Newsflash!

The past two weeks have been a helluva ride.  In the midst of everything I’ve come to a few very important conclusions that ultimately are going help the success of my business, my future, and securing my writer’s lifestyle (or let’s hope).

But before I even go there here’s a quick scoop on my disappearance after I’d so boldly challenged myself to post not once, but twice a week (that lasted long…)

I practically took an entire week (or more) off due to a series of fun, albeit time consuming events. My full time job sent me out to an amazing trade show, which was an incredible opportunity to gather intel and meet vendors, network for the company, and ultimately grow our product line. It was the ASI Trade Show in Orlando, or in layman’s terms FREE PROMOTIONAL PRODUCTS. I seriously filled up two whole suitcases with all of the goodies that vendors were giving away like hotcakes, my favorite keepsake being the personalized engraved pen that I got made with Lady Jenji. *swoon*

I returned from the show on Friday the 20th, spent Saturday shopping, cleaning, and prepping the house for on Sunday I sped down to Miami – which is now officially the furthest south I’ve ever been in my life! – to pick up my best girl from Virginia who was in town on a business trip of her own. Her company event was literally taking place at one of the fanciest hotels I’ve ever stepped foot into in my life – the Fontainebleau. Seriously, this place had TEN different swimming pools, three buildings, and a private nightclub that in order to gain access to required being famous or else making the purchase of a $1,000 bottle of champagne. No joke.  Miami was pretty rad, to say the least. Alas, I brought my visiting amiga up to Melbourne and we spent the next three days (in between my day job) getting into shenanigans like cosmic bowling, drinking wine, galavanting in the sun, and playing with cats.

After we dropped her at the airport the night of Wednesday the 25th it was pack pack pack time for our paintball scenario Dreaded Legends 2 which was taking place in southwest Florida in Punta Gorda from Friday-Sunday. We zipped up all our equipment, packed our clothes, left instructions with a dear friend to feed the kitties, and zoomed off to Florida Tracks & Trails for a weekend of shooting people in the face, completing missions, and hanging out with our silly friends in the community. To say I had an amazingly joyous time is an understatement, although my poor man did blow out his knees from going too hard and we did wake up on Sunday to rain and 50 degree weather – frightfully cold for the Sunshine State.

It was in the midst of all of this, when I was trying to squeeze a few hours here and there working on Pam’s Drapery Designs business cards (completed and ordered), company website (pricing and photos have begun!) and Budget Brainiacs (wholly forsaken) that I realized I just frankly didn’t have the time to post full, well written and researched articles once a week. Even with settling back into my daily routine I realized that I would rather post an interesting and engaging article once a month than smaller, rushed posts once a week. It makes more sense, for the time being, that I not take up 4 or 5 hours a week researching, writing, editing, and posting an article that has nothing to do with my business. In all honesty, I’d actually like to narrow my focus of posting, but more on this later.

I’d like to keep a weekly update going, at least as best as I can. It’s a way for me to track my project’s progress and to hold myself accountable (who wants to post that they spent the whole week watching TV and eating ice cream instead of finishing projects and being productive? Certainly not I).  I’m going to regress back to a weekly photo update, sharing my weeks triumphs and failures with said photo and then within each month I’ll include a bigger post that does not revolve around me.

Because if I’m also frankly speaking, nobody really wants to read about what I’m doing. They want to read about something that relates to them! About something that will make them feel connected or related to the article or subject at hand. Keeping my audience in mind is going to be a lot easier if I can find my focus and really hone down what is is I’m trying to share with this blog.

With all this being said I had another interesting thought about posting a “word of week” along with my photo. I mean, after all I am a writer. Wouldn’t it be interesting to have a word of the week, especially if somehow it could relate to the favorite photo I’ve captured? If I had a word for this week I’d say it’s Cacoa – pronounced CAH-COW.

Unfamiliar with this term? I was too, until we watched an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s adventures in a foreign country involved in the chocolate making process. Everyone referred to the Cocoa plants as Cacoa instead. For a split second I was horrified that the whole world was pronouncing Cocoa wrong. That was until we did some quick research and realized that Cacoa refers to the original, unprocessed bean that Cocoa is made from. In fact, many people even believe that the term Cocoa was written in error by an Englishmen and somehow that word stuck in exchange of the true, native word Cacoa.

So there’s your interesting fun fact for the day. May it at least make you smile if nothing else. For me, it’s the start of a new idea and of a new way to connect with my readers and hopefully my potential clients.

Here’s to Happy Writing,

Lady Jenji