Upon waking this morning, I checked CoinCap and noticed that the Steem price was $.95. This was the day I have been waiting for. Anyone who has taken a look at Steemwhales notices that I powered down a lot of Steem last winter. I was scared that I might lose everything.

Fear!

I have been earning Steem ever since joining, and to be honest, I have not bought much. I would guess that earners on this platform, especially early adopters are the same. But I think Steem probably won't be as low as it is now. Moving forward, I can easily see that it will get harder and harder to stand out in the daily blogging noise. There are simply too many bloggers and not enough readers. (I'm not going into this topic now.)

It hit me today that in order to go to the next level, I am going to start putting money back into the place that has basically given me everything and changed my life. I'll be doing it slowly.

Today I did 2 things different: I bought $1600 Steem which I powered up and I decided that I will stop upvoting my own posts.

I read @jerrybanfield's post about the tool that allows you to see your own self-voting behavior and here's what mine looks like, I am currently at 2% self-upvoting:

You can see your own self-voting behavior in pie chart form by going to this link: http://steemreports.com/outgoing-votes-info/?account=stellabelle

I am not saying you should do the same, I am only expressing that I want to be among the very few on this platform that have 0% self-upvotes. I feel like that would be a very exclusive club to be in, and that's my goal moving forward. Not voting for yourself allows you to see your worth in the eyes of others, and that's what I am most interested in going forward. It's a kind of scary feeling, because I have been upvoting my own posts since I started a year ago. It will be a new experiment, and it feels like getting on a rollercoaster without wearing a seatbelt.

Ah, I received something amazing from @skyleap that I wanted to share with you. Out of the blue, he drew me in a cartoon style which I love, so @skyleap 私はとても幸せだったし、びっくりしました。ありがとう
It was a total surprise! I am also considering using one of my alt accounts to write in Japanese, since I have a degree in Asian Studies, and I used to be a fairly decent writer in Japanese. I have forgotton so much, but this could be a great opportunity for me to learn and get better at my Japanese. I heard something about a Japanese Steemit in ICO status now, what's that called again?

In other news, if you have not voted yet for @teamsteem, do it today. I'll be writing some posts on how to vote for Witnesses and why this is a good thing for you and the Steem ecosystem.

Hey, if you have not entered my Steemfest2 Giveaway contest, do so today! I'll be giving away two tickets and I'm looking for people who want to change the world in some way. Tell me your ideas! Here's the post that explains it: https://steemit.com/steemfest/@stellabelle/win-a-trip-to-steemfest-submit-a-3-minute-video

But really all you have to do is make a video, post it on Steemit and use the tags: steemfest, steemfeststella. That's it. Don't delay. You have until August 31, 2017.

Thanks to all of you who read my posts! Without you, I would not be doing well!

Cheers,
Stellabelle