Listen up Moms, this one's for you!

I recently posted about how Chelsea, at Design a la Mod, and I have started our own Public Relations and Design company, Blueprint PR & Design. Apparently, money doesn't grow on trees when you start a company, so we won't be making bank with Blueprint for quite a while. Which is where all you fabulous Dallas moms might be able to help me out by allowing me to help YOU out!



That's right, I'm advertising my babysitting and nannying services to the Dallas Blog world (I'm not opposed to babysitting elsewhere in the country, just let me know where to meet your private jet and I'll be there in a flash).



I currently nanny for an awesome family with 3 very hyper active kiddos (all boys, all under age 4) and I have a looonnnnnnng history with babysitting. See this post for further info on that.

Reasons you, or a mom you might know, would want me to babysit/nanny? So glad you asked!

-2 words: Bumblebee Camp. For around 6 years I held an annual summer camp in my backyard for 15-20 kids under the age of 7. I planned activities, organized games, and entertained for 4 hours every day for a week. If I can do that with 20 kids (at age 15!!), think of what I can do with just 3.

-I babysat all throughout high school and college. (Well, elementary and Jr. High if you count being a "mother's helper"...but I think it was more of an excuse to still play house and dolls without feeling immature and old.)

-Um, I'm awesome. I let kids crawl all over me like a human jungle gym. I tire them out so they take really long naps. I actually play with the kids instead of just watching them play. I come up with creative arts and crafts--even though I'm not the most artistic person in the world, to say the least.

-I have a pretty flexible schedule. You need me at 7am? Sure, no problemo.

SOOO, if you, or anyone you know in Dallas, is interested, please let me know! I'd love to hear from you!

Hello, my name is Sloane, and I'm a techie addict

I’m spending hours on Twitter every day. It’s not for my entertainment. I’ve almost started to loathe the sight of the little tweet bird icon. Side note: What is UP with the picture that shows up when you haven’t put a personal picture up yet?? What is that thing? Two dots?? Why some weird, un-determinable image? And the color choices? Brown? Why brown? I rushed to get a picture up in order to not have that thing showing…maybe that was the idea behind it. Anyway, after looking at so many profiles a day that have that freaking image I’ve started to want to just de-twitter those people. And it’s not even their fault; it’s Twitter’s. Anyway, deep breaths.

The act of coming up with tweets that don’t sound like spam, that work to the company’s advantage, while keeping the public’s interests in mind that will hopefully cause them to tweet back and engage in meaningful twitter relationships, doesn’t seem too hard, right? Sure, I’ll agree with you on that one. Just do that several times a day and voila you’re an avid Twitter-er. Now we can move on to somethi—oh, hold that thought. Should I go look through everyone’s tweets and tweet back? Do unto others as they do unto you? Thank goodness I’m still a Twitter loser with only 54 measly followers.

(3 hours later)

I’ve successfully tweeted to, oh, probably 10 people. Reading profiles, then reading their tweets, then reading their responses to other tweets, then wondering why the hech have they not responding to MY tweets if they’ve responded to this doofus, researching their companies, thinking about what exactly I should respond to their tweets with, thinking of future tweets that I can tweet to get them more interested in my tweets, then finding more people to ‘follow’, getting acquainted with their profiles…and then this thought runs through my head:

This is only Twitter. I forgot about blogging. Facebook. LinkedIn. I have multiple social media sites to pay attention to and each one is like a needy 2 year old that won’t stop crying. Meanwhile, I’m attempting to read more about these sites and tweak my skills and suddenly I feel as if I’m living in a world of techie addicts. I start to notice how attached people are to their phones, computers, sidekicks, ipods-- the constant alerts, ringing, typing, putting down and picking back up the devices, everywhere. Then there’s the like 9 hours a day people sit in front of the computer talking on AIM, gchat, email, facebook, blogging, twitter, LinkedIn, youtube, news sites, typing away, saving files, cutting and pasting, printing, scanning, (what did people DO before computers?!). I mean, I think towards the future when I have kids, and I picture me having to tweet, text, call, email, post on their facebook wall, just to let them know dinner is ready. Scary thought, isn’t it?

Perhaps I’ve over exaggerating. Maybe I’ve let all of my involvement in learning, researching, and participating on these sites get to my head (or the depth of my soul). I’m just going to try to not feel naked if I forget my cell phone at home, or if I forget to check facebook one day a week. That being said, I’m off to go do un-technology things. Like, eat. And sleep. And engage in face-to-face conversation.

Giving Six Word Saturdays a Try

Cate from showmyface came up with the incredible idea of doing Six Word Saturdays instead of a regular blog post. For those, like Cate, who actually post every single day I can see why Six Word Saturdays might seem like a breath of fresh air. For me, who is in posting rehab and trying to get my blog back on track, it also seems like a breath of fresh air since it takes no time, is easy Schmeezy, and entertaining! So here I go:

Thinks a beach sounds pretty good.

But then I decided my Saturday could also be described as:

Thinks a vodka sounds pretty good.

Then I realized I could just do this:

Either a beach or a vodka.



(If it were 8 Word Saturday I would add, "with sprite" so i could mix a drink, but oh well, I'll just be stuck with plain vodka.)

So there ya go! 3rd time's a charm. Post your Six Word Saturdays in the comment section and be sure to check out Cate's blog for her Six Word Saturday and others!

I drank way too much milk at dinner

Last night I drank too much milk.

On a normal Sunday, I reserve the entire day for beaching myself on the couch and ordering a pineapple cheese pizza to munch on for several hours while watching stupid, stupid shows like Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Unless I'm with my boyfriend, and in that case we watch shows like Mythbusters, River Monsters, or The Best Warrior. And just in case any of you are interested, a Spartan does in fact beat out a ninja if they were ever paired to fight each other. Something to do with the Spartan's shield...used as both a protection device and weapon. Just fascinating!

Anywho, for some reason I woke up yesterday morning feeling very...active, I guess is the right word. So I went to brunch, cleaned the house, gave the dogs a bath, played ultimate frisbee, played badmitton, worked out, made dinner...and by that time I was incredibly thirsty. I decided on milk because it spoke to me from the refridgerator. It was next to the water filter and for some ungodly reason it looked more able to quench my thirst.

So I had a glass with dinner. And then finished it before I finished dinner. So I had another glass. And then finished that one before I finished dinner. And so the cycle went.

By the time dinner was over I was in my normal Sunday beached-on-the-couch mode, except this time I was an actual beached whale. I think I might now know what it feels like to be 9 months pregnant. I was so uncomfortable that I couldn't do anything but lay flat on my back with my hand on my stomach (as if that makes a difference) and grimace at the tv. Moving, at all, was unexplainably awful. I don't even want to talk about going up the stairs. All I could think about was waking up in the morning feeling 375y37567835 pounds lighter and agile once again.

I'm happy to say that I made it through to morning, but I took one glance at the gallon of milk in the fridge and almost relapsed right then and there. I will be avoiding milk for a while.

One for the con list of working at home

Since starting Blueprint I've been working from home a bunch. It doesn't make sense to use our money on rented office space so we meet clients at their office, local Starbucks, or sometimes at a restaurant. Chelsea and I are creative when meeting with each other. So far we've:

-Discussed business while en route to meeting a client, networking event, or professional happy hour. This means a lot of fast chatter and interrupting.

-Met at Chelsea's house late at night in her office. This means a lot of exasperated sighs and calculation of hours of sleep we can afford to miss in order to get work done.

-Met over dinner. This means we forget to eat because we're too engrossed in business talk. Worst possible place to meet by far since we are both extremely grumpy when hungry.

So, we work a lot at home and I've actually grown to like it...but there are distractions. While most people chalk their distractions up to the internet (facebook, online shopping, AIM or gchatting) I get distracted by my furry companions.



Furry companion #1
Furry companion #2
Annnd #1 and #2 together.

With their constant begging for attention, snoring (yes, one does snore. It is loud.) and potty breaks, I'm rethinking the whole "let's wait to get an office" thing.

I'm back gang! Introducing Blueprint PR and Design!!

Are you there bloggers? It's me....Sloane...

I know, I know, it's been MONTHS since my last post. It's shameful and frankly I've been embarrassed to even begin writing a post because of my slacker behavior. Before you all roll your eyes and begin navigating towards another (faithful) blogger, allow me to explain my reasoning. I at least get a chance to explain, right?

To make a realllllly long, long, long story short...(big breath)....I ventured out on my own, well, almost on my own (shout out to Chelsea, my partner in crime!), and started a company. Let me just say this: Starting a company is.not.easy. I'm working like 60 hour weeks here plus weekends (cry me a river, I know) and it doesn't leave too much time for blogging.

BUT, now that I have slowly but surely regained a bit of control--you know, able to get at least 6 hours of sleep, eating things other than cereal, and not forgetting to feed my dog anymore--I'm BACK.

If you can forgive me for ignoring blogland for such a long period of time, please feel free to support my (and Chelsea's) company by checking out our website, blog page, twitter page, and facebook fan page. (Social networking anyone?)

Oh, and should you have a PR, Design, or Brand related question, you know who to talk to.