Hello There Fellow Bloggers! It is so Nice to Meet you this week! Ever since I became a Blogger, one of my favorite things about this whole process had been meeting and getting to work with other Bloggers. It is like a Team Sport, which is something I really needed in my life after my whole transition into the WAHM field. The Blogging Community fosters the ideal of supporting each other, networking, helping with content, mentioning, and promoting each other {often for no reason other than friendship} and being there to guide one another. Literally, all day long I can reach out and someone will be there to answer my Blogging question. So again, it is nice to meet you, I hope we can work together in the future. The next time you have a question, I might be your answer. Here is a little about me you might not know:
10 Things about me
So whom am I? Why do you care and what story am I telling? Well, I’m a mom who chose to leave a career {sort of} and transition into home life, raising babies. I took to blogging to stay sane, to join a team, to interact with people and to recover income. Since afterall, life isn’t free. My life is Sweet & Sticky and I’ve decided to let you into my back office…. Welcome to my Story!
1- I wasn’t always a Blogger
I started my own company, my dream job, of Wedding Coordinating in 2009 with Green-Eyed Girl Productions. I had a massive office, up to 12 employees at one time and got it to nearly 6 digits in 4 years. In 2013 my first son was born in July, right in the middle of wedding season. He and I went back to work together when he was 2 weeks old. I ran the building so nobody could tell me no. He and I went to work 60 hours a week until he was 6 months old, December 31st, 2015 when I liquidated my business and handed the building keys over for the last time. My husband had to pull me up off my knees in the parking lot as I was so distraught. My business was my first baby, and I just abandoned her…. For a while anyway. I spent the next year pregnant with our next son and began to blog.
2- I’m a WAHM
As a mom, I am still able to Wedding Coordinate from home, though I took an 85% pay cut. {Which would probably be the difference in Day Care anyway!} And I would really, REALLY rather be the one here, educating and disciplining my boys into the little gentlemen they are. We moved to Salem after Wyatt was born in 2015 and the new house has a bigger office than the old one, which is fortunate considering my old office could take up our entire house if I let it… Truth be told, my business legitimately consumes a third of our house with an office and storage. There are 4 Rings to my Circus that build my WAHM Career.
3- I am a Wedding Coordinator in Real Life
I am still a Wedding Coordinator since it is my ultimate passion, but on a much smaller scale. I only take on about 15 events at most per year. I now meet all clients at Panera Breads along the Willamette Valley for my Meetings and my employees are spread out across Oregon waiting for me to call out a Captain America, “ASSEMBLE!” and they come running because they’re all still awesome like that. What I did instead of all those other weddings I used to do was I wrote a book and I started a Wedding Blog.
4- EBook & Ecourse Author
Since I wasn’t going out into the Wedding Field as often, I spent my Maternity Leave time writing The Project Block Workbook, which is the opus of my company. I then developed it into 4 ECourses which now supplement my WAHM income the most. My Wedding Blog houses the posts that support The Project Block System Ecourse curriculum and my wedding “students” are now all over the world. Instead of meetings in person, I now get emails from Michelle in Sydney Australia, “Hi Kandice. It’s Michelle. I’m taking your ECourse and I’m on Project Block 14. I have a Question about the difference between Speeches and Toasts.” This is why I’m on my phone all day long.
5- I am on my phone ALL DAY LONG
I could be at an office {with those long green curtains and posh leopard print furniture} but I’m here, building forts and making chocolate play-dough. I’m here participating in my sons’ childhood and it is such a blessing to do that. I am there in my son’s preschool classroom, volunteering, sometimes twice a month. I haven’t missed anything. When I come out of the classroom, after 3 hours, I check my phone and there are 50 new emails… so I’m on my phone the rest of the day. If I don’t respond to my emails in a few minutes, they’ll really pile up and I’ll get unprofessionally behind, which is bad for business. So I’m attached to that little Smart guy ALL. DAY. LONG. But, I’m there, at home.
6- Somedays I wonder if it’s worth it
I have tremendous guilt about being a WAHM. More often than I would like I catch myself screaming at my kids, “PLEASE! MOMMY IS TRYING TO WORK!” and I wonder if they’re really better off with a mom who says that all day. I wonder if I should just go to an office, focus there, clock out and be a mom when I get home. Am I really doing the best thing for them by being there, but being a work-monster and being on that phone all day? Every day I wonder if I would be a better mom for them if I sent them to daycare and did my work, then came home to smiling kids and was a focused mom. #thestruggleisreal
7- The Mom Blog
You’re here! This is it. It’s been almost 4 years and I’ve been blogging “professionally” for the last year. Remember that guilt I mentioned above? I call that the Sticky part of Motherhood and to survive it I started Blogging about it. This blog, A Cotton Kandi Life is dedicated to the Sweet & Sticky parts of motherhood. Everything I mentioned before, and dealing with it, trying to balance it, takes a massive toll on me emotionally. Trying to be 2 women, the professional, driven person that I miss and the devoted mother I strive to be is extremely difficult. I massively underestimated the turmoil I would go through trying to be both. So I blog.
8- The Etsy Shops
This Blog and my Sweet & Sticky are what I would call the Second Ring of my 4 Ring Circus. What I mostly do all day are my Etsy Shops, Rings 3 & 4. I have been an Etsian since 2010 because it fit in so easily with my Wedding Coordinating. My main shop is all about party decorating, The Vintage Event and I would send my clients right there to begin styling their parties. My second shop is all about the babies. When I was pregnant I started to crochet, because that’s what moms do! I watched my mom do it, so naturally, when becoming a mom, you must join the team! I call it Cotton N’ Kandi, to represent me with all my cotton.
9- Making Mommy Money
I mentioned taking an 85% pay cut when I left my company and career. Unfortunately, my family income responsibility did not get any lower. In fact, we now had TWO kids, so we needed to make even more money to cover them. Last year I really set out to monetize myself online. I had to swallow some pride and expand myself into social media. We needed to survive after all 😉 I stepped up my blogging game and joined a ton of Blogging Groups on Facebook. That’s really the best place to find me, in a group online, either a Wedding Group or more often a Blogging Group. Groups are really just Teams and I love teams! We also all have the same goals, to make an Online Income, and I couldn’t have done it without them. Here is my journey for 2016 where I started making $300+ in January Blogging and ended the Year at $1,000+ per month. January 2017 Income was $3,000+ for online Mommy Money! I do more than just Blogging as a Mom. But it all adds up, and you can do it too.
10- Bringing it all Together
So how am I making $3,000 per month Blogging from home now? The answer is not simple. It took a lot of work, a lot of tears from my children and a lot of husband-ignoring. But I now feel a little more confident about my contribution to the family and the world. Which is what I need for mental health. {Call me crazy, you won’t be the first 😉} My combined efforts are things I do all day long {on that phone} and they’re all super easy independently but it’s when you combine them all that the numbers get high. I actually have a gift for you… and inside look at my Super 7 Mommy Money Makers.
Click Here for the FREEBIE!
Thank you for taking the time to meet me, and I look forward to meeting you. Stick around and meet the Sweet & Sticky if you want. Read a Mom Truth, You’ll survive the struggles and transition if you’re leaving work to be at home, you’re not alone. Here are several other Bloggers you should get to know too:
- Haley at The Life & Lies of an Inanimate Flying Object
- Cathy at A Boy & his Mom
- Shelby at Fit as a Mama Bear
- Megan at Our Poetic Chaos
- Maria at Dapper House Designs
- Stephanie at You Are My Son Shine– Freebie! Home Emergency Checklist
- Lilly at Moonbeams on the Path
- Kimberly at Wildflower Four
- Amanda at Easy on the Tongue– Freebie! Nursery Printable
Like what you read?
