NAVIGATING LIFE AND BUSINESS WHILE BLOGGING

Dear Readers,

I've had this blog since 2009 and I’ve really struggled with it over the last few years. Not because I’m having difficulties finding things to write about, but because there is too much to write about and I’ve tried to stick to specific topics for my audience here. Other topics, I decided, were for my other blogs. This resulted in zero posts anywhere. Three blogs and two websites is simply too much to maintain. This journey that I’ve been writing about is much broader and tangled up with every other part of my life. Compartmentalizing it is not working. I started this blog to share my experiences with the hope of helping others. That is still my objective...

Longing to Go by Kristen Schwartz

What I've decided to do is create categories for different post types. Eventually you’ll have the option to subscribe to everything or just the categories you’d like to read. Here are some of the categories I've been thinking about: 

SMALL BUSINESS

In my business, what I call my day job, I help small business owners with all aspects of their websites, SEO, social media marketing, graphic design, ads, staying up on technology, etc. These are things that can come in handy for anyone running a small business, including freelance designers and illustrators.

FREELANCE DESIGN AND ILLUSTRATION

These are business experiences that are specific to illustrators and designers.

CHILDREN’S PUBLISHING

Information specific to children’s publishing.

ART

And of course I’ll be sharing my art.

BOOK DESIGN

I design and implement both print books and digital books. This is a broad perspective as my experience in this area started in 1995 and continues to the present.

STAYING HEALTHY/SELF CARE

I’m getting older, just like everyone else in the world who has a birthday every year, so I’ll share posts about navigating a changing body. I'll also share posts about being in business as a major introvert, working in a field where it's necessary to sit for hours at a time, and many other health and self care related topics. I spent years working in the health food industry and studying alternative healthcare and botanical medicine, so I will occasionally share information about that too.

BUDGET/SAVING MONEY

Over the years my husband and I have survived eliminated jobs and years of low earnings while getting back on our feet. I’ll share ways to hack life and save money, especially when you think you’ve already cut back in every way you can.

PARENT TOPICS AND COLLEGE

I’m a parent of a college age daughter. I'll share survival info for parenting while pursuing a dream and running a business.

RANDOM LIFE

This category may be a catchall for odd stuff. For example, we have a dog and a cat and weird things come up that I’ve learned to work around while still maintaining sanity in my business and personal life. Who knows what will show up in this category?

This blog will be going through a transition over the next months as I redesign and ultimately transfer from housing it on Blogger to exporting it to my hosting account. I'm sure I'll be writing about that too. Stay tuned. I hope you’ll continue with me on this journey...