Ever had one of those weeks where everything just seems to be brilliant? It’s rare I know, but the last seven days have been phenomenal.

I didn’t expect it to be particularly great, if I’m being honest. I was still in a bit of a funk after the passing of my little cat – it isn’t the first (nor will it be the last) time that I will have to experience losing a pet, but the house has felt… odd. There’s a Daisy-sized hole in the atmosphere of each room and The Bloke, my remaining cat, Poppy, and I have had to adapt to a slightly different routine now we know longer have to get up at ridiculous o’clock to administer Daisy’s injection (she had Type 1 diabetes).

However, last Sunday prompted a change in my fortunes.

I started by speaking at a workshop, created by ThankBookFor.com, (who I have worked with previously when they interviewed me for a podcast) at a local library. With the theme focusing on building your blog and social media, I was delighted at how many people arrived, including my lovely friend Shelley Wilson who I met in person at the Bloggers Bash earlier in the year. While my nerves meant that my heart was beating out of my chest to begin with, I was able to relax and thoroughly enjoy myself, and I still find it incredible that after all this time of watching people’s eyes glaze over whenever I mention the blog (which I’m sure is every other sentence), I’m now getting the opportunity to talk about it with lovely people who actually want to listen, and I made some new writer acquaintances. Amazing.

After the workshop had finished, Shelley and I met up with The Bloke and had a further catch up at my local pub, where The Bloke asked her loads of questions about her writing experience and her success as an author, which I found fascinating, and then we went through a few Pinterest tips.

Speaking at the ThankBookFor.com event

Me and the lovely Shelley

I also attended the ‘Beauty at the Botanist Event,’ where I got the chance to sample lot of different beauty products from independent and national brands. I had my nails painted with No.7, tried out the body creams from Eness, had a hair colour consult with Roxie from Benjamin Ryan Hair, tested the hand lotion from Naturyl Glow and watched Justyna from my favourite brand, Organique, treat lots of customers to an amazing Organique hand massage, which I have experienced before and absolutely love! I also had several lovely cocktails, created by resident mixologist Alan, including a Brummy Botanical, which contained Langers gin, grapefruit, basil, applejuice and vanilla syrup. Yum.

Clarins

No.7

Eness

Getting my nails done

The lovely Organique ladies

A Brummy Botanical cocktail

Supply work has been minimal at the minute, but I went and did a freelance music workshop at my former school with a truly fantastic group of students, which is always one of the highlights of my week. And then, just a few hours later, I spoke at another workshop, this time with a group of lovely women from the Stiletto Network at the exclusive Colmore Club in Birmingham. Again, once the nerves had settled down I was able to enjoy talking to everyone and I got the chance to not only catch up with people that had attended my previous workshop, but to meet a few new ones in the process. I love doing this sort of thing – I’ve made so many new friends and it has given me a brilliant insight into the different business ideas that so many of them have  – I wish I had their creativity!

The Bloke and I went to see the fireworks at Edgbaston Cricket Ground, and despite the fact that the display was ridiculously overpriced for the quality that we saw, and the fact that it started 40 minutes late, it was nice to get out together and see something that we had talked about doing every year, but not quite got around to it. However, it’s probably not something that we would go to again, at least at this venue.

Trying to keep warm!

ooh!

aaah!

And then…

This is the bit that has made me so-excited-I-could-cry all week…

I have created my first ever course!

It started in the middle of last week with a conversation that I had with another blogger in a Facebook group. The conversation turned to Twitter and using it to bring extra traffic to your blog, during which several other people joined in. This led to me receiving personal messages and emails asking for advice over the next few days. This is not uncommon – I often receive messages from bloggers asking about how to utilise Twitter, and then it hit me:

Why not create a mini-course and make it available to purchase?

So I did, and the Five-Day Mini Starter Kit for Twitter will be available to purchase from tomorrow (Monday 7th November). As it is a mini-course, and my first adventure into this particular field, I am offering the course for the bargain price of $30 until Sunday 20th November (seriously, this is an absolute steal – many courses i have seen are priced at $100+), after which it will go up to $60. It’s the perfect kit for anyone who is looking to set up an effective profile, build up a following, increase referrals, use hashtags and retweet accounts and participate in chats and link-ups.

If you’re interested in purchasing this course, you can be notified when it is made available tomorrow from the Facebook page that I have made specifically for it: http://www.facebook.com/SuzieSpeaksCourses

Again, there’s a lot of excitement going on here about it, and I’m already pleased about the response that I’ve had to it!!!

How about you guys? Tell me something that you’ve been up to this week!

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog, and don’t forget to check out my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks, my Pinterest page http://www.pinterest.com/suzie81speaks and my Instagram page http://www.instagram.com/suzie81speaks.