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!

Ladies' Night

Last night Kim and I got all dressed up to go out to J. Barbaro's ladies' night.  Not red carpet dressed because it's too cold, but nicely dressed--which included heels.  We assumed it'd probably be a good idea to arrive fashionably late, since that's what people on television do, and headed out toward the mall around 6:30pm.

In my head I had visions of lots of fancy, classy ladies wearing designer clothes sipping mimosas and cosmepolitans while browsing the latest men's fashions for their husbands.  I thought it'd be one of those events where I'd have to keep my eyebrows raised the whole time in order to appear like, yes, I'd had plastic surgery too and I would need to be careful not to smile too big because according to Tyra, it makes your eyes squinty and emphasizes wrinkle lines in your face and that's not considered very attractive.

Before heading to ladies' night though, we headed over to Nordstrom to visit Karla, Kim's mom.  Karla is one of those tiny, very fashionable mothers, who, while not a "housewife" herself, probably has a lot of insight on how to deal with those who are.  (And when I say "housewife," I'm referring to women who possess similar traits to Danielle Staub.... just a little bit crazy...)  She helped me get mentally prepared and even more important, helped me realize that my pocked on my blazer was sewn shut and could very easily be opened for use (aka, holding my business cards).

Kim and I then proceeded to head to the party.  We arrived at the storefront and for a moment, wondered if we'd arrived on the wrong night.  There was literally nobody in the store, aside from the workers.  Well, I guess that's a little bit of a lie... there was a couple that was leaving as we walked by the door.  And yes, I did say, BY the door.  We were so thrown off that we didn't even stop in.  Clearly we were mistaken about this event.

After talking for a minute, trying to figure out what in the world was going on, we decided to go eat pizza instead.  However, getting to the restaurant required walking by the store again and so as we made our way to devour a delicious plate of carbs and cheese, Kim asked if I was going to go in.  It felt kind of like a dare, so I did.  In a spur-of-the-moment decision, I decided that instead of networking with the absent fancy ladies, I would network with the store owner instead.  Unfortunately, he was in a meeting, so the sales associate recommended we come back in about a half hour.

To the pizza shop we went.

By this time, our feet were on FIRE, as neither one of us regularly (or even irregularly) wear heels and so the booth in California Pizza Kitchen was greatly appreciated.  I had a 5-cheese and tomato pizza and Kim had BBQ chicken.  They were both extremely delicious.  I probably appreciated it even more than normal too, since I hadn't been allowed to eat carbs or sugar yesterday for my PET/CT scan.

We stopped back at J. Barbaro and very awkwardly were introduced to the owner.  I say awkwardly because when we first walked into the store, we said hello to a man on our way toward the sales associate, thinking he was a customer since he wasn't really dressed too snazzy.  Then, when the associate went to introduce us to the owner, we went back to that same man, interrupted his phone call with his child, and said hello.  Embarrassing.  To make matters more confusing, there was another man in the store who looked a lot like Santa Clause dressed in a very nice suit and if I had walked in there blindly, I would have mistaken HIM for the owner.  I felt like I had no idea what was going on.

Karla hadn't taken her break at work yet so we made our way back to Nordstrom to report on the night and visit with her for a bit and then picked up a movie at Redbox to finish off the night.

Lesson of the night: go big or go home.

And since they hadn't gone big, we went home.