Mom! My dinosaur is sick!

“MOM!  I NEED SOMETHING TO EAT!”

“Hold on a minute, I’ve just got to finish up this email.”

“MOM!  I just stepped in dog poop and it’s on the kitchen floor!”

“Alright.  Take off your shoes and I’ll clean it up after I finish this post.”

“MOM!  I want to play with the dinosaur but he won’t let me!”

“For the love of God.  Stop fighting before you’re both sent to your rooms.  I’m trying to get some work done!”

This is what my day looks like while being a work-at-home mom.  It’s not easy trying to multi-task; taking the kids to playgroups, returning emails requesting meetings, making healthy lunches while trying to do research for the next restaurant review.   It’s also not easy to balance the ever-present mommy guilt.  But, I still wouldn’t have it any other way, even if it would be easier.

I’ve always known that I wanted to stay-at-home with my boys and we’ve done everything possible to keep that our reality.  It was very important to my husband and me that our family had that type of lifestyle.  But, after being a stay-at-home mom for a while, I got the itch to do something more.  I felt a bit lost and needed to do something to find my voice, to regain the person that I was before I had kids.  I’m not the crafty kind of mom who is constantly keeping the kids engaged and I needed to do something that wouldn’t drive me insane.

That’s where writing came in.

I’ve always been a writer.  It’s in my blood.  More specifically, I’ve always been a blogger.   It started with our simple family blog that gained national recognition. Then, I was inspired to create a fitness blog when our family needed to make some money in a crisis.  I learned a lot of valuable lessons when it came to blogging and it all seemed to come naturally.

As sort of a fluke, I started a food blog for Fort Collins.  I saw a need, knew how to make it happen with the years of blogging under my belt and thought it would be more of a creative writing space for me than anything else.  I was wrong, way wrong, but in a good way.  It became a business and soon I was a Professional Blogger, writing Fort Collins’ #1 food blog.

I had deadlines, meetings and massive amounts of emails to return.  I had marketing plans, budgets, and explosive growth to manage.  It was the most fun I’d had in my entire life, even though I often felt like I was just trying to keep my head above water.  Maintaining the balance between mom and professional blogger was challenging.

That’s where Cohere came in.

Through the magic of the online community we have here in Fort Collins, I met Angel during a particularly scandalous time on my blog after writing a less-than-glowing review for a local coffee house.  Word spread quickly about what was going on and our paths crossed on blog comments and email.  I loved what she was doing but since Cohere had daytime hours, I could only lust after the idea of coworking with other Fort Collins freelancers.  While taking the boys to daycare is nice every once and a while, it wasn’t something we wanted to do permanently.

That’s where night coworking came in.

The minute the Night Owl Lite membership was created, I was completely on board.  I felt like it was perfect for me!  I didn’t have to find childcare for my kids and I had a specific amount of time dedicated to my business.  In the few hours I’m there a week, I can accomplish more than I ever imagined.  All while surrounded by great people full of answers, advice and support, to boot!

My membership at Cohere is one of the best memberships I have.  The dedicated time and networking with other online professionals is helping me take my business to the next level.  I couldn’t be more excited about it, even if I’m still cleaning up dog poop that’s tracked throughout the house during the day.