A Day of Surprises

Tomorrow should be a pretty interesting day!  The early morning hours will bring my PET scan, which will put an end to my no-carb, no-sugar diet (required for 24-hours pre-scan).  That will make me a much more agreeable person.

Then at 4:30, Isaac and I have our first ever marriage counseling session.  Who knows what that will bring?

And to top it off, we'll be going over to some friend's for a night of pizza, games, and probably S'mores.

On a different note, I've been spending some time lately brainstorming with Isaac about how to promote myself at the salon more.  So far, we've decided that I should get some flyers out, try to see if I can be included in the "new student" packet at the nearby colleges, and keep handing my card out.

If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them.  Literally.  Please.  I would REALLY like to.

Have a beautiful night!

Doing the Side Stroke Upriver

We are so boring.

Seriously.

Brother Isaac always used to make fun of me for it and I would just laugh, but now, it's getting serious.  Or, rather, more serious.  Basically, I work.  And basically, Isaac Jordan studies.  And eats Skittles from the five pound bag that Mom sent him...

My non-salon job is going better.  I don't feel that I'm probably the best sales person on the planet, but I do what they ask of me at 200% effort so nobody can say I don't try.  The biggest thing that amuses me about my job is the type of expectations people can place on a facial cream.  I was on the phone the other day with a lady for over an hour and a half discussing which skincare regimen would benefit her the most.  She wanted hydrating, lifting, tightening, firming, wrinkle-fixing, de-puffing, pore-shrinking, acne-curing, dark-circle-ridding magic.  I ended up telling her that if things are really headed that far south, the best product would probably be a face lift.  Creams and serums can only do so much.

Things are going along pretty well at Ken Paves Salon too.  We're having an event on Sunday, April 1st to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  I figured since so many people went out of their way to help us when we needed it, the very least I can do is donate what I can and encourage others to do the same.  The relief that we felt once the financial burden lift during chemo was immense.  I didn't even realize how heavy it was until afterward.

Here's a flyer for the event, in case you hadn't seen it yet:

Mom and Jessica will be coming up for it, which will be really sweet.  They're going to be our greeters, welcoming people in with warmness and smiles and asking how they've become connected to the event.  We hope to do lots of makeovers for women who are currently in treatment or who have recently finished treatment.  There is something therapeutic about putting your makeup on every morning.  Especially after chemo.  It's kind of... stabilizing.  If that makes sense.  Like.... even though everything else in your world has been shaken, at least you can still take a shower and put your makeup on.

We'll also have wigs for women who have gone through treatment and lost their hair.  Ken was super sweet and has not only offered the wigs, but has given us full and complete support, which is awesome.  We're hoping to be able to raise over $5,000, and honestly, I'd be thrilled if we could hit $10,000.

I would probably cry.

Anyway... I've got to sign off for the night... I open tomorrow morning and I need to be rested so I can put 200% in all day again tomorrow!

Enjoy your life.  Every day is faster than the next and at some point, you run out of days.

Well Hello, Sir!

So.

I've just about peed myself several times this week.  I don't even have a good excuse for that kind of thing anymore since I'm not in chemo, but hey, it still happens... right?

The first time I almost wet my pants was when I got a Facebook friend request from Ken Paves.  I had kind of wanted to add him since I was working in his salon, but I didn't want to be a creeper, so I didn't.  I figured I should probably wait until I meet him someday and then I can friend him.  So now we're Facebook friends.

It came as a complete shock to me, so of course I had to capture the moment in a screen shot.

Then, Nordstrom (I've been officially notified that it's inappropriate to say Nordstrom's) called and offered me a part-time position as a rover, which means I'll be getting paid to play with makeup all day!  I really can't think of a better way to pay off student loans--except for doing hair, of course.

THEN, I got a call on Saturday morning from the manager at Ken Paves Salon asking if I could come in for a meeting later because Ken was going to be in and would like to chat with everyone.  That, my friends, was when I literally almost... you know.

Immediately, I asked if his parents were going to be in early because I had a couple of things that I wanted to talk with them about before the meeting.  They were, so I hopped through the shower, put my face on, and out the door I went.  In my head I'd been thinking that it would be ideal to talk with them about the position I'd been offered and see if they'd be willing to work with me so far as scheduling and such and I also wanted to talk with Ma Paves about doing an event we'd talked about previously to see if she was still considering it.

Ma & Pa Paves were already there, working away in the office when I stuck my head in to see if they had a minute to chat.  Usually they do.  They LOVE to chat.  Which is good, because I like chatting with them!  Anyway, I went to take a seat to talk with them when Ma asked me what Ken was doing.  I was a little confused because in my head I thought he wasn't coming in until the meeting.  Turns out he was already there.

Again, surprise!  It was cute to watch how excited she was that he was there.  It reminded me of Mom and Ike.  Apparently there is nothing that makes a woman smile more than getting to see her son and give him hugs and bathe him with her motherly love.  It's so precious!

I had the opportunity to chat with him for a while and thoroughly enjoyed the entire conversation.  He's a very insightful guy with a big heart.  I'm really excited that he'll be pushing us to do better as stylists and artists and is generous enough to allow us access to some of his resources to do so.

Those close to me already know that I love working, but it seems that it will be even more exciting this year!!

If your'e interested in checking out the work blog (I'll be keeping my personal life out of there) click here!  'Til next time!

No, I Don't Have Multiple Personality Disorder.

Recently, some of you may have gotten an invite from me to become my friend on Facebook.  "Wait," you might have thought, "I was pretty sure we already ARE friends.  What's going on?"

Don't worry.  You're not losing your marbles.  We probably are.  However, I've taken on another project. Those of you who know me well are probably already smiling because you know when I taken on a project, I take it on.

This one is called: Project Bring In Clients To Pay Off Student Loans.

In order to complete this project, I decided to build a digital presence, which will include my Facebook Business Page, a Twitter, and a Blog (under construction).  Alas, once I started on my project, I learned that Facebook requires Business Pages to be linked to a profile.  In keeping with the rule of thumb to separate business and personal, I decided to create another Ashley Hinton to which my page can be linked, without disclosing my entire "private" life to current and potential clients.  

The whole thing is a little bit weird, because as those of you who have been my clients know, I don't really separate the two in real life.  My friends are my clients, my clients are my friends.  And I love my friend and I love my clients.  However, it was recommended to me to go about it this way by a MUCH wiser person than myself, and so I am following through on her instruction.

We shall see how this goes.

In other news, things have been relatively peaceful around our apartment.

Isaac keeps eating my chocolates and then making fun of me when I happen to take the last one in the bag, saying "man, you sure downed those fast!"  Turd.  He also did something super sweet last Sunday.

I was invited to go with Ken Paves Salon, Clinton Township to a Bridal Show at Fern Hill Golf & Country Club.  We made up and styled eight models for the fashion show and then handed out information and cards afterward.

The night before the show, I had run around the house gathering whatever I might possibly need for the show and putting it in a pile beside the door.  My plan was to wake up early and then finish packing.  When I got up in the morning though, Isaac had already packed it all up (very nicely, I might add) in a rolling suitcase and placed little love notes on it (see below).  In addition, he went to WalMart and bought me a little lock for it so that nobody could steal my makeup kit.

My sweet husband is smart, but doesn't have the best grammar... and it was pretty late!

What a gem.  A handsome gem at that!!  

The next morning when I woke up, I had just opened my mouth to ask him if he could get me the rolling suitcase from the closet when I walked around the corner into his surprise.  I was so happy!!  I mean really, can a girl get it any better?

On top of all that, he made me breakfast that I barely had time to eat.  Bless his big ol' heart!

I've just been slaving away on gaining a digital presence.  The goal is to gain a presence which will hopefully translate to ranking higher on Google, which will hopefully bring in more clients, who will hopefully enjoy paying me for my services so that I can pay off student loans.

That's a lot of hopefully's.

In case it doesn't happen that way, or in case it takes longer than the Department of Education would care for, I've also been applying for jobs since we got back from Christmas.  I had an interview with Nordstrom this morning and I'm hoping that they liked me.  I should know by the end of the weekend.

Aside from that, we're just keeping on, keeping on!

Business, Business

I had my PET/CT scan this morning.  I think it went pretty well.  The biggest upside to the immediate experience is that I only had to get poked with a needle once!  Hallelujah!

Tonight Kim and I are going to pretend that we're really fancy folk and go to an event that is being held at Partridge Creek at J. Barbaro Clothiers.  It's a high-class (or at least, high-income) men's store that sells pretty nice ties, shirts, suits, etc. for a pretty penny.  Isaac and I happened to wander in there last Sunday after church while we were mall-walking because he was hoping to get ideas for clothes for when he has to start dressing up for clinical rotations come this next school year.

It was a little bit comical, in my opinion.  Neither one of us were dressed nice, my hair looked all crazy, and Isaac is in dire need of a cut himself.  The sweet lady at the counter either must have been blind and didn't realize that "no, we can't pay $125 for a tie," or she did a killer job at following that rule of business which states that you should never assume your client's income or spending habits.  Either way, she was leading us all around the showroom putting together combinations of shirts, ties, and jackets in hopes that I would "get ideas" for Isaac for Christmas.

As we were heading out the door, she stopped us at the counter and invited me to attend a ladies' night later on in the week.  I'm not exactly sure what those events look like, but she led me to believe that it will be cocktails and snacks of some type.

We left and as we neared the car, I told Isaac that I was considering going to the event, simply because it would be a good networking opportunity where I might get the chance to hand out my card.  Plus, I'm assuming that if the women attending this event are going to pay $125 for a tie and upwards of $195 for a button-down shirt, they're probably not going to be all that opposed to investing some good money in their hair.  We'll see.

I had to create a new temporary business card (partially for this event, partially for my own sanity) as well because the one I was handing out didn't quite portray what it is that I do.  To me, a business card is something that, if executed well, will draw in new clients to you almost on its own.  Here's what I ended up doing:

Back side of original card

Front side of original card

New card front, back is empty

I got some tips from a friend on how to hand my card out in a non-tacky way as well.  I've never really had to hand a card out to someone I don't know, aside from college students, who are generally very un-scary, and so I'm a little nervous.  Plus, I'm not sure if there are business card hand-out faux-pas...

Anyway, Kim and I will be attending tonight and I'm sure I'll have some interesting stories about our experience.

And in even cooler news: I get my port out on Monday.  I'm super psyched!!  YES!!

Job Situation

I've been searching for a job since a couple of weeks after chemotherapy.  I applied absolutely everywhere--and I mean everywhere.  Food service, retail, salons, hospitals, nannying... you name it, I probably applied for it.

Then, about a week and a half ago, I got a call back from Helen at Ken Paves Salon.  She was willing to offer me a position, so long as I was aware that they wouldn't be able to provide me with a clientele; I'd have to build up on my own.  That's alright by me!  I've started from the bottom before, and I'm a firm believer that doing so helps you to appreciate where you get later on.

(For you Michiganites that are interested, I'll be in the salon Tuesday and Thursday from 4-9, Wednesday from 2-6, Friday from 2-7, and Saturday from 9-2.  Call 586-416-8600 to schedule!)

However, because I don't have a clientele yet, I still need a second job that will pay the bills.  I'd kind of been giving up on finding one until this past week, and then, as usual, when it rains, it pours.

Last week I received a reply on an application I had placed for a nannying position.  Then this morning, I got a phone call from Macomb Community College to interview for a position as a Student Activities Coordinator.  About an hour or so later, a restaurant called to see if I could make it to open interviews tomorrow for a hosting position.

I always have a hard time making a good decision when I have so many options.  That's why I'm hoping God narrows this down for me.

He already started by making the restaurant interview impossible.  I had a fever, chills, sore throat, and severely achy hips last night, which led to me deciding not to go back to Michigan today.  The plan had been for me to head back this morning, be a "patient" for first year MSUCOM students, then pack up and head back to Iowa City with my husband and Kim for Thanksgiving.  However, since I wasn't feeling too hot last night, I decided to revisit that plan.

Isaac had sent me to Iowa with Zicam, which proved to be a good call on his end.  I started taking it yesterday evening and have been taking it every three hours throughout the night and thus far into the day today.  It seems to have helped with the fever, chills, and sore throats, but my hips still ache like crazy.

I tried ibuprofen, but that didn't seem to help.  I was talking with Isaac about it, and he recommended trying Tylenol instead, which I did.  I'm still not really noticing a big difference.  He thought it might be my body trying to re-adjust to producing its own white blood cells still, since this is the second time I've had achy hips and it just so happens they've occurred when I was typically getting my Neulasta shot.

Whatever the cause, I'm not a huge fan.

So.

I've been taking it easy.  Chilling on the couch by the fire, reading, napping, watching TV, and chatting with Court.  It's frustrating to still not be at one hundred percent and be able to run around doing what I'd like to do, but I am thankful that I don't have chemo anymore.  Or radiation.