Hey lovebirds, I’m back! Wait, you didn’t know I was gone? …Yeah, sorry about that. I only remembered to tell my newsletter subscribers. But alas, I’m returned, and ready to party with you, and/or return to helping you find love online. 🙂 I was in Florida, helping my mom recover from a planned surgery. It was crazy and fascinating and hot and windy and covered in geckos, and kinda frantic, and very, very busy. But I’m ever so glad I got to go help her out!
There are a lot of differences in Florida! (I hadn’t been there since I was five; I just remember a ton of pretty white birds and some gators. And, ya know, Disney World.) For one, it was FULL of New York and New Jersey accents! I knew lots of non-Floridians went there, but I had no idea just now many. 🙂  Also, everything you can possibly make out of seagrass is made out of seagrass. There are little lizards and geckos everywhere. I rescued one. Chairs look so different that I started a Tumblr of them. Beaches were warm and pristine and full of people in much less clothing than on Seattle beaches. And people in Florida are just as surprised by my business there as they are here and in New York and everywhere else I’ve been, haha.
It was hard to be away from my business for so long, even in such a gorgeous setting. I thought I’d have way more time (and strong Wi-Fi connection points) to keep Heartographer things chugging along, but family duty called and I was really, really slammed with helping my mom out. And that’s exactly how it should be—that kind of flexibility to embrace more personal priorities instead of some overtime deadline crunch is EXACTLY why I wanted to be running my own business instead of working for The Man, you know? But it surprised me how stressed I was in the beginning to let business development emails and new client inquiries slide until I got back. (By the end of the trip I had finally made my peace with it, and then immediately slipped back into Business Owner Mode in the airport before the flight home.) I’ve gotten to the point where travel is more stressful in some ways than it used to be, because I don’t want to disengage from Heartographer Business as Usual. Oh yeah, and my husband was laid off two days before I got on the plane, so I was a little more stressed financially than usual (don’t worry he’ll be fine thank you, but if you’re looking to hire an amazing video game writer and designer, drop me a line!)
But you know what? Things keep on working out. New client inquiries came in while I was away, responded well to my deferring until I got back, and totally understood I was busy with family stuff. New business opportunities popped up and similarly were patient with me. I continued to coordinate big stuff coming up (like an event on 11/20 that you should TOTALLY come to if you’re in Seattle!) and much more. I even got three separate clients emailing me about three separate Serious Relationships They Found With My Help From OkCupid the week I returned, haha. I need an official acronym for this phenomenon! And I even got a few words done for my first ever NaNoWriMo attempt. So in addition to learning that Florida has pelicans and geckos and east coasters, I learned that I need to give myself permission to just let go and disconnect when I’m on a trip, ya know?
And now I have insomnia, so I figured I’d give you guys this little mini update. Oh, and also this awesome comic, which totally applies to online dating in its many forms, as well as most other things Internet and tech these days:
With that, my lovebirds, I’m gonna try to go back to sleep now. Happy dating, stay in touch, and keep an eye out for more details about that upcoming 11/20 event! [icon-heart]