Learning Photoshop, tweaking, planning…

Don’t worry, though.

I’ll be back.

:)

I have two more workdays at the boys’ school; one next week and one the week after.

Two more days that I’ll be able to say “I’m a Speech Therapist in a middle school” instead of “I’m a blogger.”

I don’t know why, but it’s hard to say. I wish it was a respected profession.

People don’t say, “Oh! What school did you go to?” or “Wow, what do you teach the students?”

They say “humph. Nice.” or “So, do you… get paid to do that?”

It’s difficult leaving a career that I went to school for 6 years to be in for something I don’t have formal education in.

I’m not just a blogger, but people don’t want to hear “Well, I am writing articles for iPhoneLife magazine in print, writing weekly and monthly for a couple of NBC owned websites, working on making my blog bigger, working with an amazing real estate team in Southern California to increase their digital presence, and helping a few other online businesses with increasing their social media exposure.”

But that’s what I am doing.

And I love it.

Love it.

I feel guilty because I am so happy, I’m just struggling with the title change.

Have you ever left a professional job for a job that you loved more, even though it wasn’t as respected?

We talked.

We ate.

We drank.

We smiled :)

 Chelsea, Denise, and I.

Linking up with Kristi, Amanda, Dagmar, and Yes Video

All of those fun ideas in one place makes me want to pin all day long! After all of the pinning I did, I wanted to try out some of the great ideas I had collected. I decided that Kelly’s baby shower was a great place to do that!

After a long decision process, I decided to use the following pins – I decorated with paper rosettes and tissue paper poms. We snacked on adorable personal sized veggie/ranch snacks and ate chicken salad on croissants for lunch. We drank tea and lemonade from a fresh fruit lemonade bar, and made homemade body scrub to go with the favor bags.

Here’s a peek and some thoughts about each craft:

The lemonade bar was easy and everyone seemed to enjoy it. If I did it again, I’d use a food processor to puree the fruit – the chunks kept getting stuck in the straws!

The paper rosettes took more time than I had anticipated – the key to nice rosettes is thin, non-textured paper. Paper that’s too thick or textured creases differently and doesn’t look as elegant as the thinner paper.

This is a shot of my living room the night before – it was a little overwhelming, but completely worth it in the end!

As part of the party favors, we made sugar scrub in my kitchen! It was no mess (I promise!), and very easy to put together.

Another part of the favor bags were personalized lip balms from Kustom Kissers – they were a hit, and it was so fun to personalize them with Kelly’s shower colors and a little thank you message.

The shower was a hit, and I was so glad to be able to spend some time with Kelly before she moves up to Phoenix!

What’s your favorite Pinterest idea? Have you tried to make it yet?

———-

Links to party supplies:

Straws for lemonade bar: from Amazon.com

Place card chalkboards: from Amazon.com

Mason jars for body scrub: Ace Hardware

Tissue paper and jute favor bags: Nashville Wraps

Personalized lip balm: Kustom Kissers

Veggie/Ranch cups: Party City (not online)

If there’s anything that I missed, please ask and I’m happy to tell you where I found it!

I had a great part time job that was everything one might want, and then some. It was 2 miles from my house, I worked 2 days a week, and it was at the school that my oldest son attends (which is right next door to the school my youngest son attends).

I quit because my blogging/writing career has taken off a bit, and I had to choose one path to focus on. I have been invited to some amazing events in the last year and was running out of time off for my part time job.

So, I am no longer an employed speech therapist. I’m now a Professional Blogger, Freelance Writer, and a Small Business/Blog Social Media Consultant.

I quit a job that I had gone to college for six years to train for.

It’s a little crazy, and a little unsettling, but I’m getting used to it.

Finding jobs is new to me because I’m not comfortable yet with selling myself. All of the work I have had thus far has come to me – I’ve consulted with business owners about their social media influence and strategy and have had websites and blogging liaison groups approach me asking me to write for them.

Recently, I sought out my first job.

To make a long story short (and it’s a long story, believe me), I pitched… and failed.

And don’t think that I’m saying I failed so you can say, “I bet you did fine!” because it wasn’t like that. I was concentrating on reading a keynote and following my index cards and making eye contact and remembering my jokes… and I rambled for 10 minutes and literally don’t remember what I said. What I should have done was sit on a desk in front of them and speak from the heart.

I learned a very valuable lesson that day, and I’m not allowing that experience to define me.

I’m concentrating on the positive, and I’m so unbelievably happy that I have a few of them to concentrate on over the summer.

I wrote my first magazine article and can expect to see my words in print in next month’s iPhone Life magazine.

I developed my first social media plan, and am now getting ready to help a CA real estate company increase their online presence through social media.

I finished my fist big project with one of the websites I write for, DinnerTool:

and last but not least, I redecorated and painted our home office.

So, that’s life on my front. Tell me about your good news!