{"id":6245,"date":"2013-04-08T22:23:45","date_gmt":"2013-04-09T02:23:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/?p=6245"},"modified":"2013-04-08T22:23:45","modified_gmt":"2013-04-09T02:23:45","slug":"postcard-from-the-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/postcard-from-the-field\/","title":{"rendered":"Postcard from the Field"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Recently, I was browsing in some back issues of <em><a href=\"http:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/winning-ways\/\">Winning Ways<\/a><\/em> newsletter and found myself rereading letters I&#8217;d published over the years. I decided to share some of my favorites this month.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0<\/p>\n<p>In January 2000, I left my career as a senior systems analyst to homeschool my son. He has medical needs and is flourishing in our relaxed home environment.<\/p>\n<p>During this process, I started exploring being a self-bosser. I did six months of technical writing on a part-time basis from my home. It sounds ideal and I got paid well, yet I found that my heart wasn&#8217;t in it.<\/p>\n<p>However, that got me on the track of writing. I started writing nonfiction articles for a local newspaper. Then I picked up assignments for another newspaper. I focus on people in my community that have a passion for their businesses or hobbys.<\/p>\n<p>Every time I interview one of these interesting people, I&#8217;m inspired all over again.<\/p>\n<p>Today, I really had a thrill. I had done an article over a year ago about a woman who has opened a boutique every year for three weeks in November. This is her nineteenth year in operation.<\/p>\n<p>She holds her store in an antique barn on her property and it&#8217;s filled with creations from over fifty area artisans, from wood furniture to quilts, holiday decorations and much more.<\/p>\n<p>In trying to work smarter, not harder, I wrote another article about her boutique for a regional magazine, <em>Wisconsin Trails<\/em>. They bought it and her gallery made their &#8220;Top 10 Picks for Holiday Shopping.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I brought the article out to her today and her excitement makes what I do even more worthwhile. As soon as her store opened today, she showed the article to everyone there, remarking, &#8220;We&#8217;re famous!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I often get thank you cards from the people I interview. I have come to realize that what I do is a service. These small business owners get the recognition they deserve and free publicity.<\/p>\n<p>I get paid for my writing, but I get so much more. I get the special honor of telling their story.<\/p>\n<p>Donna Karis, River Falls, WI<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently, I was browsing in some back issues of Winning Ways newsletter and found myself rereading letters I&#8217;d published over the years. I decided to share some of my favorites this month. \u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0\u00b0 In January 2000, I left my career as a senior systems analyst to homeschool my son. He has medical needs and is&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/postcard-from-the-field\/\"class=\"excerpt-read-more btn btn-primary\"  title=\"ReadPostcard from the Field\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1167],"tags":[1279,27,1280],"class_list":["post-6245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catch-the-spirit","tag-becoming-a-self-bosser","tag-growing-a-business","tag-sharing-small-business-stories","jsn-master"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6245"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6251,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6245\/revisions\/6251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}