On Being Social Media'd Out + How That Relates to Hot Chocolate

Hi friends. As some of you may or may not have noticed, my posts have been increasingly less frequent. When I realized this, many excuses came to mind like being busy with my new job, having no one to take photos of me, Calgary being too cold and so on. While those things may be true (especially the last one!), it finally dawned on me the REAL reason for my lack of posting. I'm social media'd out! And while I did just make up that term, it really is the best way for me to describe what has happened. I'm not saying this as an excuse or a complaint. In fact, it's really the exact opposite. In my job as a marketing coordinator, a large part of my daily to-do list is doing social media. This varies from long term strategic thinking and planning to day to day posts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and even the odd blog post. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love this about my job but it is now part of my job. I think a large part of me took to social media and this blog as a creative outlet when I wasn't getting that in my daily life. Now I do get it, each and every day and I couldn't be more thrilled. I'm not ready to let go of this wee little blog quite yet but I do have to admit to and be okay with the fact that I won't be posting on it as regularly as I had initially set out to do. In the meantime, if you miss me too much (and I won't hold that against you!), please come visit me at the Triple Flip blog! While I may be writing to tweens, it's still me coming up with the ideas and I bet you'll enjoy a thing or two over there.

Oh yes, why am I posing with hot chocolate you ask? Great question, I would've asked the same thing! The answer, in short, is because that is just how awesome my job is. I get to make delicious hot chocolate recipes, bribe my mom (with hot chocolate, of course) to take photos of me doing it and then call it a blog post. This is my job! This hot chocolate post will be up on the Triple Flip blog on Tuesday, December 3, so take a look if you want to learn how I made them.

j.

Working with Eleven Year Olds

 

plaid shirt & sweater {Old Navy} - jeans {RW&Co} - booties {Steve Madden}

It's been a long while and for that I am sorry! 

Things are off to a smashing start at my new job, I really couldn't be happier. A couple weeks ago, I organized a double photo shoot, which is two girls in the morning and two girls in the afternoon. While this may sound like a piece of cake to you, I can assure you that it's not. I can also assure you that I now know why my coworkers looked at me like I had fallen from the crazy tree when I suggested this plan. Anyways, they let the new girl play crazy (joke was definitely on me...) and I had two sets of eleven year olds come in and model a couple outfits each. Now, I had been around models here and there when I was in NYC but this was just a bit different. First off, these girls weren't models because we use real customers and fans of the brand as our models. Second of all, they were eleven. Each set of girls were best friends, which makes it really fun, but it also makes it challenging. Challenging in the sense that fighting over which washroom to change in and competing for best pose are normal occurrences. If you've spent any time around eleven year old girls, you may have an idea of what this double photo shoot was like. Don't get me wrong, the girls did great and we got a ton of awesome photos. But it was four straight hours of high pitched chatter, references to One Direction, and lots and lots of giggling! Besides needing an endless supply of energy, I did learn a few things throughout the day. First, never give them the choice of what to wear (and if you can tell that one girl didn't love her first outfit, make her second outfit really special). It's also quite important to keep them focused and on track - never let them look at the photos during the shoot and don't be afraid to kick mom out of the room (politely, of course!). Help them let their guards down by letting yours down too - if you want them to be goofy, you better be goofy yourself! And last but certainly not least, brush up on your tween pop culture because once they tell you they don't listen to One Direction, Selena Gomez, Katy Perry or The Biebs, you will have NOTHING. Nada. Nilch.

As crazy as having back to back photo shoots was, they were a ton of fun...so fun that I'm having another one on Friday! (only a single one though....I did learn from my crazy)

j.