Making Change

This blog is not going to be my magnum opus.

It's creation has not been long-thought-out or well planned, and it's subject matter is still very much abstract and unformed. I can promise you I will try to keep a few key things in mind as I write it, and I hope you find value in the insights and experiences I'm excited to share here. I've been blogging for more than ten years now and my writing has shifted from focusing on myself and my daily woes to turning outward and lamenting the injustices of the world and back again. Through all of it, I have felt that the thing I was least satisfied with was my focus. I seem to have this inability to create content for an audience that it would be relevant to for more than just a passing moment or solitary post. Unfortunately, my personal roller-coaster of life has been full of twists and turns and that didn't lend itself to writing about a straight and narrow path to enlightenment. I'm not sure there even is one.

I will write about myself in ways that are amusing. Hopefully you'll get a few good belly-chuckles out of my ridiculous methodologies and the oddball situations the universe keeps putting me into. We've all had them, but I hope to save mine for posterity.

I will write about social media, content marketing, and internet culture from the perspective of all the different things I have been or currently consider myself to be. This includes, but is not limited to;

• A teenage girl in the midwest, hell-bent on making her own way in the world.
• A single mother starting college in a fading manufacturing town.
• A fast-food shift manager commuting to state college.
• A married mother of two with a bachelor's degree and a full-time career.

My title is "Nickles & Diamonds" because they are kind of at opposite ends of the spectrum of available wealth in the world. Sometimes the pull created by them spinning around me can be extremely disorienting -but it's that centrifugal force that keeps everything balanced. Between the internet troll and the OP, the pain and the beauty, the tyrant and the victim- that is where I find my balance. I'm going to turn this dusty nickel into a diamond someday, and I hope you'll get something out of following along.

Shine on, you crazy diamonds.