Happy Independence Day!

Sorry for the delay in blogging. I was too exhausted while road tripping and wanted to spend the time visiting with my friends and things surprisingly didn’t slow down once I got to Orlando. The old adage really is true, when one door closes, another opens.

10 years ago I left a job that I had been at for 9 years to move to Oregon to spend some time with my sister. It was time to move on anyway so I put in my 2 weeks and moved. I’m someone who has already craved stability but on the flip side, I will jump when it’s time to jump. While in OR I was in between jobs and decided I will always have debt but I won’t always have time so I decided to take a trip to the Netherlands for a month. My friends Nes and Jan Kees lived there and I could stay with them for free (yay for friends!). We also went to Spain while I was there so I got 2 countries for the price of 1!

It was an amazing time and was my first international trip not paid for by Uncle Sam. Definitely made me want to go on more trips.

Cadaquez, Spain was a beautiful small town on the Mediterranean. Jan Kees took the gorgeous scenery shots.

My head is as big as my shoes, LOL.

Our friend from Belgium, Kelly, came to join us. We had to take pics in the traditional Dutch garb.

We arrived in Cadaques around 5am. Great time to take pics!

I don’t remember where this was. Some medieval town in Spain.

Getting ready to eat some delicious food!

The medieval town again.

Eating pickled herring. Yum!

Just a sampling of the hundreds of pics we took to give you a little feel for the trip.

After I got back from Europe I stopped in Atlanta to meet up with some girlfriends. We had friends who were going to RWA (Romance Writers of America) and we figured we would show up, plus one of my best friends, Dao, lived there so I really made the most of my vacation time, LOL.

While there, we had dinner with Karen Marie Moning (we had been friends for years since we belonged to the same romance reader message board where I also met my counterpart Su) and she offered me a job and just like that I was moving to Atlanta.

Now after 10 years with Karen, I found myself jobless and doing what I’ve done in the past, jumping. But for the first time, instead of looking for something lower paying and steady, I’m doing feast or famine. Yep, I’m going to be working for myself! The main reason I decided to work for myself was because I want to travel and starting at a new job would limit me to 2 weeks a year if I’m lucky. That was just not going to cut it.

I am very lucky to have friends who help make this transition possible. I had no idea how long it was going to take me to get work as a virtual assistant. So I packed up my car and moved to Orlando to stay with Sue for a couple of months and then I’m heading to Italy to celebrate Lina’s birthday and from there, since I am now working virtually, except when I have events, I will be staying with Lin in England for 3 months. I figured if I was working and had some money I could explore the UK and if I wasn’t working, well, I was still in England. I had family members offer to let me stay with them as well as other friends. I honestly wouldn’t have been able to make this leap without them. I have confidence in myself when it comes to work but every new company takes time to grow. Well tuns out not every new company, I got a full time job working for an author until I leave for Italy and I have another author who wants to work with me, I have a project already booked for Sept and another author I need to meet up to discuss her needs. One day things will slow down enough for me to finish my website. 🙂

So while I’m truly celebrating my independence today, I know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the people I surround myself with. I hope that you have a wonderful holiday and I will try and be a better blogger. Su should have some fun stuff coming up soon!