A new job, and new beginning.

I promised some exciting news a few weeks back – and I’m sorry that I’ve kept you guys in suspense for such a long time {I’m sure you’re all sitting on the edge of your seats, lol}. But I’m ready to announce it to the world today. Today – I start a brand new job in marketing and social media.

I’d like to take a moment to bask in this moment … ahhhhhh. That feels nice.

I talked a few months back about how going to BlogHer12 was a personal goal of mine. For over a year, I worked my butt off getting this site ‘out there’ in the blogosphere. Sponsors, posts, photos, bloghops, Twitter parties – all of these things I did to promote my site in order to get myself to New York City this past August. Time away from my family, long nights at the computer, tearing my hair out over coding and photo-editing and stats … and it all paid off. But somewhere along the way, something else happened.

Let’s back up for just a second – let’s talk about Tottums and her being a working mom. I went to college in 1999 and came out in 2005 with an Art History degree {I’ll give you a second to do the math on how long it took me to walk away with a BFA}. I came out of college not knowing what the hell I wanted to do with my life career-wise. All I knew is that I wanted to have a family … and that I would probably have to work for a paycheck in order to afford said family.

So for the next seven years, I worked jobs. Jobs that really didn’t have anything to do with my passions or interests in life, other than that they provided me the monetary funds to be able to afford two little boys and one little house. I don’t like to talk about my job on this blog {I try to keep that separate from this site} but I’ve had several jobs, and for the past four years, I’ve been working in auto insurance. ::cringe:: Insurance has been good to me and my family. People will forever be getting in auto accidents … it’s steady job. But obviously, it would not be my first choice for a career path for the next 25 years of my life – but if I didn’t want to work in insurance, what exactly DID I want to do?

In the past year, I figured it out. When I was sitting in sessions at BlogHer, surrounded by other women who shared the same loves as me, I figured it out. These women were making THIS a ‘real’ job. Just like me, they geeked out over social media stats, and online marketing strategies. They write and pour their heart out over really serious things, or really mundane things – and they love it. On the plane ride home from BlogHer, I decided that this was it. THIS was what I wanted to do. And I gave myself permission to take this passion seriously and make this work for me {literally}.

The first thing I did when I got home was update my LinkedIn profile {okay, maybe not the *first* thing, I’m pretty sure I slept for a week}. I changed everything on my profile from ‘insurance’ to ‘social media’ and ‘marketing’ and ‘blogging’.

It felt GOOD.

A month later? I’m starting a new job. I get to go to work every morning and talk about things that sincerely interest me. I get to write marketing content for them, I get to help strategize social media with them, but mostly? I get to go in to a job knowing that this company found ME through LinkedIn, stalked ME on MY site, and after hearing what I had to say about all of the above – decided that I would be an asset to their team, and an asset in helping to market their product.

And I never could have done it without you guys. I would NEVER have kept at it if it weren’t for all of your comments, and emails, and pageviews and shares. You guys helped me achieve this – that for the first time in my LIFE, at the age of 31 years old, I am formally starting a career.

I am so stoked!

So, thank you. Thank you for EVERYTHING.