I’ve been on a blogging hiatus for almost six months and I think it’s time to continue where I left off.

With so many big changes happening in the last year, it’s been difficult for me to keep up with this one creative outlet. I knew it would be hard to work full time and plan a wedding, but I had no idea at the time I was graduating and got engaged that I would also be starting a business in the following six months.

Needless to say, 2013 was a surprising year and 2014 is shaping up to be the same way. It wasn’t until today when I logged into one of my wedding planning website accounts that I also realized my wedding is in about 200 days (we’re almost to the six-month mark). Everyone keeps asking me about things I suppose I should have done by now, but as I’m not much of a girly girl, I have no enthusiasm in my answer and their request gets filed into the ever-growing list of to-do items.

When we got engaged, I had 16 months to get things done. Now 10 months have slipped by and I’ve got most of the big vendors, but let me just say this: planning a wedding is not all it’s cracked up to be. I don’t care how many times you put a pillow case on your head pretending to be a bride as a little girl, the real tasks associated with planning your wedding are tedious, time-consuming and frustrating, but I’m told it’s all worth it in the end. Don’t get me wrong: I’m ecstatic to be marrying James and making it official. I’m happy to wear a beautiful dress and celebrate with friends and family. I just wish there wasn’t so much pressure for one day to be so perfect, so sentimental and so out-of-the-box. I love James but I’m not the type of person who gets deeply emotional and wants everyone to fall in love with our love story. It’s ours. I don’t expect anyone to understand us but us.

Wedding ranting aside, other big changes have been time-consuming as well. Starting a business has been one of the biggest challenges I’ve been faced with yet. It makes a huge difference in the work you do when your name is personally stamped on every project and tied to the bottom line of your business. It also makes you appreciate other business owners and understand their concerns of how they invest their money. Public relations isn’t always the easiest sell to business owners. They built their business from the ground up and need solid answers on how your work will affect the outcome of their goals, whether it be to increase profits, create a positive community for their brand, establish them as a trusted resource or gain partnerships with other businesses.

As an entry-level practitioner, we aren’t taught in school how to communicate how our company can help achieve these goals to businesses or how to seek, propose and gain clients. What we are taught is how to write effectively (which is severely important) and how to communicate client goals to media or the public once they are already clients. All of these skills are relevant, but extremely different. Owning a business at a young age forced me to learn skills that I otherwise may not have acquired for years. Over the past six months, I have learned about business practices, entrepreneurship, contracts, negotiating, selling, human resources, legal implications, accounting, finances and whole big mess of do’s and don’ts every business owner faces. It’s been a process.

Five months after our launch date, I can’t be more enthused about our opportunity to work with Houston Beer Fest. Yes, I love trying craft brews like everyone else but I’m way more excited about the music. I could give up all of my hobbies except for listening to good music. It fuels me. It drives me. I usually have music on while I’m working if I can. To be able to put some of my work into a project that celebrates live music is exhilarating. In high school, someone asked me what I wanted to do and I remember saying, “I wish I could just write about bands in magazines all day, go to shows and discover those sounds that make your heart beat.” So to know that I’m doing something similar several years later is invigorating. Now that Soversity is on its feet, I can’t wait to see where we go from here and to eventually expand our team one day.

Besides wedding planning and running Soversity with Lisa, I’ve mapped out some other goals that I’m on track to meet. Tucker and I moved into an apartment a few weeks ago. That’s been an adventure of its own. I started working with a personal trainer who really pushes me and is extremely supportive and just an all around positive person. I love people like that and I want to surround my life with them. I’ve pretty much filtered out sweets and even canned and packaged foods as I’m trying to eat clean. I enjoy cooking fresh, healthy food for myself.

As the next six months play out, it’s going to be a busy, beautiful life… and I plan to write a lot more about it.