New Indeed... :)

Hello!

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It's almost here! Wow, this year has been definitely a foundation laying year for me, and I know I still have some to go, but 2011 is going to be a year of fortification and manifestation of waiting glories. Oh yes. It's 7:52PM right now. I have to go get ready to go to church. That's how I celebrate my new year, praying and praising until it comes and making use of my last few moments in the current year to thank God and speak over my new time ahead. Though it's something I do throughout the year, there's something different about starting a brand new year off with prayer and sincere praise. It--when done genuinely--sets the year off to a grand start. And I am ready. Especially with all I've learned this past year, even up until tonight?!? Oh yeah, I'm ready!

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Let's GO!!

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See you next year, ;)

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O.F.C.J.

Happy Birthday!! ;-D

Hello!

23 has been awesome...so far :P. 22 was great and I love my new age!! Thank you God!!

Off to Atlanta today. Hope I have a good trip and vacay before I return adn start working :). More later!

Later ;P,


O.F.C.J.

Cliff Hangers: A Few Answers Part 2

Hello!

My family has been getting on me about the job search "You need to be more aggressive!", "What are you doing? You sit at home on your butt all day", Blah blah blah. Ugh. And I just felt in my spirit that the whole process didn't need to be that hard. If God wanted to bless me with something, then He would. Whether through guidance in my searching or dropping it in my hand by grace, but He would. I searched and search and searched. I applied for a job at Macy's in D.C. while I was in Atl and got an interview. When I got to D.C. and went for it, it was less than 10 min, extremely un-profesh, and in the end I didn't get it. --this is the interview I alluded to in my post "Stay-tus". But it's OK that I didn't get it, because God had something much bigger in mind :)

2 Fridays ago (17th), I saw a Monster job recommendation in my email inbox. It looked unreal and scammy at first. But I opened it and researched the company then decided to apply. BTW, it's a company that holds special cross-industry advancement forums for Fortune 500 C-level executives (the highest positions in high revenue companies like HP, Wal-mart, Nike-etc.). It's Ok, I don't expect everyone to understand this, since I had to thoroughly explain it to about 4 ppl in my life already. LoL.

30 min. after applying I received a phone call from the company to schedule an interview for the upcoming Monday (20th). I waited, I researched, I went. After the interview, I was scheduled for another interview the next day (Tuesday 21st). I was nervous. I didn't know if I had gotten a call back because I did well, or because I did well but not well enough, so they wanted to be thorough about checking my potential.
Tuesday came and went, and I once again did not know exactly where I stood. I was nervous. Just days before applying and after an argument with my sister, I'd pondered over the email, and how good it would be to have a job so I could provide for myself, and soon get my own place. So, I prayed and prayed, and when night came, I left it to God and sleep took over me.

I woke up on Wednesday morning (the 22nd) and for some reason, until the the early afternoon, didn't notice the missed call on my phone.While anticipating the response, I decided to go to my email and write a "thank you" letter to my interviewers. I was tweaking my letter when I saw that I had a letter in my inbox. My breath skipped a little. I opened a new tab to check it and it was from the first person who had interviewed me, the director. He was saying he had tried to call me that morning but missed me, and asked me to call him back. I quickly looked at my phone and saw that I had a voice mail. While chastising myself for not noticing it, I called my vm and listened in. It said, basically, to call Him. I hung up and dialed the number he noted. When he picked up I anticipated every word he was saying, until I heard him say what I wanted to hear, and he did. I GOT THE JOB!! Thank you lord. Yes, a good salary (!!!) + commission, and a slew of benefits. If God's wants to do something, He'll do it, and it won't take unnecessary stress. 1 email+6 days+1 job offer= testimony.

NOW...for the next question...

"Are there any hopes of her getting her own place while in D.C.?"

What do you think? Well, I'll tell you what I think-- YES! I started apartment searching so quickly I forgot I won't even be leaving for a couple of months since I want to save up before I go. It may or may not be in D.C. directly, probably the surrounding metro area where rent is less expensive. But I AM GETTING MY OWN PLACE!!!! See how dreams come true? Now, I just pray God continues to go with me and guides me as I make all these decisions. I know how hasty I can get sometimes so I'm consciously combating that with scriptures on patience and wisdom, and with prayer and faith. I'll update you all on my apartment search once it starts for real.

NEXT:

• Is D.C. her last stop? Or does God have other plans so far as where she will be settling down? And if so, when will she find out?

As of right now, I'm feeling like God is making this a permanent stop for now, that sounds weird, doesn't it? . I've been thinking of my future and asking, "could I really see myself living here?" Hm, idk. But we'll see as time goes on.

• "And- The Overall Question: What exactly does God have in store for her in His will spiritually and materially; and will she ever reach it all and experience truly overwhelming fullness like carbonated joy?"

For the last 2 cliff hangers, they'll keep hanging until I get the answers myself. Oh...and guess who I spotted, or shall I say, who spotted me while I was here? Hm.... I'll tell later. Until then, the journey adventure continues ;D

Adios ;),

O.F.C.J.

Cliff Hangers: A few Answers.

Helleeew!!

Remember this post I wrote a while back that had all the cliff-hangers? Well, I know

I haven't updated my page in a while with updates on exactly what the events of my life have entailed, but wait no more. It is time.

Let us review, shall? Here is a list of the to-be-continued questions from that post:

• Will she find any career experience and or career opportunities?

• Are there any hopes of her getting her own place while in D.C.?

• Is D.C. her last stop? Or does God have other plans so far as where she will be settling down? And if so, when will she find out?

• And- The Overall Question: What exactly does God have in store for her in His will spiritually and materially; and will she ever reach it all and experience truly overwhelming fullness like carbonated joy?
  

The last post I updated on my journey was about how my sister was agitating me, and I was job searching and aching to move out. Since then, here's what's happened:

I've had a few more less than gracious encounters with her, each one leaving me more frustrated and almost desperately looking for a way out--you should have seen the things I considered. *Shudder*. I've job-searched, career-searched, oh-Lord-please-give-me-a-way-out-from-this-stress searched. I've been up, down, out and about. And I've also been quite blessed :).
Let's start with the first question, shall we?

Thankfully, soon after coming to D.C. I got back into touch with a women's business center that I spoke with while I was back in Atlanta. I've had the opportunity to facilitate & attend a few workshops. I've been networking, and I was also able to meet and speak with the director of the center about my future of helping with them.

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Remember my urge to get into business a while back? Weeellll... I've made a breakthrough that I'm very proud of. And it's not over yet. F.y.i.: my business desire is to be a small-business adviser. A couple of months ago I found out a business owner I knew was looking for a service, specifically, a marketing kit for her business. And guess how I found out? Facebook. Lol. Good stuff. I thought I could do it so I pursued it. Initially I sent her a great sample of a marketing kit, and she was interested. But then because of a few amateur mistakes I lost her interest X( , and in so many words she said --basically--that I needed to get a method to my madness and then my good service would be great, and she was going to find a "more experienced marketing firm" because she was afraid I would take to long to deliver.

You can imagine how I felt. Ughhhh. Like... like such messup!!! BUT----IF there's anything I learned in my Professional Selling course when I was in school, it was overcoming objections. So, I took a couple of nights and days to think and pray on what I should do, and I decided to counter her response with a negotiation proposition. And....a few days later, she responded and agreed to my terms.
I said I would deliver her a custom marketing kit by x amount of days while she continued her search for a "more experience marketing firm" and if she liked it, she'd let me know and would pay the service fee, and if not, then Ok. All of this under no contract. I finished the kit on time and emailed it off. And in a few days I got her response. ...*Sigh*... I GOT IT!! She, and I quote, "LOVE[D] IT, GIRL". LoL. Yes, she added a "girl!!" at the end. That's how happy with it she was. She said she wanted some adjustments made, which is fine, and decided to pay a %50 installment on the fee. I GOT PAID FOR MY FIRST BUSINESS SERVICE!! Yayyy!! The rest is coming after she outlines the adjustments she wants. But I was so excited. I needed that money too. But wait--there's more! Since her company concentrates on marketing consulting, and she has clients that could use my service, she's considering using my service for her clients! I'd be a contractor for her/her clients! We'll see how this goes ;)

So, that answers the first part of question one. "Will she find any career experience..." Yes, I did :).

For the rest of that question, Will she find any career experience and or career opportunities?... See Part two of this post ;)

Toodles!



O.F.C.J.

Surprise!!

Hello.

Well, I am done. Finally. I didn't take that long really. But I put it off for a while so I'm very happy to say I have completed it. Of course if I feel the need to tweak in the future, I will, but I am done for now. Yay!! I like it. It's new, it's fresh, it's original. I made the girl in the background by finding various images on the web that agreed with my vision, cut body parts, and parting them together , and editing (lots of it....)in Paint and PowerPoint. I am satisfied with my result. You wouldn't believe the amount of effort put into it, and so many different images of different people. This one woman is made up of images of Caucasian, African American, and Asian women...but you would never know cause after I spliced and joined them, I painted over it all so she would look as close to my skin color as possible :). This chica in the background is basically a representation of me, and the ambience I want to embody and exude--think of the name of the blog ;). Maybe, just maybe, I will eventually put up photos of the process of her making. Actually--I will put them up with this post. Along with a before photo of the blog.

The process of created the background, particularly the woman in the background, was very extensive, but I will narrow it down to a few steps.

This is a VERRYYYY rough digital scratch of the vision I had in my head, not including the girl's background setting.

Yes....laugh if you will. Lol. I envisioned her with some time of white skirt and sitting on a chair in a room with flowing white curtains in the background. Head thrown back, letting out a laugh of relaxation and refreshing freedom. Relaxed, refreshed, free, exhilarated and serene.
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These are the images of the women whose parts I used to create the image.

There's one more lady, but I don't feel like searching for her pic again. She is the one I got the calves from.

Now, here is an abridged--severely abridged--version of the process I used to bring it all together, with help from Paint and PowerPoint. Pay attention to see if you can spot who I used for what.

Painted a skirt on my original vision 1st then added a leg and an oddly placed foot.


Hair: I eye dropped the color from the fro and used it to paint the hair. Notice the erasing and painting of the pumps to form feet shapes, and the progressive painting of the dress and legs and shaping and restructuring of the body (making her lean back in stead of sitting straight up).

How did I get her in a chair? Well, first I found a chair that was reclined, then placed her in it. But to make it look like she was sitting in it and not on top of it, I duplicated the exposed arm of the chair and placed it in from of her to give the image depth.



From picture 9 to 10, can you spot the difference? The edit that I made was in the the right arm. I painted over the hand on the elbow. See the last woman in the list to see where I got the arms from.
Picture 11, I painted her skin to make it a shade darker. I repeated this until I came to picture 12.
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THE ROOM

Here is a short snippet of how I got the amber curtains in the room in the background. the rest of the room is one whole picture. I found another picture I liked, cropped it down to the curtains, faded it like the rest of the room, and added it to look like it was a part of the room.

Here is the picture I cropped.

I cropped it to the far left, and used that part of the curtain.

Here is the original photo of main room.

Oh yeah, I added some bubbles and a bubble wand to put in her hand.

Then I faded it out

Voila ;)

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Here is my blog from before, as most of you are familiar with, and the after is right in front of you :)

I love my beginnings. And I love my advancement even more. Yay!!

Oh, and there are more updates to come on my time in D.C. so far...some things have happened. I 'll say nothing more until I post. ;)

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Toodles! 'Til later,

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O.F.C.J.

WARNING!

Hello...


The blog is still under re-design. ...Changes not yet final. Tweaks still to be done and small design decisions to be made. Though I am indeed feeling this new look. Can't wait to complete it. I'm thinking of fading in the girly in the background, so she pops out less, and making some other changes to my new design. Hm decisions decisions. Yay! for finally getting a new do. It was about time....


Later,


O.F.C.J.