March 2006 Archives

Well, I finally gave myself some time away from the new business to work on a personal project -- our wedding webpage! Actually, I stayed up until 4:30am working on it the other night. I had had a few sips of coffee after dinner and with the whole month of detox, my body really reacts to caffeine. I kind of like it. It definitely inspired me, and our pretty little web page is the result. Now our guests have all the details and hopefully the info will be helpful in booking their trips, choosing a hotel and figuring out all the fun stuff they're going to do while they're in Mexico. Yippee. Designing invitations is my next big project. Woohoo.

Some of our family and friends have already booked their flights -- looks like a big group will be arriving at the airport at the same time we do, so we can all head to the island together. For those of you, arriving earlier or later... don't worry, getting to the island is really easy. I'm not sure if we mentioned it, but one of our biggest motivators for having the wedding in Mexico was so that our guests could have a vacation. We felt that it wasn't fair for just Scott and me to have a special day -- we want everyone to have fun! And why make it just one day of fun... why not 3 or 4 or even a week!

Click on the thumbnail to go to the webpage.

I decided if I'm going to take the new company seriously, then I need a real home office. The little architecture drafting table from when we lived in the loft, just wasn't going to cut it. Nor was my 3 year old laptop (still a beautiful piece of machinery but just too slow for the stuff I was doing!) In the past week, and with the proceeds of my first big freelance project, I bought a new desktop computer (20" iMac G5 -- it's fast!), a new desk, a comfy chair, and a bunch of design software (that cost more than the computer, desk and chair combined!). Yippee (all tax deductible too!). In the meantime, I've signed a contract with Scott's company to redesign their web site. So business is booming... at least for now. I'm working hard, too, at continuously networking so that I have projects lined up down the road. Friends and family have been helping me by getting the word out and I really appreciate that. Thanks to all of you!

I set up my new computer yesterday and it has a built-in web cam and this funny photobooth software that allows to you to play with different effects. Scott, Emilie and I were cracking up while psoing for photos. The results were hilarious! I'll have to make sure I turn the effects of when I am video conferencing/chatting with people.

Some of you mave noticed that I haven't updated my blog -- http://www.charlotteiest.com/weblog/ -- in months and that I haven't been very good at updating this one. I have a great excuse though!

Since the big lay off in January, I spent my time simultaneously looking for a new job and picking up freelance projects. Also, I took a bunch of workshops on starting your own business, worked with a career counselor, and started building a business web site for myself. I suddenly got very excited about starting my own company. It was something I considered years ago while I was freelancing but then thought it would be best for me to get some corporate experience. Hence, my previous job. But now, I am back to working for myself... which is not an easy task. You end up having to do marketing, sales, accounting, client interaction, project management, legal stuff... on top of doing what you're skilled at, in my case, web design and development. Well, I am up for the challenge!!

My sister, Emlie, has officially moved to Denver. She has a beautiful little apartment in downtown Denver, in the Capital Hill neighborhood... right near a bunch of nice restaurants, fun bars, and the Denver art museum. And it's less than a half hour drive from our house. She's been staying with us for the past couple weeks because unfortunately the movers haven't come with her stuff yet. She was expecting them sooner but apparently the truck had mechanical difficulties somewhere along the way. She has some time off before starting work, with the same company she worked for in Boston, KPMG, so thank goodness for that.

Charlotte and I took the month of February off from... well, nearly everything that's bad for you. We cut out sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and just to be safe we stuck to a vegetarian diet. All that and we took CleanseSMART to cleanse our bodies of any impurities. It may all sound a bit drastic, but we've been talking about leading a healthy lifestyle for a while and figured it would be easier to stick to after a period of dietetic austerity.