Forget turning the page, this is a whole new book!

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I turn 35 in less than a week. (Who am I kidding? It's in 48 hours)

In the last 6 months, I have changed. Changed my life.

I lost almost 20% of my body weight as part of #iwillrockthis

I now not only exercise, I do it willingly and even (gasp!) enjoy it sometimes!

I changed careers.

I not only changed careers, I found what is pretty close to my dream job!

I haven't talked a lot about it, because I didn't want to jinx anything, or get myself too excited about it, only to be let down. But this time, I did it.

I applied in April, and spent most of May and June interviewing. I was offered the job on June 14, and started on June 25.

I'm a Social Media / Community Manager, for a product I truly believe in, and I couldn't be happier. You heard about that huge server outage last weekend, right? Well, that took down our company too, and to be totally honest, I was a little excited about. Once I figured out that it wasn't the tech guys playing a prank on the new girl, that is! I love being the voice of a company, seeing our users with questions and being the one who is able to help and answer their concerns. It was trial by fire, and exactly what I was hoping for when I started looking at making social media my career.

But here's the thing: I can trace these changes back to one thing.

I went to Blogher 11. If you're thinking about going, GO! It changed my life. From the people I met at Blogher, we formed a group, the Norcal Lady Bloggers. That group has become my rock, my inspiration, my friends. Last September, just 6 weeks after Blogher, we met for dinner in Sacramento. We each took a turn, going around the table, laying out our “5-year plans” as far as our blogs and related lives, and we all promised to support and encourage one another along the way. In the 9 months since that dinner, Rachel became a sommelier, Nichole and Sherri are writing for a fantastic new site and Kelly is churning out ideas and connections so fast I can hardly keep up! The short of it is, our dreams are coming true. Put it out there, and you just don't know what will come of it.

In the meantime, stay tuned with me, on my latest adventure! (Speaking of birthdays, my blog turns 7 in a couple of weeks… I've got some giveaways to help me celebrate, so make sure you subscribe to my feed, follow me on Twitter or Like me on Facebook to stay in the loop!)