2012.

It was such a great holiday season and now I'm excited to have 2012 here for us to enjoy another year. I'm happy to say my business is going well, although I am making another change. I will be leaving Casa Bella Salon and going to V3 Hair Studio. Danae (who owned Studio d) is the owner and I will be leasing a station from her. I'm so excited to be transitioning to a place, I feel, will be a bit more stable and help the success of my business.  I'm not entirely sure it's the best decision, but it's the decision I have made. I say that because I feel like there's so much to accomplish and I just don't know what the "best" decision is. I'm going with my gut feeling here.  I am super excited to transition my clients to a more upscale salon and really pamper them again.

On to more fun topics...like Alexis! She's growing like a weed with a beautiful flower blossoming out of it. She's so much fun right now. She has stopped the awful temper tantrums and has really begun to understand why things happen and how it affects her.  She is such a smarty pants too! She knows most of the letters of the alphabet and can point them out when we're out at stores and on menu's. :) It makes me happy to know I have a smart child. Not only that, but she's such a sweet heart too. She loves little babies and is so gentle with them. She says "bless you" after you sneeze and thank you and please. I could go on for days on all the wonderful things she does! You never realize how endless your love is until you have a child. Oh and she's potty trained fully! Yay!

Kort and I are going to be celebrating our five year anniversary this year! We want to attend a New England Patriots game for our 5th Anniversary but it may not happen because I have some big educational events I want to go to and lets just say...they're not cheap. Haha.

Oh boy! Birthday and Holidays :)

It's been so long since I posted, but we've had a wonderful last few months. Alexis' 2nd birthday was great! I loved having all the family over and we enjoyed being together. She got a lot of Elmo toys because she just happens to love Elmo and Cat in the Hat which she also has received.

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful. My sister and I planned a wonderful meal and (she cooked most of it) we cooked so much food and set up a beautiful table for all our family to eat. There were 20 of us total. We went Black Friday shopping and got everything we needed. Overall, one of the best Thanksgivings I can remember.

Christmas was fun but exhausting. We spent Christmas Eve with my family, where we all were super spoiled. We spend Christmas day with Kort's family and were equally spoiled. It was a wonderful time. Alexis received so many gifts! I'm not sure a 2 year old needs that much stuff... We continued our Christmas tradition and watched Sherlock Holmes 2. It was a great movie! Today me and my family went shopping and we bought all of our Christmas necessities for next year. Now I can redecorate my tree differently again! Yeah! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. See you next year!

Birthday Ideas?

Alexis at 1 year old...such a cutie!

I'm having a hard time figuring out what I want to do for Alexis' 2nd birthday. I thought I wanted to do just a small family get together but nothing too big. Now, as it gets closer, I really want to do something fun again. I'm not sure what to do, but if you have any fun suggestions, please shoot them my way! So far, I think a Baby Minnie theme is in the lead. :)

A Great Business Class.

I recently was fortunate enough to attend a business class called Step Up by Michael Cole. It was very insightful and has really helped these past few weeks. I recommend it to everyone. It was equally awesome to be there with my gals!

Alexis and lovely words.

Alexis said football today! We are so proud. :)
She has been so expressive and talking up a storm.  Not all of it do we understand, but it's kind of cool picking out her sentences and seeing how much character she has.  She looks in the mirror while wearing mommy's high heels and says, "wow, soooo preeeetttyyy." She really draws out saying it just like that! It's hilarious.  How do we get to be so lucky with our babies?!

Time, of course, is still flying by. I feel like I don't get to journal as much as I'd like. But at the end of the day, I'm so grateful to have every day that passes by.

We're getting ready for Halloween.  Stay tuned for Alexis' costume. I'm not sure what I want to dress her up as yet, but soon, I'll know for sure! When I know, I'll post pictures.

Summing it up.

It's been a few weeks now that I moved to Casa Bella Salon and I've been so busy taking it all in! Crazy way things happened, but so far, everything has been good. It takes so much time to adjust to change and new things, and I feel like I'm getting into a rythym now.  One thing I will say...my clients are amazing! They have been so wonderful with me and so patient with all the change. I know the first three months will really be difficult but I have all the faith in the world that I will do what I need to do to keep my business thriving.  

Family life: Amazing! I couldn't ask for people who love me more purely and who are whole heartedly by my side. My husband is the best thing to ever happen to me. My daughter is hilarious! I just lucked out to have such an amazing little spark of a princess.  She keeps me on my toes and she is just getting smarter and smarter everyday. 

Football: How can a game have so much control over my emotions?! I love it! Go Patriots :) 

Christmas is in 9 weeks?!? I heard that on the radio today. Yikes!! I need to get ready for Halloween, not Christmas! But I do love that time is going by and I'm thankful to be here and enjoying each and every day. 

Oh Boy.

...............Not sure where to begin. The last week has had so many up's and down's I feel like its been a year. Basically I'm starting my own business leasing a space from Casa Bella Salon. I have to take care of everything, and I mean everything. It's been super overwhelming and very frustrating. Once I got behind the chair and worked on my client's hair, I loved it again! It was as if everything else was gone and it was just me being me and having a great time doing what I love. But once they are gone and I have to go back to "being the owner" things get stressful and overwhelming again. I know everyone says the first few months are hard, because you are investing thousands of dollars and not seeing an end in sight; but once that's done, everything's better. You start to make a profit and everything is good again.

They say there are five stages of grief, well, I think I'm definitely going through them. I didn't even see this coming. We were doing so well and being very successful, so out of nowhere having no job and then having to start your own business is tough.  I looked into other good salons and guess what? You have to do an apprenticeship program for at least a year at minimum wage before you can do hair. Now, after living at a higher earnings level for over a year and not foreseeing a job loss, I can't go to minimum wage. Plus, what would I do with my clients? I know there is an end in sight to all the money that needs to be invested, but for now, my wallet is sobbing and my heart still feels like its going to burst out of my chest every time I look at my expense report and to do list. *Sigh* I suppose, I just have to buck up and accept that this is the way it will be for a few months.