platypus in that it’s an absolute animal medley. It looks like a pig with thin hair, but is actually related to the horse and rhinoceros. Its front feet have four toes, and the hind feet have three toes and it has a skinny short tail, but its nose is its most prominent feature – it’s drawn out to form a movable, short trunk. American tapirs are born with brown coats marked with yellowish streaks that disappear as they grow into adulthood. And if all that weren’t strange enough, tapirs tweet and sound like birds.

In other words, it’s a hodgepodge of an animal. So what in the heck does a tapir have to do with this blog? I have a new focus on my hobbies, all of which recently fell to the wayside. Rather than start out small, I thought I’d challenge myself and go big to make up for it and commit to a big project – one that lasts an entire year. So beginning tomorrow, every day for the next 365 days, I’m going to post something on this blog. Rather than writing about one topic every day or just about my life in general in the (smaller) big city similar to what I did on small-town girl In The BIG CITY, each day will have its own unique theme to keep it exciting and different, which will make up a blog like seemingly random animal parts make up a tapir. Here are the themes:

Sunday: Shakespeare’s High School Poetry. All writers and poets have jotted down something  they find many years later and think, “I can’t believe I actually wrote this crap” as they’re locked inside the bathroom burning the inferior work in the bathtub. Shakespeare probably was the exception to this phenomenon, as he’s unbelievably brilliant, but maybe he began with mediocre work when he was younger. It makes me think there just might be hope for some greatness in my future writing career. So every week I’ll be exploring a different type of poetry by writing a poem in a different style to enrich my own work, which I can only hope somewhat resembles the kind of stuff Shakespeare would have written in high school.

Monday: Never Have I Ever. I'll have seven days every week to try something new, whether it be for the entire week, for a day, or just for the moment, and every Monday I'll have an opportunity to write about my findings.

Tuesday: What did Batman say to Robin? The title of this week coincides with a ridiculous joke a friend told me once. For this day each week, I'll either pose and then refute a random question from a friend, or answer and get a response from a random question. The more out of the box the topic, the better to take a break from all the monotony of being an adult on a Tuesday. Even if only for a short time.

Wednesday: If I Ruled Lichtenstein. I have my ideas of the way the world should work, and it's about dang time I shared them in the hope that it might inspire some change. So on Wednesdays, I'll be sharing my ideas for my utopian society.

Thursday: Remember The Time? This is one of my favorite phrases. I generally use it, however, in a negative context, as in, “Remember the time I was running late, charged through the door at work, and smashed right into the head of my group?” Or I’ll use it with mock sarcasm to colleagues I supervise by saying something like, “Remember the time I asked you to do your job?”  So while all that is fair game, essentially this is a day for storytelling. It’s a day where I have free reign to write about anything in my past, which is, after all, how I became the person I am today.

Friday: Stop. Focus. Click. All too often, events in my life resemble the color wheel in Adobe Photoshop. Each color blends into another seamlessly until it becomes a completely different color. My life changes in big ways all too fast, and while the major adjustments are always easy to recall, it’s those little moments that mean so much at the time that become harder to remember as time goes on. This blog post at the end of every workweek will remind me how important it is to slow down and capture these precious small experiences.

Saturday: A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words. If a picture truly is worth 1,000 words, then it shouldn't be too hard to guess which popular overused phrase - otherwise known as a... grr... cliche - I'll be depicting every Saturday with just one photo. Take a guess each week at what phrase I'm referring to, and you'll find out whether you're right the following Saturday.

This is me jumping into the pool. The water’s nice. Why don’t you join me?