Yesterday I renewed the domain for the (soon to return, I swear) Orange Blossom Media. That means to me that it has been two years since I officially started that as a freelance business. I mainly stopped last year, due to excuses that don’t really make much sense anyway. I suppose being disheartened could be one of them that sticks. Still, I recently decided to do so again, and have gotten a few clients, so that has lifted my spirits on it a bit. I briefly considered changing the business name and going in a new direction, but as I already have all of the paperwork in for this one with the gubmint, have nice business cards, and the domain and logo, I decided that I’d just go the easier route. Still I think that it’s strong, so I have no regrets with the decision.

Writing this is more a reminder for myself that this is something that I will continue putting some of my time into, even if finding clients is more time consuming than getting the work done for them. In addition to my WordPress development, and hopeful mobile app development this year, I feel that it will be a good way to keep stretching my abilities, and teaching myself new skills. Here’s looking to you 2012, the year that I come into my own on the web!

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I’ve heard the saying that the halfway point of a marathon is really the 20 mile marker, and having finally done one myself, I can attest that it is indeed the case. Daniel and I foolishly stopped our running regimen about two months ago, and went in to it a bit more unprepared than we would have liked. The week before was nice, with an excuse to slack on weight lifting, and to eat more delicious foods while throwing around the term “carb loading”. Getting through the event though, was quite an ordeal, and my body is still mad at me about it.

While running there was a woman near me that had a shirt on showing that she was running for her son, whose birthday was the same as mine, down to the year. I don’t know what he died of, but it got me thinking to the fact that I am 23 years old and healthy and able to do something like this, which I can now mark off as a bucket list item completed. I hope that the run gave her some form of healing, and am glad that I have the chance to do so myself.

Beyond that, I have already accepted my first freelance project of 2012, and it has gone well so far. I hope to complete it before going on a trip later this week to Fort Lauderdale to see Lisa and a short cruise that we were lucky enough to get via Daniel’s boss. While I’m still having general headaches over work and difficulties in school bureaucracy, I’m also hopeful that this portends a good year, and successes that I have been striving towards for some time.

Do any of my readers have things that they want to complete during heir life that they intend to do this year?

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[caption id=”attachment_722” align=”aligncenter” width=”300” caption=”Click on Mario!”][/caption]

Here is yet another New Year’s post. It has been a full year since redesigned my website, and I feel another design coming on soon. I have tried to keep busy over the past year, though I haven’t always done as much as I wanted to, as usual. I find it easy to make promises that I do not keep, and plans that I do not follow through with. At risk of doing so again, I am going to post a list this year of a few things that I would like to get done.

• Develop a web application. It doesn’t need to be as grand as some ideas that I’ve had previously, but something that does something useful, is well designed, and works.
• Complete a  rough draft of my non-fiction book. I’ve already begun a good deal of my research, and have started an outline, so as long as I keep myself on task, I should be able to do a good amount of work. I’m setting the high goal of completing a first draft, in an attempt to stay motivated.
• Work on becoming more prolific with my blogging. If I resuscitate the websites that I’ve been working on, I’ll have 3-4 to update, and it would be useful to do so on a regular basis, especially if I’m trying to get more readers for them.

There are several other things that I intend on working on, but I don’t want to overload myself any more than I already am. Judging on how I overextend my actual reserves of motivation, I don’t want to do so quite as much. Maybe by making some proclamations here, some people can help keep me going.

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