Spring Forward, Fall Back

I'm not gonna lie. All of this business planning is overwhelming and it's getting harder to manage my time, because I never seem to have enough of it! I initially planned to post every few days, but it's Sunday and clearly haven't posted anything all week. It's not that this week was that difficult, but I think that attending all of these events, and missing out on sleep has caught up with me....

Monday I met with the choreographer/dancer that I'm working with and we finally figured out the look of the costumes. I have 3 weeks maybe 4 to make patterns, sew costumes and embellish and have a fitting-maybe two...and I agreed to attend a rehearsal the following Sunday with swatches.

Tuesday I attended the Social Media Strategy Workshop at the FLP. The presenter was Executive Director Angel from the Empowerment Group. I was a little skeptical going in to it because I've been doing some research on how to launch an effective campaign, and I haven't seen any magic formula, but it was pretty helpful. I learned about one or two new resources, but it affirmed that I was on the track in my own social media campaign! Confirmation is always great! Plus I tweeted a couple great quotes that were not necessarily original, but put the whole business of start-ups and social media into a different context.

It takes a lot of time to manage and maintain social media accounts and time is a precious commodity. "Time is more valuable than money".

"People like to do business with people that they like." This one is self explanatory.

When doing market research-for online and local markets remember the "KWL" chart..."know, want to know and what did I learn".

"If you're too afraid to talk to people, you won't succeed in your own business" This one especially spoke to me considering the attempts I've made in the past few months to do more successful networking.

Wednesday I finally got to breathe a little. Nothing planned after work. Hooray! The highlight was that I received a LinkedIN message from a small business banker that I met last month. He messaged me to set up a consultation. I'm not really in the phase where I'm thinking about applying for funding, but it doesn't hurt to build relationships.

Thursday I had to drive all the way out to Exton, PA for an appointment. It felt like it was hours away, because it was in farm country, but it was only 45minutes away. Afterwards I had to race to another appointment, and then I was finally able to enjoy the beautiful sunny day with 70degree weather! I headed to my favorite thrift store, New Life. I'm usually there at 9am when they open, so I didn't expect there to be crowds of people there at 1PM, so I felt a little violated. Apparently this store is not as top secret as I thought...anyway I found some great items, a Japanese tea and sake set, not one but two brass duck heads, and two model ships! I've been searching for a ship in a bottle and a brass alligator or crocodile, so it was really great to find one of the items. I checked the sequined/vintage clothing area and found this awesome sequined dress (I have an insane sequin collection. It's a little scary; I feel like a crow sometimes because of how attracted I am to sparkles...).




Any way I really liked Lindsey Lohan's dress on SNL last week, it has a boat neck collar, 3/4 sleeves, is knee length with a thigh length side slit. It is well-constructed and subtly sexy. I made my way to the clothing section to see if I could find something similar. I didn't find it, but I did hit the Jackpot!!!! I found a velvet silk blend maxi skirt, a like new, wool Salvatore Ferragamo tan sweater for $20 ANDD it was a blue tag so it was 50% off. That's right a Ferragamo sweater for $10. Plus I found a peach Lamberto Losani cashmere sweater for $10 that was also 50% off. Cha-ching!!! I almost passed out I was so excited!

I'll just skip ahead to Saturday because that's when Claudia arrived! Claudia is my new dress form, featured in the above photos. I'm not 100% happy with her, because she is a little smaller than I anticipated and she is too tall and does not adjust as much as I am used to, but she has already proven herself useful, so I think I'll keep her:)