Where Has This Year Gone?

We’ve long passed the “hump” of 2010. I’ve had so many things happen already that it’s hard to believe. I reconnected with a boyfriend from 15 years ago back in February. We’re together and going strong, living in an apartment with his three cats. Yes, I said cats. *big sigh* I know, I’m not a cat person at all, but I am and always will be an animal person. Just waiting for the day we get a house or something where I can still have my dogs!

I’ve taken on lots of new work, new clients, and they’re all amazing. In fact, I do believe I’m essentially booked up through the rest of the year, what with all my other personal projects (shh! They’re still secret right now!) and the work I have coming in. It’s great. Busy, but great.

A few things I’ve been slacking on? The diabetes/weight loss issues. Yes, I’m mad at myself for it. I do believe that I’m going to gear things up now with work stuff so that I can have things all settled and organized for next year to INCLUDE taking the time I need to for myself. I’m giving work 110% for the rest of 2010 and then taking a well-deserved (after five years) ease-up on myself. Yup. Gonna do that!

I did recently just go back on Chantix in order to quit smoking again, though… does that count? I’m so annoyed with our illustrious Governor that I don’t want anything he does to be able to pull another red cent from my pocket, so when the price of a pack jumped up to just about $10, I decided enough was enough. It’s over. I enjoyed being a non-smoker before, my boyfriend hates that I smoke, and my mom’s going to try to quit now too. It’s awesome!

Speaking of disdain (as I have for Governor Crack Smoker), I’m also all twisted over this BP oil spill stuff. It’s almost like I’m in shock over it. Part of me wants to hop a plane and fly down to help the animals. The other part of me stops and wonders if what anyone’s doing is actually helping anything. I’m hurt by this whole thing, you know? I think about all the people and animals who are suffering. I think about the fact that a major food supply is and will continue to be contaminated to the point of no return. I think about the lives that were lost and those we may lose in the future over this whole thing. And I think about how our President goes on television to say he’s trying to figure out “whose ass to kick”, yet he hasn’t kicked anything but the tires on his golf cart. Ungh! Okay, enough… can’t let this spiral down and ruin my day or anyone else’s! LOL

So there it is, a few months in a nutshell! I’m going to really try to focus on work stuff and personal projects for the remainder of the year so that I can have the time (and luxury) of blogging here more often!

Hosting Company Retardedness Issue #437

Okay, so my client sends me a Skype message the other day telling me that there’s “some error” on her site that looks like something serious. The site’s not coming up, and she knows that it’s nothing she could’ve done.

Since she’s a smart woman, I believe her, and go take a look. Lo and behold, there was a MySQL error that I do know for sure, neither her or myself caused. So, I ring up the hosting company.

Once I get the guy on the phone (15 minutes after punching in 20 or 30 buttons to get the right department, which in itself took a good 10 minutes), I give him the URL and read to him the error (just in case he decided NOT to look for himself).

Before I could finish reading the error, he cuts me off and says, “Yeah, yeah… we had a server upgrade that rendered the php.ini files useless as they were.”

I say, “Oh.”

He says, “Give me just one second here… there. Refresh your browser, please.”

I do as I’m told and the site’s up and running perfectly.

So as quickly as the thought entered my brain, it shot out of my mouth, “So umm… why did I have to actually call you and waste half an hour of my time with this, when you should’ve just automatically done whatever it is that just took you 5 seconds, right off the bat?”

He answered, without remorse, regret, or embarrassment… “I dunno.”

Mmhm… NEXT!!!

Life Is A Highway… I’m Gonna Ride It All Night Long

Yeah, it is. I can’t believe we’re into March 2010. You know, “into” March… beyond the first week of any given month and you’re “into” the month.

Life has been a whirlwind for me lately and I’m lost in how much I’m in love with it right now. Seriously, folks. You’re reading the words from a girl who sincerely was feeling like there were lots of things that would never change, never get better, never get worse, just sit here spending the rest of my life in this stagnant chain of events from day to day. I’m here to tell you, brag, scream from the rooftops that my “day to day” has been nothing short of amazing and wonderful the past couple weeks.

First, I’m in love. Yes, for all of you who know me at all, it’s a miracle, but I’m here. The Facebook status has been changed an e’rything! I won’t get into details, but my inner Disney princess has finally experienced the singing birds and fireworks, and damn, it’s good.

Work stuff has been wonderful and abundant, and there’s more around every city block corner I reach. I couldn’t be more grateful and honored that after four and a half years of putting my heart and soul into what I’m doing, it’s paying off. (More to come on this front later…)

I’m just really happy. All of the stars have aligned, and I’m rockin’ my world. It’s honestly the best feeling ever, and honestly – I can’t put it into words that really get the message across other than that.

So, with all this bliss, I’ve been inspired. (Funny how that works, eh?) I’ve got all these things I’m thinking I want to do RIGHT NOW like get back into painting, (re)start up a couple of my old blogs, sort through old clothes and donate them to GoodWill, you name it. It’s like crack for motivation, this happiness thing.

One of the things I discovered this morning while making my rounds online, was that I missed the announcement about Dooce heading to HGTV. (Yeah, she posted it in freakin’ January. See what I mean about the whole not believing we’re “into” March already? Yep.) Can this woman fail? I’m so super proud of her, you know? She’s making a mint off of being herself, and getting all kinds of publicity and appearances and all that for the past couple years, and now she’s hooked up with one of my favorite networks! You can check out what she’s doing over there with the blog stuff, but I’m truly wondering what all else is to come for this kickass chick, you know?

I’ve always had this deep-seated desire to have a fabulous personal blog. I’ve been blogging since before they called it that, and have had all sorts of niches and topics that I’ve tried to focus on, but the bottom line is that as a complex (complicated?) individual, sometimes there are just things I want to write about, that I want people to come along and say “Hey! That’s what I was thinking!” to, and that will make me just this uber-cool “girly web geek” that I keep claiming to be.

At one point, I tried my hand at having at least 8 blogs going at once. Like, duh. Right? Stoopid.

At another time, I considered starting up a blog network of sorts. I’ve recently let all the domains go to “poop”. (Yep, canceled the auto-renew. When they’re free, they’re free – have at it kiddies. Just credit me for the idea if you take it, mmkaythanksbai.)

Given that things have become so busy with work stuff, and I’ve got a steady stream of “regulars” that I’m beyond happy with, I’ve recently been considering taking Ginkgo Consulting to a strictly consulting basis. At least for the time being. Essentially making me a sort of “coach” in many ways. Rather than doing the dirty work myself, I’ll help outline the list of tasks and develop a plan to help launch people’s online businesses and blogs. This should open me up for more speaking gigs (something that the inner-five-year-old-wannabe-actress in me just thrives on) and give me more time to be selfish with my to-do list.

So there’s lots of planning and timing and scheduling going on in my world, as there often is. But the best part about all of this is that I’m finally LOVING it. It doesn’t feel daunting, doesn’t feel like a “dirty job”, and every single thing I do or think about when it comes to my future is exciting and wonderful and amazing.

I think I’m finally on the right highway.

Life Status – October 2009

You know how sometimes life gets so crazy and wonderfully hectic that you start to neglect things that were once passions of yours?

I’ve noticed that I haven’t updated any of my own blogs in several, several months.

I’m totally not complaining, but it’s before 5am on a Friday morning and after going to bed at 830pm last night because I had a headache, I’ve spent the past hour and a half trying to focus.

My life right now is REALLY good. I mean, I’m way happy with work stuff, current projects are awesome. I’m finally starting to see the fruits of my last 5 years working for myself. It’s a wonderful feeling when you start to realize that your self-employment dreams are kinda coming true.

I’m headed to Blog World Expo 2009 with Darren Rowse (ProBlogger) in less than a week, and am working on tying up work’s loose ends before I go. I’ve really never had to do that before… LOL

Current and Recently Completed Projects:

• ProBlogger.COMmunity – I’m the community manager for this great new project by Darren. I’m insanely excited about this project, to say the least.
• Thirteen Yards to Victory – These guys are amazing. Really talented, adorable, and the epitome of the “Pay It Forward” mentality.
• Cars4Cancer – Raising money to directly help cancer patients. This is what this country needs more of. Real help for real people.
• TwiTip – I’m the assistant editor for TwiTip, another project by Darren Rowse.

There are a few other projects in the works, some small, some not so much. I’m not willing to talk about them much right now because they’re not entirely confirmed yet.

The bottom line? If all works out, I’m booked through January and beyond.

Now, all I need is a love life.

What’s A Girly Web Geek To Do?

Okay so it’s become painfully obvious to me that my business has gotten so busy that I have severely neglected my personal projects. My company blog is lacking in a major way, but so are all my other little pet projects.

I’m definitely an “idea woman” and I find that I get compelled to act upon every new idea I have. What I’d really love is to have a full staff of people whom I can afford to pay full time to help me keep all these little ideas running (and growing, of course). Just not happening at the moment, that’s for sure.

I’m kind of notorious for taking on too much sometimes, too. Sure, the money’s great, but when my stress level reaches 11 on a ten-point scale and I’ve got no time to spend with friends or family, the money seems so not worth it sometimes.

Okay wait, that’s a flat-out lie. The money’s really worth it, it’s just trying to get others to understand sometimes that’s difficult.

So here’s the problem: I’ve got too much I want to do, versus what I need to do.

What’s the solution?

Do I drop some of my personal project ideas? Does that mean selling off the domains that I just KNOW are going to be really great projects/money makers? Or does that mean continuing to dump a couple hundred bucks a year into the domains just so I can hang onto them until I have time or a staff?

Do I try to develop a hard-core, rigid schedule? I do tend to wander sometimes, as I often work best on borrowed time, but maybe it’s time to really work hard at overcoming that.

I’m really leaning on sitting down and mapping out a plan for the rest of the year, as best I can, to include a certain amount of “personal project” time, and then spidering that out into time spent on each project before I determine whether or not it’s a pass/fail.

Here’s a very generalized list of the projects:

1. Very large, specified niche network of blogs. Goal was to have at least one writer for each blog, with approximately 60-80 blogs. Would need major sponsorship I think, in order to get it rolling properly. Would need help acquiring such sponsorship.
2. Personal finance blog/possible network. I have mine started, but think it would be nice (in this economy) to help others.
3. Weight loss/health blog (possibly opening it up to a social network). This has been one of my many babies for over a dozen years. One I’m pretty positive I’m not ready to give up on.
4. Luxury living blog/possible network. (I know, a contradiction to #2, but I’m thinking it’s nice to dream, right?)
5. Fashion/beauty blog. (I’ve kind of had this tied into the weight loss blog, which is odd and un-fitting. Would like to branch it off.)

Now, keep in mind that I am still running the consutling business full-speed, and am possibly looking at taking on a solid 50 hours of work each week with that. I know, in no other country but America do people work so much, but given my own valid reasons, I really don’t mind as much or as often as many would.

So what wisdom or sage advice would you offer? I’d love to hear opinions as I work my way through this grasping of control and fun and making a living that I’m doing! Please share in the comments!