PART ONE: ORIGINS.

Or, how I got here. Because I need to share this part so it all makes sense.

I spent a good chunk of 2016 retooling my old blog, Snarks and Crafts, for a relaunch in the Fall of 2016. I designed and built a brand spankin new, 100% custom WordPress site for it. I redesigned a handful of old printables for my future tribe of readers, a members-only area, 2 months worth of pre-written content, and a boatload full – if such things were physical and could take up actual space – of graphics, images, photos, templates, and lists of future post ideas. I even interviewed a couple business owners for showcases + featured artist posts.

It was going to be AWESOME, you guys. BEST BLOG EVER, by me.

But progress floundered. Not like Ariel, but like, the kind where you don’t do jack. The posts sat in my Evernote, post idea lists sat gathering dust on Trello, image templates got rusty in my well-organized folders.

And eventually, after I complained that I wasn’t finishing it + it wasn’t ready + I wasn’t ready + etc. bullshit, someone said to me: Dude. Maybe you don’t really want to do this.

Obviously my response was something like, “of COURSE I want to do this! I love blogging! I’m a blogger! I read blogs! I love blogs! I want to write! Yay blogging!”

And still, shit sat idle. Gathering computer dust. Whatever that is, if it even exists inside my very thin + expensive macbook, was being gathered on top of the great content I had prepared + created.

All this to say: I scrapped it. Almost by accident, I accepted defeat + decided I didn’t want to do my blog, that way, with that name, with that design, with any of the probably hundreds of hours of work I had put into prepping it. Scrapped! Scrap it.

Best part is, a week or 2 later, I broke the entire thing by accident while fiddling with some other WordPress installations. And because I’m a developer, I OBVIOUSLY didn’t have the site backed up, so even the old version of the blog that was sitting there waiting to get an upgrade?

Gone. Bye!

Nothing like technology blunders to really seal that fat envelope of fate.

And then, while I focused on building my brand new, very shiny design + development company, I decided something. I decided to do this blog. (omg, yes, another blog)

But it would be different, and on my terms. I was not going to focus on advice, and how-tos, and other buzz words like content upgrades and sales funnels. I don’t even know what that last one means. I have a funnel in my kitchen, which I’ve only used once – to get hair products from big bottles to those tiny annoying travel size things – but I don’t think that’s a sales funnel, so.

And THUSLY, here we are. So, what the what? Who cares? What’s the point, if there’s no freaking content upgrades?

I used to write posts about funny shit like dating and how terrible it was, and like how this one time a guy with a gigantic cowboy hat hit on me and said some really cheesy things and then another friend told me about the amazing phrase, “big hat, no cattle,” which obviously became my go-to slogan immediately.

I can’t write about dating anymore, because hi, I’m married, and also there’s apps and shit now that I don’t know anything about.

But dating isn’t the only funny thing to happen to us humans. Other funny shit happens all the time. Things that make you go, “huh?” And also, “yay!” And also, “WTF.”

PART TWO: ACTIONS.

So here’s the deal: I am a struggling business owner. REAL TALK. It might be pretty on Instagram, but we we all know the truth.

Also? YOU are a struggling business owner, maybe, or just a struggling human, perhaps. You don’t want more bullshit. You read lots of blogs, are in lots of communities, possibly already have a mastermind group, a life coach, a CPA, and you get emails from That Successful Designer who is now selling How She Got Where She Is Today.

Those emails + serieses + webinars + whatseehoosits are really good. They are. But for crying out loud, you get them all and you don’t need another one.

Well, good news, small business maven! That’s NOT what this is.

This is a place where we share our lessons. Our hardships. Our hilarity. Our favorite client that wouldn’t pay until you kidnapped his firstborn beauty queen child and hid her so good, nobody ever saw her again. Or wait. That’s Jonbenet.

You have questions, you have ideas, you have terrible and awful and hilarious and fantastic experiences. You need advice, but about like, LIFE STUFF in relation to BUSINESS STUFF.

You already have all the BUSINESS STUFF advice you can handle. But you don’t know what to do about that OTHER thing called life, while you’re busy building your Empire of Greatness.

Well?

Good morning. Welcome! Get your cup of coffee, or tea, or diet coke (hey look, first free life tip: don’t drink soda for breakfast, y’all. you’re a grownup now), and READ ON for greatness. For balance. For independence. For making your own rules, and then living by them. Or breaking them, if you prefer – because GUESS WHAT. This jank is all about finding that thing that you prefer! And then DOING THAT THING. Without apologies.

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