Workin’ for a Livin’

I’ve mentioned before how much I love my job. It’s not exactly what I pictured myself doing 7 years into the professional workforce, but it’s not too far off either. I knew I’d be in marketing, but I didn’t realize I’d be into geeky marketing, otherwise known as Internet Marketing. And I wouldn’t have expected to enjoy it so much!

I’m currently a Senior Site Manager at PlattForm Advertising, a local but national agency. We specialize in lead generation for mostly educational institutions. I manage the growth and maintenance of two websites. Beauty Schools Directory and Beauty School. Both sites serve to help future beauty professionals find a beauty/cosmetology school to help them get their license, and the schools pay us to help potential students find them. Though we purchased both of these sites in the past two years, they are like children to me, I guess you could say. Anyway, if I wasn’t in the job I am, I likely wouldn’t have this blog. Dealing with websites is not just my job, but it’s an enjoyable hobby for me.

As so it seems for my coworkers as well! There is a lot of talent on our team of site managers, designers, and developers. A lot of them can’t seem to leave work at work, and like me, have their own websites they run on their free time.

Shana, my boss, is one of the most crafty people I know, and has taken her love for crafts and her technical computer skills, and knitted them together to form this craft website. She posts original patterns and how-to’s, and photos of her work. I would also like to point out the pattern and photo of the quilt she made for Skyler, which we love and use it all the time!

Then there are the developers’ websites – these guys all have very different things going on. Donovan has a personal blog, a combination of thoughts on life but also with various links to some of his development projects as well. One of his latest projects is a Find a Pit Bull, which has lots of potential for him! Patrick’s blog is a mashup of “thoughts, rants, and influential creations” ranging from posts from politics and economics to technology, and lots in between. Then Mike, for as quiet and genuinely nice guy he is, he has a political blog where he let’s people know how he feels!

This is only a handful of all the “extracurricular” websites that come from the many cool people I work with. So many of us just can’t quite leave our work at work, but at least we love what we do!

I got tagged!

There’s this thing in the blogosphere where bloggers will “tag” other bloggers in a blog post. It’s often times in the form of a questionnaire that they’ve filled out and posted, and then they tag other bloggers to post their answers to that same questionnaire on their blogs. So, Mrs. Holee tagged me, and here I go:

8 things I am passionate about –
1. My family
2. Going on vacation
3. Getting out of debt
4. Doing my best at my job
5. My husband’s success
6. My daughter’s health
7. Doing the right thing
8. Giving back

8 things I often say -
1. Seriously
2. Ridiculous
3. Not gonna lie
4. I don’t know (in response to Ronnie asking what I want for dinner)
5. I don’t care (in response to Ronnie asking what I want for dinner)
6. Geez
7. I love you
8. Bruno stop it

8 things I want to do before I die
1. Have another child
2. Ride a motorcycle with my husband
3. Learn a martial art
4. Learn a ballroom dance
5. Read the entire Bible (yeah, Maria, I stole that. Good one!)
6. A lot more art
7. Vacation internationally (North & South America don’t count)
8. Ride in a hot air balloon

8 things I have learned from my past -
1. No matter what I think I know, there’s always another side to it
2. Sometimes I just have to learn the hard way
3. I am capable of so much more than I think I am
4. I’d rather regret things I’ve done than regret things I haven’t
5. There is a reason for everything, the good and the bad
6. Travelling with your family during your childhood is actually a blessing
7. No matter how cute the style is, I will hate my hair if I cut it short!
8. I’d rather go through surgery myself than watch a loved one go through it

8 places I would love to visit
1. Any over-water bungalow in the South Pacific. I’m not picky, Fiji, Tahiti, Bora Bora, whatever.
2. Spain
3. Italy
4. Hawaii
5. Napa Valley
6. St. Lucia
7. Dominican Republic
8. Any other Central/South American tropical beach
*this category was the easiest for me to fill out, as one of my passions is vacation and, as you can see from my list, places with beaches. I could go on and on.

8 things I currently need/want
1. My Nissan Altima back (the lease was up last week and I turned it in)
2. A house with a 2-car garage, basement, and bigger closets
3. Some trendy new eyeglasses
4. To decorate our bedroom
5. More time
6. A vacation (Puerto Vallarta, just two months away!)
7. A strong economy that is not dependent on fossil fuels (whoa, where did that come from? but yeah, I don’t know how we’ll get there, but I want to/we need to)
8. The best life for my daughter

8 people I tag –
1. Rebecca P
2. Heather K
3. Amy H (I know you’ve got a blog in the works, how bout posting this to start out!)
4. Beth N
5. Sarah J (Zombie Baby’s Mom)
6. Adria H
7. Cowman
8. Megan K

Epiphany!

My drives to and from work have had me obsessing. Not about Skyler, not about how much weight I still need to lose, and not about the deadlines at work. I have been obsessing about blogs!

I never thought the day would come that I would admit to being this geeky. But seriously, I’ve got that blog for Skyler, and I’ve started this more general blog that had less direction than Captain Jack Sparrow’s compass. I couldn’t figure out how to keep up with them both. And, my geekiness says that I need a real, honest to goodness blog in this day and age. But herein lies the dilemma -

Skyler’s blog wasn’t appropriate for non-Skyler-related topics, and this blog I couldn’t think of enough intriguing things to write about. So it just occurred to me a few minutes ago to combine the two. Less maintenance, wider audience, and I am really a much bigger fan of this WordPress framework than the totsites/babysites stuff. I can customize much more here, including the site graphics!

It’s going to take a bit of work because I want to combine my other sites’ histories with this one as much as possible. I’m not going to import all the posts, but I’ll pick and choose the best ones, along with the best photos for the Photo Album section. So, before I ramble on too much here, I’m going to get back to work on bringing the blogs together!