Exciting News!

So you may have guessed from the title, I have some exciting news to share. Before you get ahead of yourselves no I’m not announcing that I’m pregnant, I won’t know that until next week :P and even when I do find out, unfortunately you won’t be notified until I am at least 12 weeks! Sorry! You will however know if I’m not pregnant as usual. So what’s the big news you say? Well you will have to wait for that, as of course I have to give you the back story first.

Yesterday, being 8dpo (days past ovulation) I was feeling unwell most of the day and just off and then I managed to break down and have a big cry to my very understanding husband. As I blubbered I explained to him that I am sick of waiting to be pregnant. I am sick and tired of constantly thinking of either trying to get pregnant or whether I am pregnant. No matter what I do I cannot stop thinking about it and it is driving me nuts!! Now before you think I need to go into a mental institution, I have an account on babycenter.com.au which is a forum for women who are TTC and we are all the same, constantly thinking about it no matter what. As someone said to me yesterday “Once the baby clock starts ticking it’s hard to turn it off” which is so true. After 20 minutes of my constant tears and wailing “we’re never going to get pregnant” Jamie said “I think you need something to distract yourself because you have too much time on your hands.” which is 100% true. For those of you who don’t know my work situation, to sum it up, I work one day a week where I am the manager of administration and safety for my parents’ company, I also have a contract with the company which provides me with a constant income. Before you think “must be nice to have everything handed to you by your parents” I have worked extremely hard to be where I am today and I started at the bottom like everyone else. I worked for the company for almost 2 and a half years before I was offered a contract, so I think it’s safe to say I earned it. That and if you know my father, he doesn’t just give handouts, and when you are his child as well as his employee, you are expected to work harder than everybody else. Anyway, this means I have roughly 4 days a week spare to do housework and whatever else I feel like doing (not including weekends), which is usually me obsessing over whether this is going to be “our month” or not. Jamie suggested I look into doing family daycare from home, however after looking into this it is near impossible to do it seeing as you need a Diploma in Children Services or something similar to be licenced, that and the fact that we have 2 very energetic staffies may rule us out also.

I had a think about what I would like to do with my life, other than being a mother. I want a career that I enjoy, but that is flexible when I am pregnant/have children. After working mainly independently for the past almost 3 years I don’t really want to work for someone again either. I thought back to something I started when I left school at 16, I had started a course in Beauty Therapy via distance education, however this was 5 years ago and back then the resources available were nothing compared to now. I found it difficult to get through as the workbooks were set for classroom study, for example: form a group and discuss the following and write down your answers etc. and they weren’t really set out for online study, you weren’t given any additional online information or support other than emailing your teacher, who sometimes wouldn’t be able to get back to you for a few days.

This brings me to my exciting news (I can hear you all sighing for relief as you were ready to pour your 3^rd cup of coffee just to get through this last paragraph), after looking online last night, I discovered a course that wasn’t available when I was younger. As soon as I read the subjects and career pathways I knew it was perfect for me. So I sent an enquiry through AIAS (Australian Institute of Applied Science) last night and received a phone call this morning (which I missed) with a message from an extremely enthusiastic Student Enrolment Advisor named Adam saying that he’d love if I called him back and we can discuss whether the course suits me or not and whether it is something I can afford. I finally called Adam back this afternoon and discussed where I am at with my life right now (a discussion which begins with a series of questions they ask everyone, whether you have the time for the course, whether it will lead you to your preferred career, whether you are motivated enough to do online study etc.) and he was extremely excited and said it is really the best time for me to begin study. I know what you’re thinking, “of course he said that, he’s trying to get money out of you” but he honestly was nothing like that, he seems like a very caring person who just happens to be very passionate about his job, something I hope to be with this new career I am embarking on. We then discussed the cost of the course and how long it will take to complete it. The course costs a total of $3300 which includes all materials and workbooks required to complete the course as well as the offer of classes on campus in Brisbane if I choose to attend them (but aren’t a requirement of the course), it also includes an online forum where students studying the same course can chat and help each other out as well as chat with your teachers for support. The set up really has improved drastically since I was a teenager. The course takes roughly 24 weeks studying full time online and 48weeks studying part time online. Now before you think I’m Rockefeller (who can afford $3300 up front?!) I also forgot to mention, they offer an interest free payment plan, where you can decide how many weeks you want the plan to stretch out which obviously alters how much your weekly payments are and it isn’t at all based on your income, so it isn’t classed as “finance”. They don’t ask any questions about your employment or how much you earn, they simply ask if you feel like this is something you can afford. However, there is a catch. You have to pay for your first module in full; the rest is then divided up into however many weeks your payment plan goes for. For me, this worked out to be $900 up front and then $120/week over 20 weeks for the rest of the course. The other thing is you also need to have paid for the next module in full before you can start it, which basically means if you’ve finished your first module and are ready for the next one, you will either need to pay the rest owing on that module or wait until your weekly payments have added up to cover the cost of that module. Anyway I am getting way off track, so after all of that I will FINALLY tell you my exciting news, although I am guessing many of you have already worked out what I am doing and have bailed and aren’t even reading this sentence haha. Alright are you ready?

As of today I am officially going to be a full time student. Today I enrolled in Certificate II in Retail Make-Up and Skin Care. I know you may be thinking “what’s so exciting about that?” I have ALWAYS wanted to be a professional make-up artist that can do makeup for weddings, formals, debutants, photoshoots etc. and once I have completed this course I will be a fully qualified makeup artist equipped to do makeup for all of those types of events. I will also be starting up a YouTube channel in the near future with tutorials on how to do makeup for different occasions as I learn. I should receive my login details tomorrow so I can get started on a bit of reading, and then my makeup and text books should arrive by the end of next week! Yep that’s right it includes makeup! I will need a few models to practice on in the near future too so let me know if you’re interested! Once I am fully qualified I will be starting up my own mobile makeup artist business which should hopefully be up and running before the 2014 formal. One other thing I wanted to mention is something Adam told me today. He said “You should pat yourself on the back. Every year 10% of all people in Australia (that’s about 2million people) look at brochures etc. and enquire into a course to better themselves, out of that 10%, only 1% of people actually make the commitment to improve themselves. You are now in that 1%.” This made me feel incredibly proud of myself as I have to admit, I am part of that 10% almost every year, where I look into courses to improve myself and I never sign up for anything because as my Dad says my motto is “it’s too hard”.

So that’s it. That is all of my exciting news for now. Sorry if it’s not all that exciting to you but I am beyond excited to begin my new career. I should also mention that I will still be keeping my current job and I will study on during the rest of the week.

Thank you for reading and be sure to contact me if you are interested in being a model!

Much love and rainbows,

Kimberly Xoxox