Café Con Monica

Avoidance Through Organizing

Is that a real thing? Do other people do this?
Over the past few months, I have organized so many unnecessary things like my google photos, my google drive, my closet, my sock drawer.

Why you might ask? Because I don’t want to do other things, why else?

Our wedding planning being over is what kicked it off. The post wedding blues are real. Even though I was so happy to be done planning, I didn’t know what to do with myself.

During the wedding planning I started to really think about whether or not I wanted to change my last name. I felt, not great, about completely changing considering the new last name is very….ahem…not hispanic in anyway. So for many reasons, some sentimental and also just tired of all non-Spanish speakers butchering my last name for my whole life I decided to change my last name from my biological father’s last name to my step dad’s and then hyphenate. So even though paperwork hasn’t been filed yet (waiting for my honeymoon so I don’t have to rush a passport) I am starting to update my last name everywhere. Which led to creating a new email account.

So I created an email address with the new last name, and then got it in my head that it would just make more sense if all my EVERYTHING digital was connected to this new email. So I went into all my various email accounts (ya’ll remember withcurlsandcocktails blog?) and redirected them to the new email. Then I went into my google photos and realized what a hot mess that was. And that set off 3 weeks of organizing photos.

The end result is a beautiful collection of photos that dates back to 2004.

Who knew I had all these pictures?!

I’m all about that nostalgia so while this was a lot of work, it was also so much fun to look back at these pictures while organizing them.

Now that it’s done I want to be better about organizing as I go, which is hard but now that I have all these folders it should be easier to handle. I’m also hoping I’ll find my printed photos at my mom’s house when we visit later this month so I can practice more avoidance by organizing those.

Has this ever happened to you?

My Entrepreneur journey

Becoming an entrepreneur is a path less traveled, but not in my family. Both my biological parents are entrepreneurs, so it’s no wonder that I followed in their footsteps and set out on my own after a decade working in Education.

I was already fully burnt out before 2020 but after the pivot to working at home and then the inevitable scare when it was time to go back and be surrounded but hundreds of children and adults I knew it was probably time. Over that summer I took a course to learn to become a Virtual Assistant. I probably needn’t have spent so much on it because I had been using a lot of the skills already for years. I will say I feel like the course succeeded in encouraging me to believe I could do it, which sometimes is the biggest barrier anyway.

So fast forward to 2023. I’ve been doing this for 3 years now and while I see “Become a VA”, “Work from home and be with your kids” stuff ALL over the internet I feel like they

1) Forget to mention how much work actually goes into making real money, unless it’s side hustle

2) Tell everyone they can be one but not that they need to actually learn the skills or else they won’t make any money.

As someone who has to hire VAs for my team, I can tell you that I see hundreds of applications every time I post a job and 98% of them have no experience, have no idea how to use most of the tech that online businesses use, have actually very limited schedules because they homeschool or have kids at home and want to make $30.00 hour. But If you are selling someone a course on how to become a VA you can’t tell them that it’s not easy.

The hardest part of being a business owner, is that it needs an unwavering commitment and a willingness to embrace uncertainty. You are facing financial risks, so much competition in the form of people willing to do the work for so much cheaper, blurred work-life boundaries, and a lack of a supportive work environment, especially if you never grow into a team.

There is also this disconnect in understanding from friends and family who have never had their own business. Why can’t you just take a vacation? Why are you stressed? Because everything about the business falls into your plate: accounting, marketing, delivery, organization, payroll…everything. Especially in this industry. If you aren’t working, you aren’t getting paid. You don’t get PTO or benefits.

I know this all sounds like I’m complaining and, well, part of me is. I’m exhausted. I’ve worked more than I ever have in my entire adult life. I wake up thinking about work, work from my desk, my phone, and my ipad, I go to bed thinking about work. It’s constant. So it’s a lot.

But I do have moments where I am incredibly grateful for the opportunities that have come my way, the people i’ve worked with, both good and bad, and the flexibility to work from anywhere in the world and the income that has provided so much for my little family.

This week I booked my honeymoon trip. Oh yea, by the way, I got married ya’ll! Anyway, I booked the trip and it’s in a little under 2.5 months away. Part of me over the freaking moon because we are doing it and we can afford this over the top luxurious trip we are taking but the other part? had a mini panic attack when I realized that unless I want to work on my honeymoon I have to close my business “doors” for the first time in 3 years.

Can I do it? I guess we will see.

Guess who’s back…back again!

Through the years I’ve taken short and long breaks from blogging but I just can’t seem to let it go. I love it too much! So I’m back…again!


You may have noticed it looks a little different around here? I loved With Curls & Cocktails but over the past year (looking at you 2020) I had a lot, aka too much time, on my hands to think about the direction I wanted to go with my blog, my IG, my life and so Café Con Monica was born. I want to share a cup of coffee and chat about all my favorite things.

Some of what you can expect going forward…

  • In 2020 I decided to leave the world of Education behind after 11 years and set out on a path to owning my own business. As of 7/28 I am a year in so I want to talk about what that looked like and how it’s completely turned my world upside down (in a good way!)
  • I have drastically slowed down on cocktails and reunited with my love of Coffee and exploring new coffee shops to work from.
  • We got a dog! Her name is Maki and she’s freaking cute ❤️
  • I went through the worst reading slump since my early 20’s in 2020 but I’m slowly making my way back so you can expect lots of book talk.
  • I still love all the food and travel, though I haven’t been anywhere but back home to Chicago since March 2020.

I want to be honest, this new blog format is going to be about what I want to chat about because I often felt pressured to post what sells before. So occasionally I’m going to talk about how body positivity is really hard work and fatphobia is real, how Texas politicians are awful people, how Black Lives DO matter and how people have behaved in disgusting ways during this pandemic. And it’s really ok if that is not for you because there is plenty of internet space to go around.

So I hope you’ll rejoin this journey with me.

Grab a cup & let’s chat!

For every day happenings, don’t forget to check out my Instagram! Or you can follow me on Pinterest or Bloglovin

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