Freelance: One year since I made the escape

It’s officially been one year since I walked into my boss’s office to tell him I was quitting my job. It was one of the most challenging and then relieving things I’ve ever done. Now a year later I can’t ever imagine going back.

I was going to write a post about dos and don’ts and tips for leaving your job, but I write about that stuff all the time, so today I just want to say that I’m happy and thankful. All the work to make it happen, the stress of being my own boss and the occasional days of “Crap! My bank account is looking sad,” they’re all worth it.

I stop at least once every single day and just think about how different my life is and how I’m in a much better place emotionally and business-wise than I was a year ago. I actually shed a few happy tears while reading comments one morning this week – sappy, but true! Writing this blog and helping all of you learn to code is one of my favorite parts of the day.

Then I get to take a break and go to job number two, teaching people to fly. Three different students this week have said they weren’t sure if they could do a trick and then climbed up and nailed it on the first try. That’s one of the best feelings and I get to relive it over and over through them.

So thank you again and always for your support and encouragement and cheers to year number two!

(I’m slowly coming out of ebook land and going through emails and comments, so if you’re waiting to hear from me I’ll be in touch soon!)

Ebook Winners…

Congrats to…

(love how my comment styles went bananas a few days ago >_<)

Check your inbox because you earned yourself a free copy of Nerd School: Clever Coding & Design Tips for Busy Bloggers!

And if you’re on my mailing list you might want to check your inbox as well because you now have early access to the shop!

Thank you all for your comments on yesterday’s post. Now that I’m out of ebook crazytown I have some time to lurk on your websites too :)

Tonight! Public Meeting Addressing National Historic Designation For Belle Isle!

Getting to know you

Now that I’m closing in on 1500 readers and 900 Twitter followers (!!!) I want to know who the heck all you people are! I know some of you from reading your blogs, exchanging comments and tweets, but I definitely don’t know almost 1500 of you!

I’ll tell you a little more about me and then you can tell me about you :)

1. I text Mandy at least once a week to say I’m craving tacos and can we go to Los Galanes for dinner.

2. If you take an aerial class with me & Irina you will hear us yell “Yeah girl!” about 50 times. I don’t know how this started, but we cannot stop.

3. I’m terrified of water where I can’t see the bottom. If you want to see me mega freakout just dump me into the ocean. I loved reading Life of Pi, but that sinking ship scene made me REAL uncomfortable.

4. In high school I was a competitive ballroom dancer. I still have my shoes and sort of have the moves.

5. I sing in the mirror in the bathroom WITH a hair brush at least once a week.

I also received a few questions…

Amy asked about dating tips and single lady advice. Obviously I’m quite single, so maybe I’m not the best person to be handing out advice. I don’t know about finding the right person, but I can tell you how to get lots of dates…make new lady friends. I’ve had two new friends set me up with two very nice dudes in the past month. If you meet new ladies they’re bound to have a nice guy friend who’d be happy to meet you.

And as for being a single lady, I like to think I’m getting pretty good at being on my own. I’m quite busy with work and work and work, so that helps, but when I’m feeling single in a bad way I call up those lady friends and go on a date with one of them.

Mia asked what my family thinks about my running away with the circus…they think I’m a little nuts and a lot brave. I think my parents still worry a bit about the whole mortgage thing, but I’ve been chasing after kooky dreams since I was a kid and they trust I know how to pick myself up when I fall and get out if the ship is sinking.

Now, it’s your turn! Tell me…

1. Where do you live?

I live in a little town just north of Detroit. It’s quiet, I can walk everywhere and going to the bar is like an episode of Cheers on most nights.

2. What’s your favorite way to spend a few hours of free time?

I love taking Slayer on super long walks and then sitting on my deck to read or riding bikes & consuming a lot of ice cream.

3. What do you do / what would you like to be when you grow up?

I think you probably figured that one out already: freelance designer, blogger, code-wrangler, writer, teacher, aerialist. When I grow up I want to be a mom and a wise (nutty and covered in glitter) old lady still teaching people to kick ass.

How to create circle photos & rounded corners with CSS

Adding lots of photos to your blog posts can be time consuming, so I’ve got an easy way to add rounded corners to your photos with CSS. You can also use this to style text boxes and items in your sidebar. Using CSS for graphic elements will not only cut down on the time it takes to create those items but will also help your site load faster. Win, win!

To create a colored box with rounded corners, add the border radius rule to the text box class in your stylesheet.

.lime {
background: #c1d615;
color: #fff;
padding: 5px 10px;
-moz-border-radius: 15px;
border-radius: 15px;
-webkit-border-radius: 15px;
}

Then paste the code below into the text/html view when creating a post or add it to a text/html gadget or widget.

<div class=”lime”><em>Candy canes jujubes gingerbread jelly beans brownie dessert. Sweet soufflé jelly tiramisu jelly beans. Danish faworki tart sweet tootsie roll lollipop chocolate bar. Pie lemon drops jelly gingerbread pie powder dragée wafer.</em></div>

 

 

You can also set all four corners separately – top left (35px), top right (2px), bottom right (10px), bottom left (20px). You’ll notice the larger the number, the more rounded the corners.

.lime2 {
background: #c1d615;
color: #fff;
padding: 5px 10px;
-moz-border-radius: 35px 2px 10px 20px;
border-radius: 35px 2px 10px 20px;
-webkit-border-radius: 35px 2px 10px 20px;
}

 

You can also remove the background and add a rounded border instead…

.lime-border {
background: transparent;
color: #c1d615;
padding: 5px 10px;
border: 2px dashed #c1d615;
-moz-border-radius: 8px;
border-radius: 8px;
-webkit-border-radius: 8px;
}

 

If you increase the radius you can use this rule to create buttons:

.lime-button {
float: left;
background: #c1d615;
color: #fff;
font-size: 28px;
text-align: center;
width: 55px;
height: 40px;
padding-top: 15px;
margin-right: 10px;
-moz-border-radius: 35px;
border-radius: 35px;
-webkit-border-radius: 35px;
}

#content .latest .lime-background {
float: left;
color: #c1d615;
font-size: 28px;
text-align: center;
width: 55px;
height: 40px;
padding-top: 15px;
margin-right: 10px;
-moz-border-radius: 35px;
border-radius: 35px;
-webkit-border-radius: 35px;
background: url(/tiny-chevron.gif) repeat;
border: 1px solid #ebebeb;
}

Float left causes the buttons to line up next to each other. I’ve also specified the height and width and added 15px of padding to push the text into the center. You’ll notice when you do this it makes the button longer, so I’ve subtracted the padding from the height of the button.

Lastly you can use this to create photos with rounded corners:

<span class=”rounded-corners”><img src=”/beach.jpg” /></span>

.rounded-corners {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
overflow: hidden;
-moz-border-radius: 50px;
border-radius: 50px;
-webkit-border-radius: 50px;
}

For the completely round photos at the top of this post make the radius high and include the width and height:

.round {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
overflow: hidden;
width: 300px;
height: 300px;
-moz-border-radius: 300px;
border-radius: 300px;
-webkit-border-radius: 300px;
}

Lastly, you could add the border radius to all of your photos:

img {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
overflow: hidden;
-moz-border-radius: 50px;
border-radius: 50px;
-webkit-border-radius: 50px;
}

Now, if you’re reading this in an RSS reader you may be thinking, “Hey lady, I don’t see any rounded anything!” The reason for this is many feed readers strip the CSS from your content and use their own styles. You may be able to get around this by using a plugin like Feed Styler or you might just save this technique for your blog design and skip using it for posts.

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway to win a copy of my ebook Nerd School: Clever Coding & Design Tips for Busy Bloggers and sign-up for my mailing list to get your hands on it early!

Enter to win a copy of my Nerd School ebook

I spent twelve hours yesterday glued to my laptop finishing up the last of the tutorials and formatting on the book and styling the new XO Sarah website. The launch date is fast approaching and I’m feeling excited and strangely stress-free. You’d think I’d be panicking knowing there are just days before I’ll send the shop link to my mailing list and finally launch the book I’ve been concocting about for over year. I’m mostly thinking about whether it will actually sell and what the reaction will be from all you fantastic readers.

To get you all excited for the launch I thought I’d host a giveaway. Three lucky winners will each receive a copy of Nerd School: Clever Coding & Design Tips for Busy Bloggers. You’ll receive your copy of the book THIS FRIDAY, before it’s even launched!

The ebook includes 10 brand new tutorials for Blogger and WordPress, tools for creating a user-friendly design, instructions for altering your template’s layout, tips for building professional looking photo galleries, ideas for using analytics to aid in your blog design, instructions on unlocking the power of Google’s Keyword Tool, and more!

TO ENTER VIA TWITTER

Tweet this phrase: Enter to win @sillygrrl’s ebook – Nerd School: Clever Coding & Design Tips for Busy Bloggers http://wp.me/ph1hP-3Pp 

TO ENTER VIA FACEBOOK

Post the above photo along with a link to this post to your blog/business Facebook page

Leave a comment on this post with the link to your tweet/Facebook post. You may enter with one or both options. Make sure to include your email address so I know where to send your prize.

Contest runs 8AM on Tuesday, May 14, 2013 through Thursday, May 16, 2013 at midnight. Winners will be chosen at random, announced Friday, May 17, 2013 and will receive the ebook via email.

Good luck!

Finding your best time for creative work

When you finally make the escape and start working full-time as a freelancer you’ll likely fall into one of two categories – the freelancer who keeps their 9 to 5, 8 hour per day schedule or the freelancer who works whenever they like.

When your job is centered around being creative it can be detrimental to push yourself to work. You may waste hours churning out crap, pretty much asking to be stressed out, when zeroing in on the times you’re most motivated and focused could produce much better results in less time.

In order to keep up your productivity and motivation it’s important to figure out when your best time of the day is to work.

For me, it’s between 1 and 6pm. I’ve been waking up a bit earlier – usually around 9:30am so I’m at the computer far before my brain is fully functioning. I use the early morning hours to get myself going. I go through email, catch up on blog reading, respond to comments and Etsy convos, update spreadsheets – get all the monotonous stuff out of the way, so when my brain is ready to work I don’t have anything else on my plate. Then in the afternoon I can get into the zone and write, code, design until I hit a wall and then I’m done for the day.

I’ve also learned that as long as the idea and a few notes are already in my editorial calendar, I can churn out a pretty good blog post late at night. Currently writing this at 11PM Sunday night, so I guess you can be the judge of that. Last Monday’s post was also a product of late-night scrambling to write something helpful and inspiring for the next morning. I’m generally a little tired and if the seed of an idea is planted I just let the words roll and then edit a few days later.

So how can you figure out your best time to work?

You can start by tracking your day (yes, again), but this time focus on how you feel. If you begin digging into your work at 9am are you fully focused and inspired or are you just going through the motions? Do you find your mind wandering to the laundry, errands, or your inbox? Are you even awake at 9am or are you better off rolling out of bed with your internal alarm clock and working in the afternoon or evenings.

If you’re like me and you keep a list of blogging/business ideas on your phone or in a notebook you might start adding the time, where you were and what you were doing as well. I bet you’ll quickly start to see a pattern.

If you’re approaching a deadline you could try to put yourself in the creative zone by noticing the particulars about the time of day you usually crank out your best product. Is your house clean? Have you just worked out? Post-meal? Spreadsheets updated? Inbox zero-ed? Is it quiet, warm, cold, sunny, rainy? Do you work best in a coffee shop? Just downloaded some mega inspiration or watched horroriest of horror movies? Take note of when your brain does that magic thing and you zoom into productivity mode. Literally…take notes!

I’m currently in that blogging zone. Sunday night, no deadlines, quiet house, cozy under a blanket, a bit sleepy, just letting the words flow & trying to edit it into some semblance of articulation.

I also get a super-surge of inspiration and creative energy after I workout. If we ever met for lunch/dinner after I’ve worked out or taught a class I would likely chatter non-stop about business and blogging, be super excited about everything and come up with some pretty good ideas.

What time of day do you feel most inspired to write/design/blog/etc? Is there anything that usually puts you in the creative mood?

Original photo

Blog Love

My grandparents, Kenny & Ella – weren’t they so stinkin’ cute??

We spent yesterday celebrating my grandmother’s 80th birthday with all of my mom’s crazy, loud, entertaining family. If you want to know where my silly comes from…that’s it! My aunts tell inappropriate jokes, my cousins make me laugh until I think I’m gonna pee, and my grandma just sits there and rolls her eyes because she thinks we’re all nuts.

Hope all you kids are being helpful & sweet and all you mamas are having a relaxing day.

Here are my favorite links from this week…

Love Amber’s post on running at 200 mile relay >>>

A good rundown on protein powders >>> and my new favorite protein bars – 20g of protein and they taste like a candy bar! >>>

3 tips to slay your shyness >>>

Anna is learning a new craft every month – love her idea for crafting with a mentor >>>

Cara just launched the site for her books The Wasted Series >>>

For days when you ate pancakes for breakfast and KFC for dinner and really do not feel like getting off your ass (aka me on Friday) – the 7 minute workout (via Cup of Jo) >>>

I’ve been loving Kristin’s blog – she works in India for a surgery-based NGO that repairs cleft lips and palates free of cost >>>

Office Tour – Prior to Remodeling

I love when people make tour videos of rooms in their homes. I feel like it allows you to get a peek inside their lives and well honestly – I’m just nosey like that! If you are nosey too…take a look at my video of my office. We plan to do some remodeling later this year – custom desks, cabinets, and shelves. But for now this is where I slave away every day!!

SHARE

Favorite Fonts

I have album after album filled with fonts I love, but I just don’t have enough projects to use them all. I thought I’d share my favorites with you and maybe a few of them will get a little internet love :)

Metroscript / Patrick Hand / Baronessa / Sherbet BF / Grand Hotel / Canterbury Sans Light

Thank you for your thoughtful comments on my blogging bandwagon post. I was a little unsure about publishing that, but I can see I’m not the only one wonder why the blogosphere has gotten so bland! And thank you for your support of my ebook – it makes me even more excited to finish it and launch. All you peeps are making me a very happy blogger this week :)

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