For this Midwestern girl, any weather over 32 degrees feels like summer. The month of January is full of summery warmth thus far because I'm spending the better half of it in San Francisco, CA where the temps are double that threshold.

Let's break down what's happened so far this month:
Miles Driven: 750 | Miles Flown: 4,500 | AirBNBs: 4 | Friends' Couches: 2 | Ubers Taken: 23

what i did

The majority of my travel this month was centered around two speaking engagements I had in San Francisco - the IDCO Branding + Marketing workshop and the Rising Tide Society Leaders' Retreat. At the IDCO workshop, I spoke on the first day about Integrated Marketing for Creative Entrepreneurs and then led a workshop on Identifying A Core Annual Marketing Goal the second day. At the Rising Tide Society Leaders' Retreat, coming up next week, I'll be speaking on Empowering Individuals to Lead from Below and also serving as a panelist during the Diversity + Inclusivity Panel.

Being in San Francisco also allowed me to do a full-day annual planning intensive with two of my clients - The Poppy Group and Amy Nichols Special Events. We're all set to have a blast this Friday hanging out in a HoneyBook huddle room (thanks HoneyBook!) putting together plans to make 2017 the best year yet!

always a mishap

Perhaps the best part about nomad life (or the wildest?) is that travel leads to inevitable mishaps. The first mishap this month happened when I went to check into my first AirBNB in San Francisco. Let's just say no single woman should be staying in a place like the one I encountered - YIKES! A huge shout out to Jana Bishop of TwigyPosts (who was also in town speaking at the IDCO Workshop) for letting me crash at her AirBNB.

The second mishap happened later that same night. For dinner, I ordered what looked and smelled like an amazing poached chicken salad. As it turns out, the poached chicken was actually a bit off and I spent the next couple days wrestling with a bit of food poisoning.

After a crazy wonderful and restful two-night stay at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, I checked into my second AirBNB, only to discover that it had a leak in the roof and so water splashed down onto the kitchen table for much of the day and night. OOPS! (Are we sensing a trend here?)

As if that wasn't adventurous enough, I climbed up the ladder that first night and no sooner was I in my (extremely rickety not-rated-for-adult-weight) top bunk, the ladder fell over. Someone put it back up in the middle of the night and when I finally climbed down the following morning, I discovered that the ladders don't actually attach to the beds at all. WHOOPS.

meeting natalie franke

Natalie and I have been chatting and connecting online for six months now, where we went from strangers to friends united towards a common goal. In the short time I've known Natalie, she's moved cross country and went from the volunteer leader of the Rising Tide Society to a full-fledged HoneyBook employee. In that same time, I've gone from RTS member to RTS Moderator and then again to RTS Creative Council leader. When I walked into HoneyBook this morning all set to do a bit of coworking, Natalie happened to be walking down the hallway towards the entrance. We locked eyes and hugged strong, so ready to connect in person after all this crazy online chatter.