When I Grow Up...

Hi :)

My name is Meagan, but my friends call me Meg (much to my mother's dismay). I am in my mid (to late) 20s and am happily married to my high school sweetheart. And when I say happily married, I mean it. My husband, Colby, is my rock, and he makes me smile and laugh everyday (though, he says I'm usually laughing at him, not with him). We have two dogs who we love to death, and are constantly debating which of the two of us they love more (by the way, the answer is me). We bought our first home together about 3 1/2 years ago, and just recently went in 50/50 with my in-laws on a vacation home at the Jersey shore. Colby works for his parents at their self-owned business, and I work in finance for a large healthcare company. Between work, two dogs and two houses, we find ourselves quite busy these days. In the spare time we do have, we enjoy spending time with our family and friends (most of whom live close by, thankfully! You'll hear more about them in later posts, for sure) and attending various professional sporting events in nearby Philadelphia. In fact, we are season ticket holders for the 76ers and Phillies, and love the time we spend down at the stadiums in south philly.

Now that I have given you a brief background on who I am, you may be asking, so why the blog? Well, as much as I enjoy the challenges and satisfaction I get from my job in corporate finance (not to mention the paycheck), it seems that too often the stressful job demands outweight the joy I get from working there. As I'm sure most of you can relate to, when we are forced to make a decision about a college and a major at 17 years old, we hardly even know who we are, let alone what we want to do for the rest of our lives (at this very moment, I am trying to convey this message to my 16 year old sister... you can be whatever and do whatever you want, so make sure it's something you enjoy!). Growing up I really did always enjoy math in school because it just came easy to me. And, being the overacheiving, competitive person I am (side note: I played sports my whole life... and am some what of a sore loser), I always thought fast-paced corporate America was the place for me. So often now, though, I find myself wishing I was in a different field: teaching, interior design, clothing design, stylist, personal shopper, event planning..... the list could go on, but do you see a trend? Aside from teaching (I substituted while in college, and really love working with kids), the things that I love doing in my spare time are much more toward the creative, and not the mathematical side of me. So, still wondering, what does this have to do with this blog??

This blog is my outlet. My creative outlet for these things that I currently may not be able to pursue full time (hello there again, 2 mortgage payments), but want to explore more. I'm not sure if I will pursue more projects related to home decor or clothing or accessories, only time will tell. I'm interested to see where this journey will take me. It's a hard thing to admit, "maybe what I chose to do for a living really isn't for me"....... but in my mind it is even harder to do something about it and make a change. This is my small step forward toward making that change. My small step to determine what I want to be "when I grow up."

And one last note to this very, very long first blog of mine (can you tell I've had this bottled up for a while?!)... the whole "when I grow up" phrase really came out of numerous discussions I have had on this topic with my amazingly fabulous friend, Lindsay. There have been countless nights when we have called each other after work talking about some of the very things I mention above. We would always joke that we really need to figure out what we want to be when we grow up... but we both knew we were only half joking. So, this first step to figuring that out is in honor of Linds. And if this blog is truly the stepping off point and personal success I hope it will be, Linds and I will probably be business partners of a very successful image consulting firm a few years down the road :)

Stay tuned!