Life Update | What I’ve Been Up To Since My Last Blog Post

Dress: Lovers + Friends | Boots: Mango | Earrings: Shein | Jacket: Fashion Nova | Sunnies: Celine | Fendi Bag: Similar

Hello my beautiful friends, it’s been quite a while since I’ve invited you here! Goodness, it’s been 395+ days, to be exact! Welcome back and let me start off by stating – I’ve REALLY missed connecting with you on here! I can’t tell you how many looks I’ve shot and uploaded that I never published on here and/or on Instagram and how many times I started a blog post but just never got around to finishing it. There’s really no excuse other then I’ve been swamped. Swamped? With what, you ask? Glad you asked. This entire blog post is dedicated to keeping it real, catching up and sharing with you what it is I really do and why I disappear for days/weeks at a time. After I finish sharing what I’ve been up to, I encourage you to share, in the comments, what you’ve been up to these past months. I would love to catch up. Okay, I’m going to go ahead and dive right into this life update!

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Dress: Lovers + Friends | Boots: Mango | Earrings: Shein | Jacket: Fashion Nova | Sunnies: Celine | Fendi Bag: Similar

For starters, I want to clarify – I don’t blog full time. I’ve had a couple of friends/followers mention how they thought blogging was my full time gig. Well, no. My life after ThisisBoise.com has been quite busier than expected. If you’re just now joining me in my journey, ThisisBoise.com was a business my husband and I built about 7 years ago and sold almost 2.5 years ago. It was a social media company here in the Treasure Valley, where we promoted all things entertainment through our platforms and website and we also managed social media accounts for local businesses here in the valley. Gosh, at one point we must of had about 20+ employees, which looking back is so CRAZY to think about. When we sold it, I thought I was going to have all this free time and blogging was going to be my thing. Well, it wasn’t. My husband and I are what you call serial entrepreneurs and it didn’t take long for us to get that entrepreneurial itch again.

Before I go into how we satisfied our entrepreneurial itch, I’d like share a little bit more about my life and how it is that we, my family, are able to do the things you see me do, have, and experience on the gram. Since up to this point, I have been quite private and all you’ve really had to go off of is what you’ve seen, which have been my elaborate trips and perfectly curated photos and stories. Please note, it’s never been my intention to promote the idea of a perfect life. I’m naturally somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to projects, which btw is such an annoying trait to personally deal with, so my grid has always been more of a curated vs. a in the moment feed. And in realizing this, it’s become extremely important to me that I debunk any unrealistic notion that I live the perfect life or that such a thing even exists. The last thing I want to do is leave my followers feeling inadequate because of my lack of being able to…ahh keep it real. As J Cole puts it – “No such thing as a life that’s better than yours (Love yourz)“.

So with that being said. INSTAGRAM IS NOT REAL LIFE. THE PERFECT LIFE, BODY, MARRIAGE, FAMILY DOES NOT EXSIST. I don’t live the perfect life of luxury and privilege. On the contrary, I struggle just like everyone else. I, as in individual, am perfectly imperfect. I could write months and months worth of blog posts about my insecurities, daily struggles, motherhood fails, marriage fails, business fails, that leave me feeling absolutely defeated somedays. I’m just horrible at sharing this part of my life.

Jay and I are fortunate enough to be able to do and have everything we have because over the years we’ve taken risks and worked extremely hard for what we have today. We actually haven’t stopped and don’t intend to for the time being. Specifically, my husband works as a finance manager at a car dealership here in the valley and is actually, in the top, if not the #1 finance manager in the northwest. He’s not only my amazing instagram husband, who takes all of my photos, but the rock of this family and the one who’s taught me the art of hustling. Together we’ve started multiple businesses where some have failed miserably and thankfully others have succeeded. Gosh, I can still remember a time before all of this; the days of living check to check, budgeting and sacrificing. Most importantly, never giving up. There are days I sit back and still can’t believe how far we’ve come and how much we’ve achieved together. Our goal is to work hard enough and eventually build a WFA (work from anywhere) business that will allow us the ability to travel with our daughter, move to Puerto Rico, and most importantly allow us the privilege of taking care of our families and teaching our siblings how to create their WFA lifestyle.

Now, back to sharing what it is that I actually do for work. Ahh yes, how did we satisfy “the itch”. I mentioned earlier how our goal is to eventually create a WFA lifestyle and the only way really to do that is by selling  products or services online. So about a year and 9 months ago we started our ecommerce journey, specifically selling on Amazon. It has been 21 months of learning as much as possible, trying to understand Amazon’s complexity, designing our product and then redesigning, waiting for samples from China, white labeling our product, branding our product, preparing for a launch, and finally launching, dealing with unexpected roadblocks, experiencing some successful months and learning how to keep a positive outlook during our not so successful months. Fast forward to today and we feel like we have a good understanding of our Amazon business and it’s pretty much on autopilot. So naturally, given our continuous itch, it’s no surprise we’re working on launching a new facial serum line, right? Ha ha. I can’t wait to share more about the products we sell but that’s a post for another day!

My days are spent fulfilling orders, responding to customers, working on the design of our products, putting out fires, working on graphics and content for our current product and our serum products, as well as, learning about sales funnels, Facebook bots, email marketing, marketing strategies, going to conferences to learn more, etc., you name it! This has been such a different journey compared to the traditional brick and mortar business, I was used to with ThisisBoise.com. As great as it is to be self-employed it requires double the effort, because it is so easy to get distracted and find yourself off track. I’ve really had to focus on managing my time, prioritizing, focusing and staying motivated which is why there are days you don’t hear from me. It’s exhausting at times.

Whew…, so their you have it friends, now you know what my real occupation is, why I sometimes disappear for days at a time and how FAR from perfect I am. This was such a long but much needed catch up for us and I want to continue sharing more of my life and what’s happening in real time and more frequently. Writing this blog post has really made me realize how much I missed it. Although, I promise to keep future posts brief. I have a new and exciting project that I’m going to start working on that I CAN NOT wait to share because it involves my second passion, which is helping others. Before I share anymore, I must put in the work, so stay tuned my friends. Remember, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish if you just put your mind to it and put in the WORK.  “A year from now you will wish you had started today” – Karen Lamb.

Thank you again so much for your time and allowing me the pleasure of sharing my passion for style and fashion. I can’t tell you what a treat it is for me and please let me know if you have any questions about anything I shared here with you. If there’s anything I’ve learned over these last 5 years it’s that I thrive the most when I’m helping others, so please never hesitate to reach out and ask!

XOXO,

Jennifer Puente