Career Archives - Audrey JoAnn

HOW TO BECOME A FREELANCER

October 11, 2018

I’ve got to be honest. I haven’t known what to write about lately. In my Google Drive, I have a long list of blog post ideas and topics. But I’m getting married in 10 days, and it felt weird to write about sleep habits or career development or relationship challenges when I’m living in a vacuum that is all things BIG DAY. My life right now is guest counts, final invoices, printing hashtag signs, and checking my weather app 27 times a day. (Fingers crossed for anything below 78 degrees in a week and a half.)

I never thought I would be a stressed-out wedding countdown kind of girl, but here we are. Identity crisis for one, please. So, that’s precisely why I’m writing about something other than wedding things. While I am so thrilled for the day itself and the many fun activities surrounding it, everything lately has revolved around planning. I need to think about something else.

EASY TIME MANAGEMENT HACKS THAT EVERYONE CAN USE

September 21, 2018

I went to Sprouts the other day for groceries, and after paying, I started pushing the plastic-bag handles onto my wrists, stacked like several very heavy bracelets on each arm. I’d already gotten my car keys out of my purse and was at the ready to put the shopping cart in its inside lineup before loading my groceries into the car in one seamless trip.

I was not about to waste time on bringing the cart out with me and then having to take even more precious seconds to put it to one of those cart parking spots that seem to never be conveniently located. Psh. The cashier stared as I loaded about 15 grocery bags onto my arms and, (rightfully) full of judgment, asked, “You’re not going to use the cart?”

SELF CARE IS NOT SELFISH

September 13, 2018

The other week, I drove to this field of wild sunflowers outside of my neighborhood with a pair of scissors and snipped about a dozen of those golden beauties to take home with me. I had just bought a new vase and couldn’t wait to set up these freshly picked flowers on a bookshelf to brighten our living room. So thrifty am I — I didn’t need a $9 bouquet from Whole Foods! All I needed was some scissors and the patience and grit to pull stickers off the ankles of my socks for 15 minutes when I got home. In the field, which is more of an overgrown empty lot, I cut the flowers from their mother stems, and each oozed with sticky juice that even the strongest of dish soap with water couldn’t remove from my hands when I got home.

I also realized, after a short drive back to the house, I transported a couple of small, eight-legged friends home with the flowers. When I saw the spiders scuttling and burrowing deeper into the center of the sunflowers, I promptly freaked out, dropped the bouquet in the kitchen sink, and gave them a quick rinse. Mentally, I’m still scarred that they were IN THE CAR ON MY LAP for approximately three minutes. Finally, my quick attempt at a free spruce-up of my living room came to a close when I patted them dry with a paper towel, filled my gorgeous new vase with water, placed them on their new shelf home, and prayed the spiders had found their new home — down the drain.

The flowers died the next day.

EVERYONE HAS TO SETTLE — TO SOME EXTENT

September 6, 2018

I remember in high school, my friends and I made these long, detailed lists of all the things we wanted in our future boyfriends. (Were we losers? Probably.) Some of the more low-key adjectives included honest, athletic, tall, funny, smart, blue eyes, musical, educated, talkative, supportive, well-read, interested in the same hobbies as me, loves his family but not a mama’s boy, sweet but not clingy, and pisses gold, basically. We were just some seriously low-maintenance gals describing a fictional being.

There are plenty of incredible, talented, kind men out there, but I promise there is not one, who isn’t Jesus himself, who fits our long lists of must-haves. And guess what? I don’t fit the female version of this list of qualities that make up the perfect partner, either.

I can be jealous and passive aggressive while my hair and makeup looks like Beyonce’s, or I can be compassionate and a good listener even though I haven’t washed my hair in four days and have five pimples. None of us are constant; none of us bring the same strengths and wins every day. And what a relief! I would not want the pressure of perfection day in and out.