When I made the decision to break off on my own I had to begin devoting 100% of my time to establishing Papertree Design and thus any efforts I put into Viral Thinking ceased to exist. Since the initial push to establish Papertree I have found myself coming back to Viral Thinking on several occasions trying to decide if I should make a go at it or change directions completely. There it sits and it is time for me to admit that the original project is dead in the water.

Papertree is doing well, I have started this blog and I have a handful of other ventures I am in the process of planning. Time to leave it alone. There are however a good number of what I feel are decent articles on Viral, therefore I have made the decision to slowly start porting them over to this blog in an attempt to save some of the knowledge I have shared in the past.

Over the next several weeks and possibly months you will see a slow migration of some of the articles worth saving. I am hoping to gain more exposure for them here and would love to get your feedback.

Thanks for listening, have a great Thanksgiving Day!

One last addition, with that I will be cleaning up and slightly modifying the theme used on Viral Thinking in order to release it. It is a WordPress theme.

You see I have spent the better part of the last two years working non-stop, I just mentioned the other day that I even managed to squeeze in some work time on Christmas day of all days. Any personal projects have been late night endeavors and while I have released on of them (Charlene theme for WordPress), I haven’t really made anything substantial of it.

Two years of non-stop work coupled with a few recent project related events has left me feeling a bit burnt on the situation. As a matter of fact in the weeks past I have more than once contemplated making a drastic career move.

Having gathered my wits I realized that may not be necessary. Instead I am going to enter a short (possibly extended) period that I have jokingly referred to semi-retirement in which I will try to explore new avenues and opportunities.

I am not, at this point, exactly sure how long this “semi-retirement” will last. I will continue to support my current clients and if a really interesting project comes along I will more than likely jump at the opportunity but for now I will be concentrating elsewhere.

My first focus. I will be spending the better part of at least the first week digging deeper into WordPress. WordPress a platform that I have used almost daily for the better part of the last 4 years is something that interests me greatly. (It does account for about 95% of my client work). Themes, articles, snippets, you name it I will be working on it.

The utimate goal is to begin creating an income that allows me more time to spend with my son, more time to explore a life outside of work and some much needed time to dive into the remodel of an old farm house.

Should be a fun ride!

The first one is a biggie. We have decided to undertake the remodeling of an old farm house that is around 100 yrs old (give or take). Starting small and little by little we are going to make it happen. While I feel that I am pretty handy it’s sure to be a learning experience to say the least. Overall I am super excited about it and look at it as more of a hobby as opposed to hard work. I have always dreamt of doing something like this and I am super excited to get the opportunity.

Since I am going to be undertaking this operation I decided I needed to have a journal of the progress. I also figured it might be pretty cool to make it public so people could kind of peak over my shoulder. (Like I said a learning experience.)

So here it is “Our Weekend Project”, on tumblr of course!

Goal number two: I would love to be involved in some sort of teaching or coaching down the line. I truly enjoy talking to people about what I do or something I am good at. While I am sure that I will have many an opportunity as my son grows older, I have decided to put this one further down the list because I don’t didn’t expect it to happen over night. No sooner said, did I receive an interesting opportunity to participate in Disability Mentoring Day with a few students from my old high school.

While it is more or less a one day opportunity, I look at it as an exciting start. I am so excited to just sit down and listen to what these students have to say. What there dreams are. What they want to learn. I plan to answer any questions I can and hopefully provide them some solid advice. If I can work my way into it being a regular occurrence I will certainly welcome the opportunity.

That’s it for now, but it goes to show you, if you sit down and commit yourself to some goals you can make them happen.