I am a mother. I had my first child when I was 21 years old, in a lot of ways, I was still a child myself. When my first daughter was born, I did not have a career. I wanted to be the next Annie Leibovitz, which in retrospect was a very 20 something dream to have. Like many mothers, I had very few job options that allowed me the flexibility to be present in my young children’s lives while still earning income.

I also did not earn a college degree.

In 1999, long before I was a mother, I started a blog on Livejournal. It was an angsty blog that was mostly me ranting about the boys I dated and was very poorly written.

In 2009, I started my career.

I applied and was hired for a role that focused on digital marketing. I learned about paid search, content marketing, SEO, landing pages, email marketing, and so much more. Those early days of blogging came in handy. I already knew a lot more about site optimization than even I realized.

Since then, I have worked in some form of marketing. I have held roles on email marketing teams, lead gen teams, and content teams.

I have worked really hard, and yes, there have been plenty of mistakes along the way too.

I am now a mother of four, remarried, and with a very busy career.

This corner of the internet is my place to share stories about everything in my life, my family, my work, myself. I hope it’s less angsty than the blogs I wrote in the early days and hopefully, the writing has improved too…

Blogging brought me a sense of peace. A retreat from the challenges of my life. I was a young mother and wife. I did not know how to do either. I shared my struggles online to feel a sense of connection with other mothers who may be going through the same thing. It turns out, there were plenty of them out there.

I continued blogging for years. But, I never tried to turn it into something that earned money.

From 2003 to 2008, I worked as a freelance photographer, a Starbucks barista, in real estate title, and for a short while, was a stay at home mom.

I had peace in my life but I wanted more. I wanted a career. Work was always important to me. This desire to earn was probably deeply rooted in seeing what my mother went through after my father left her with three kids at the young age of 22. She would remain a single mother for most of my childhood.