I’ve spent much time lately pon­der­ing what I want to accom­plish in the next few years.  The major­ity of my con­tem­pla­tion revolves around my career and where I see myself work­ing.  My work­ing life for more than 10 years focused on improv­ing my skills to become the best exec­u­tive assis­tant.  When offered a chance to use these long devel­oped skills in a more chal­leng­ing posi­tion, I leapt at the chance.  How­ever, shortly after­wards, I real­ized that this wasn’t the step I had envi­sioned.  While I am con­tin­u­ing to increase my skills as a team leader, over­all, there are few advan­tages to this increase in responsibility.

As I become more adept at this new posi­tion, I find myself search­ing for some­thing more.  A posi­tion that will drive not only my pas­sion for work, but my cre­ative pas­sions as well.  Through this blog and the for­mer iter­a­tions, I dis­cov­ered how much I enjoy writ­ing and post­ing.  I’ve learned a great deal about Word­Press and am fas­ci­nated with the peo­ple I have met along the way as well as those I will meet soon.  The Word­Camp’s I attended grow my inter­est in the blog­ging plat­forms, cre­ative devel­op­ment of sites, and drive me to dis­cover new areas and skills within this platform.

My semes­ters as Austin Com­mu­nity Col­lege study­ing Tech­ni­cal and Busi­ness Writ­ing forced me to step out of my com­fort zone and learn basic graphic design, along with Pho­to­shop and Illus­tra­tor which had baf­fled me for many years.  Not only did I dis­cover the more cre­ative side to web design and how to manip­u­late sim­ple and com­plex designs into a cohe­sive pre­sen­ta­tion, but I also con­tin­ued to improve my knowl­edge and skill in writ­ing for a larger audi­ence while still main­tain­ing my voice.

My biggest suc­cess was my first ven­ture back to school with a speech course.  I had spent most of my life afraid to speak up and be heard.  Voic­ing my opin­ion was reserved for small groups of friends or fam­ily.  Yet, through many expe­ri­ences in my adult life, I learned to branch out and speak up.  Com­plet­ing the course with the top grade in the class solid­i­fied my resolve to step out of the shad­ows and make my voice heard.

As I still need to make the funds nec­es­sary to sup­port my lifestyle, I have decided that I want to find a sec­ond job that focuses my cre­ative abil­i­ties from the com­fort of my home.  I enjoyed telecom­mut­ing when I lived in Austin, and I know that despite work­ing a reg­u­lar sched­ule at my ‘day job’ I can make the time to gain the expe­ri­ence I need to move closer to my goal of work­ing in a more cre­ative way and move away from the cor­po­rate envi­ron­ment I now exist within.

While I work on find­ing this com­ple­men­tary posi­tion, I aim to grow this blog to the read­ers and num­bers I enjoyed in its pre­vi­ous iter­a­tion as UrbanBachelorette.com.  This blog will not be only books, but also more of my cre­ative side.  Shar­ing, learn­ing, and grow­ing into the per­son I want to be in the next few years.