Gardening in High Heels

cultivate a beautiful life

Proud times (plus a giveaway!)

Like I mentioned yesterday, it’s been one year since I purchased the domain GardeningInHighHeels.com.  It’s taken me a while to get this space going and a while for me to get where I want it to be, but I’m thrilled with it and how it’s turned out.

To say it’s one of the things I’m most proud about…well, I guess that would be accurate.  I don’t have a baby or a pet or some star-studded lifestyle, so I don’t feel bad saying that a blog is a big accomplishment.

It’s still a work in progress and I want to take it in different directions, but I’m pretty proud right now.

Last night, I was doing an exercise where I wrote down the things I loved about myself (step one in Molly Mahar’s The Joy Equation is to practice fierce self-love).

There are many things I’m proud of, like my get shit done attitude and my writing abilities.  I wrote a lot of good qualities about myself if I do say so myself, but not one of them included, “my adventurous spirit.”

Probably because I don’t think of myself as very adventurous.  I’m more of the stay grounded and work hard type.  In my mind, spur-of-the-moment and grounded are mutually exclusive.

Sure, I can be fun and adventurous, but in small doses.  Baby steps.  I would love to work up big, adventuresome muscles.  I guess it takes practice, just like anything else.

If you’re like me and need a little kick in the pants to be proud of the adventures you take in life, maybe this giveaway will help get you there.

And if you already are an adventurer, you’ll definitely want to check out this giveaway.

Some of your favorite bloggers and I are teaming up to give you the chance to win a $300 Delta Airlines gift card!  Talk about motivation to flex those muscles.  Enter using the Rafflecopter below and then fly by these fantastic bloggers to say thanks for this opportunity!

deltagiveaway

Brought to you by:

Life Could Be a Dream // A Prioritized Marriage // Life With Grace // A Beautiful Exchange
Hey Kerri // The Lady Lawyer // Gardening in High Heels // Boone & Owl
Aubrey Zaruba // Miss in the Midwest // Life in the Lost and Found Bin // Making Mrs. M
Becoming Adorrable // Wetherills Say I Do // T.O. & fro // Gold & Bloom
Two Places at Once // Twin Stripe

The giveaway will run from 12:00 am EST on June 17th until 11:59 pm EST on June 22nd.  The winner will be contacted by email and will have 48 hours to respond and claim their prize before a new winner will be selected.  Entries will be verified, so please be honest.  This giveaway is open to U.S. residents only.  Sorry, international friends!  Good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Where would you jet off to if you won?  And what are you most proud of?

Be a Better Blogger is a weekly link up dedicated to helping you be a more intentional blogger. Want to be a better blogger but don’t know where to start? Head over to the Be a Better Blogger page for daily prompts and a weekly linkup to help get the creative juices flowing! Oh, and use #beabetterblogger on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook to keep the fun going even after you hit Publish!

When Things Get Messy

When I was in college (and even high school) and I was struggling through a math problem I couldn’t solve, I would get so upset.  I would crumple up my paper, cross things out really hard so the paper tore, throw my pencil, and generally melt down.

And once I did that, I felt better.  I was able to refocus and 9/10 times, I would figure out the problem.  I’m not the best at math, but that’s a pretty good track record.

I’m really not a person who cries at the drop of a hat.  Usually I can keep things in check until it’s more appropriate.  Like Kelly Cutrone says, “If you have to cry, go outside.”

But like when I was trying to work through a hard math problem, I still have some moments when the stress and frustration gets too much and I want to sit down, get a carton big bowl of ice cream and just pout/whine (I originally wrote “wine,” which is totally acceptable, too).

Again, I get up and feel better and move on with clear eyes.

When this happens to me, I like to turn toward certain ladies who are so motivational and inspiring.

Inspiring resources for when life gets messy.

Molly Mahar‘s Stratejoy is fantastic.  I signed up for The Joy Equation course and I know I will love it based on the past Holiday Councils that I’ve attended with her.

There’s something about the way that she speaks to me that just touches something that both calms and energizes me.  And her Instagram is insanely beautiful/adorable/unapologetically, “Hey this is life,” which I love.

Along the same lines is Nicole Antoinette from A Life Less Bullshit.  Her energy is totally different than Molly’s, but she’s still a huge proponent of accepting that things get messy, not showing a Pinterest-perfect facade, and saying, “Listen, life gets sucky, get up, show up, and do the work.”

And her No BS Lab is fantastic.  It’s where I got all of the podcasts I listened to going to Virginia (that you can read about here and here).And finally, I love Marie Forleo‘s coaching.  She’s more business focused than life focused, but there are still gems that are applicable to everyday life.  Her personality is like sitting down with that friend who will tell you, “Get over yourself and do the work or stop whining about it.”

Of course, there are friends who will listen and commiserate.  I love those people in my life.  But I can’t share them with you (well, I can tell you about them, but I can’t say, “Here’s my best friend’s number, call her if you need someone to make you laugh.”)  These ladies..these I can share with you.  They’re great people to follow.

Who gives you inspiration when you need a reality check?

Five Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Blogging

When I started blogging, I pretty much did it sporadically and very not-seriously.  Aside from a handful of accounts, I didn’t realize that you could really be a “blogger” and not “someone who has a blog.”  There’s a difference, people!  I was so not aware that there was the community out there.  If I had known these things from the get-go, I might be in a different place.

5 things I wish I knew when I started blogging. Don't make these mistakes!

It is an investment

Time, money, energy…blogging is an investment.  The more serious you want to be, the more of an investment it is.  Blogging can truly be a full time job, but you also have to dedicate full time energy to it.

Pick where you want to invest and do so wisely.  If you don’t want to commit to blogging every day (like us over in the Be A Better Blogger Challenge!) pick a schedule so your readers know when to expect to see your new posts.  They’re excited to hear from you!

Also choose where you want to spend your money.  Sure you don’t need a premium theme right out of the gates, but you probably will want that in the future.  Pick something that can grow with you.  Same with your domain name and your hosting.  Make sure that you have invested in a solid foundation.

It’s okay to stumble and then come back

I’ve “rebranded” myself so many times.  I stopped writing for large chunks of time.  I didn’t have a Facebook page for my blog for a long time.  It’s okay.  You’re learning and growing.  It’s perfectly fine to stumble and come back stronger.

Be authentic

There are days when I feel like I’m still trying to find my true voice here and other days that I say, “Boom, this is me, this is what I sound like, deal with it.”  In my head, I’d like to think I’m a lot more unapologetic than I actually am.  This is why I love Laura and Katy so much.  They are 100% them and it totally come through in their blogs.

But no matter what, be true to you and who you are.  There are posts of mine that I read and I’m just like….that feels awkward to me.  Your readers probably feel a little of that, too.

Find your support group

Get a group of friends together, find communities online, and get interacting!  It’s so helpful to have people to bounce ideas off of and turn to when you’re struggling.  They’ll help you sort through where you want to be, where you are right now, and connect the two.

The SITS Girls is a great community, so is BlogHer, and of course, you can check out what Marissa has to say about finding your tribe so you can make your own group.

Decide what kind of blogger do you want to be

Part of this is why it’s handy to have a tribe.  Maybe you don’t know what kind of blogger you want to be.  Maybe you’re a Seinfeld blog like Katy, maybe you have a clear focus like Kristin.

I wish I would have known what I wanted to do when I started blogging.  I kind of just opened up a blog because I thought it would be fun and filled in the blanks from there.  I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s nice to have more of a direction.

What do you wish you knew when you started blogging?

Be a Better Blogger is a weekly link up dedicated to helping you be a more intentional blogger. Want to be a better blogger but don’t know where to start? Head over to the Be a Better Blogger page for daily prompts and a weekly linkup to help get the creative juices flowing! Oh, and use #beabetterblogger on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook to keep the fun going even after you hit Publish!

Favorite Quote, Part Two

Today’s post is going to be nice and short to make up for yesterday’s sprawling post.  To be a good quote, I think it has to be short, simple, impactful, and incredibly direct..everything this sentence is not.  To be a favorite quote, it has to carry power and meaning to the reader / person whose quote is their favorite.

Last month, I really wanted to share Baron Batch‘s line, “Be aware when your time is up,” because it was perfect for the day I shared it.  While I absolutely love that saying, another quote that I always come back to this one by Abraham Lincoln:

Whatever you are, be a good one. - Abraham Lincoln

Whatever you are, be a good one.

I always liked that saying from Abraham Lincoln.  Whatever you want to be, just make sure you’re really damn good at it.

It’s like what I heard Jenny Blake say during my Nicole Antoinette No BS Lab podcast binge.  She wrote a post about having a life purpose.  She says if you need a life purpose, take this one: Be as helpful as you can to as many people as you can.

Jenny is just about echoing Lincoln here.  Whatever you choose to do with your day, make sure it’s done to the best of your abilities.  However you choose to make yourself useful, be really useful.

Spread this around as far as you can, so long as it’s still doing good for someone else.

Just don’t spread it too thin.  If it’s too thin, it doesn’t do anyone any favors.  And when you get to the point where you’re sacrificing your doing good in the name of profitability, that’s when you need to turn back around and remember where you started.  That’s a very Dale Partridge thing to say, but I’ll get there later.

What are you doing today to be a good one?

Be a Better Blogger is a weekly link up dedicated to helping you be a more intentional blogger. Want to be a better blogger but don’t know where to start? Head over to the Be a Better Blogger page for daily prompts and a weekly linkup to help get the creative juices flowing! Oh, and use #beabetterblogger on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook to keep the fun going even after you hit Publish!

Be Better on Twitter

There are so many things that annoy me about social media.  It’s really bad actually because my career is as a social media and email marketing consultant.  Maybe I’m just hyper-aware of little things online because I spend all day looking at it.  And researching what to do and what not to do.  And having people tell me what their friend’s cousin’s ex-fiance told them they should do on social media.

Ugh!

I’m starting to spend the most time on Instagram, but Twitter is still getting a lot of air time for me, too.  There are a ton of things that I wish someone would just say, “Hey, don’t do this on Twitter,” so today, I’m being that brutally honest best friend and telling you to just. stop. already.

Do these 5 things on Twitter right now to be your best

Unlink your Facebook from your Twitter!

If I wanted to see what you had to say on Facebook, I would be on Facebook.  But I’m on Twitter, which means I probably don’t care what you’re posting there for Mark Zuckerberg to own from now until forever.  When I start to read a tweet and then see “fb.me/da02fa” halfway through the sentence, guess how many times I click on the link to see what’s gonna come next.

Go on.  Ballpark it.  Exactly, folks, no times.

So please, for the love of all things 140 characters, unlink your Facebook and Twitter account.  If you don’t know how to do that, go to facebook.com/twitter and click “Unlink” next to the accounts that are linked up.

If you’re active on both, you probably don’t need them connected anyway.

Take a breath

Don’t be that person that tweets non-stop.  Live-tweeting and participating in Twitter chats aside, of course.  You have 14o characters – be concise.  I totally get that sometimes a tweet needs to carry over into another one.  That’s cool.  Just don’t abuse it.

Speak your peace

I like Twitter for the exchange of information and quick conversations that you can have with just about anyone on the planet.  It’s also nice to have quick, adult conversations.  I firmly believe that if you have something direct to say on Twitter, say it.  Sub-tweeting is just as annoying (if not moreso) than vaguebooking.

If not, take that shit back to Facebook where the middle schoolers drama queens are and leave me to my adult, mature things like Buzzfeed articles that will tell me which Disney princess I am (Cinderella, BTW).

Talk to people

To me, Twitter is a place for a conversation.  So ask questions and reply to people and share their good content, too.  It’s a two-way street and you need to stop riding the center line so other people can finally get around you.  Also, if you follow me and you haven’t really tweeted but you are following 10,000 other people, that doesn’t really make me want to follow you back, yknow?

Fill out your profile

Kinda like if you have a bunch of people that you’re following but no tweets, having an empty/incomplete bio doesn’t do much on Twitter.  Give people something to relate to and connect with.  Give us a little personality and your interests.  You might even find some cool people to follow just by what they have written in their bio.  I know even if a location is filled in and I see someone is from Pittsburgh, I’m more likely to check them out rather than a random person without any real names/info/etc.

And if you’re a business/blogger, you better have this filled out.  No exceptions, no excuses.

What are your Twitter pet peeves (or tips!)?

 

Be a Better Blogger is a weekly link up dedicated to helping you be a more intentional blogger. Want to be a better blogger but don’t know where to start? Head over to the Be a Better Blogger page for daily prompts and a weekly linkup to help get the creative juices flowing! Oh, and use #beabetterblogger on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook to keep the fun going even after you hit Publish!

Let’s Play

           

People Really Dug These

We Belong in the Garden Together