Yesterday I met some friends for a picnic lunch outside the NC Art Museum.

Rihanna, Courtney, Brianne, Carlee, Nathania and me.

And we had cupcakes!

The Rodin exhibit was great.

The Kiss is one of my favorite sculptures, I wanted to get  a few different angles.

So beautiful.

There was also a really pretty lily pond with sculptures all around it.

Lots of beautiful paintings of course.

Brianne wanted to play Jenga, lol!

We had a great time. Everyone brought goodies and  we ate at a picnic table under a tree, we had cheese and crackers and fruit… and of course dessert.  :)  Thank goodness for the shade, it was so hot! After eating we went to the new building at the NCAM, it was beautiful and now they allow photography of the art.

Hopefully we can meet up like this again on a regular basis, it’s great to get together, eat, and laugh with just us girls.

A lot has happened in the month and half since I last posted, and I’ve been getting used to my new life and to Raleigh.  I started a new job here that unfortunately hasn’t turned out to be as good as it seemed. Thankfully it turned out to be a blessing in disguise since it prompted me to take another big step; to start my own business.

I had been thinking about it for some time now but never really felt brave enough to do it. After discussing it with Tom and praying about it, I decided to take the plunge, I went downtown, registered the business name, paid for my license and I was in business!  I’m now the proud owner of Heartfelt Promotions, a social media marketing and event planning business designed to help local businesses. I use Twitter, Facebook, email, and promotional events to market local businesses, products, and brands.

Now I’m in the process of building a website, getting business cards and networking to meet new clients. I was actually fortunate enough to have 2 clients lined up before I even “officially” started and have been getting more since then. My goal is to get enough clients that I can quit my current job and work on Heartfelt Promotions full time, hopefully that will happen soon.

While this has been the biggest (and most exciting) thing to happen since my move to Raleigh I’ve got other things that I’ve been enjoying too.  I recently got to see a local production of RENT with my new friends from work, and was able to visit the coast with Tom to see our parents for the 4th of July.

We went down to Camp Lejeune to watch fireworks with Mom and Michael, who snapped this pic of us, we had a great time.

My first big business purchase, an iPad! This is the pink (of course!) case I got for it, it also props it up for easy typing and showing presentations.

I also got to see Ingrid Michaelson last month, she was a lot of fun to see live.

So overall things have really been coming together lately; I’ve met people and made friends, and Raleigh is starting to feel like “home”. I find myself using my navigation system less and less as I get more familiar with how to get around.  I’ve been pretty busy getting Heartfelt Promotions started but I still make time to sit on the balcony once in a while and enjoy a cup of coffee. Isabelle usually joins me and “people watches” while I work from my laptop.

So my life is changing again, and I’m very excited/nervous/thrilled/terrified about it. That’s a good thing though, right?

]]> http://www.nicolecarina.com/2010/07/21/its-official-im-an-entrepreneur/feed/ 5 http://www.nicolecarina.com/2010/06/06/my-first-triangle-tweetup/ http://www.nicolecarina.com/2010/06/06/my-first-triangle-tweetup/#comments Sun, 06 Jun 2010 15:20:27 +0000 Nicole http://www.nicolecarina.com/?p=557 This past Thursday T0m came with me to my first Triangle Tweetup, it was held at Bronto Software office. And yes, Bronto like a brontosaurus, they were everywhere! They had inflatable dinosaurs lining the walkways and this giant one by the door.

The night started off with free food and drinks, and a comedian. Then there were some presentations of new twitter apps.

photo by John Rees (@jreesnc)

Here’s Chad (@jazzychad) speaking about Notifo

And Lawrence (@lawpower) speaking about TrioutNC and the new moble site (which works great on my HTC Incredible, yay!)

photo by John Rees (@jreesnc)

I got to meet Wayne (@waynesutton) too.

This guy followed me home…

But Isabelle thought he’d make a nice snack, lol.

Overall a very well put together event. I got to meet a few people and learn a lot from the presentations. I’m already looking forward to the next one.

I picked up a few goodies over the last couple days. Saturday I went to the flea market and got some necklace charms and Tom’s mother bought me a ring. Then Monday I went to Southpoint Mall and found the cutest little bird accessories, a wallet and necklace. I love getting little treasures like these at a bargin.

The other day I took pids out before going out to dinner with Tom and realized I’d locked Isabelle out on the balcony. Thank goodness I saw her there on my way back in.

Tom’s parents came to visit us for the weekend so we decided to eat brunch at the Farmers Market Restaurant today. Michael had eaten there before and recommended it, I’m so glad he did because we really enjoyed it. They’ve got some antique farm equipment and tractors, and murals on the walls. I even got to take a picture of Mr. Taylor by one.

This post is a little belated but I wanted didn’t want to skip it. A couple weeks ago I got to meet up with my friends Kelly and Erin at Southpoint Mall. Kelly also brought her son Nigel along, I couldn’t believe how big he’s gotten since I last saw him.

We had lunch at Cheesecake factory and then did a little shopping. It was so good to have see them again, I’ve been missing my Wilmington friends more than I thought. Hopefully we can get together again soon.

We had a great time, it was so nice to get away and spend the whole day together since I’ve been so busy with work and getting settled into my new life here in Raleigh.

I had forgotten how HUGE the zoo is! It took us 4 hours to go from one end to the other and we still didn’t have time to see everything.

This polar bear was so cute, he looked so sleepy. He kept nodding off watching all the people through the glass.

Tom the buffalo whisperer.

This bear was so funny, he was chilling out near a cave, then decided he was hot and sauntered over to the pond and just plopped down in there. He stayed in this spot for a while cooling off.

Seeing the gorillas was pretty exciting, there were a couple females sitting on a rock near us and then all of a sudden the big male ran over and confronted them for some reason. At first it looked like he was going to run right into glass separating us and their habitat. He was MASSIVE.

The elephants were pretty cute too.

We had a great day, and took some great pictures. Tom’s are really great, hopefully he’ll post some on his blog soon.

]]> http://www.nicolecarina.com/2010/05/24/trip-to-the-zoo/feed/ 0 http://www.nicolecarina.com/2010/05/07/10-years-and-counting/ http://www.nicolecarina.com/2010/05/07/10-years-and-counting/#comments Fri, 07 May 2010 08:27:44 +0000 Nicole http://www.nicolecarina.com/?p=512

On May 5, 2000 Tom and I went on our first date.  We had been friends for a while but weren’t really official till then. It was my college graduation and Tom came with my family to eat afterward the ceremony, then we went to see Gladiator in the movie theater.

We figured this past Wednesday was our unofficial 10 year anniversary so we decided to celebrate.  I had the day off work so we decided to relax and check out a few thrift stores.  We went to dinner at Red Lobster but almost didn’t make it, we’re so used to eating dinner late due to our work schedules that we forgot they stop serving dinner at 10pm and got there a just in time.

So here we are, 10 years later, back together and living in Raleigh. Without writing a book, there are a million reasons that I’m grateful for our relationship and how we’ve grown together and changed each other’s lives for the better since we met. I’m so glad we got to share this time together.

I don’t normally wear anything with polka dots but I do love this dress, it’s cute and has ruffles.  I love ruffles.

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