Why do I have a party shop? Why do I blog? Why I am on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, PInterest and Google+? Connecting with you in all these different ways? This may be news, but it’s not for the money. It’s to make birthdays easy.

The party biz is not my day job. My day job funds the party biz. I’ve always thought if I shared that this is my second job, you might not take me seriously. That I wouldn’t seem dedicated enough.

But in the past two years of doing this, I’ve learned that I couldn’t get more dedicated. This is my job every night after the kids go to bed, and by every night, I mean seven days a week. I’m a little tired.

Maybe someday planning children’s parties will be a full-time gig. (And boy, it would be so lovely to have more time to devote to all the creativity running around my brain.) Maybe the best part will be not having to ask myself, “What is the most productive way to spend the next three hours, knowing that I can’t possibly get everything done that needs to get done?” Or wait. Maybe that’s a GOOD business question to pose to myself daily. It’s just that I’d like to get to all the other things on my list!

So why did I start this business — and it is a business and not just a very expensive hobby — when I didn’t need to run another business?

Why spend my money on Double the Fun Parties’s website and parties and party plan development and graphic design and advertising and accounting and lawyers and everything else demanded by a business? It’s because of how many friends left my daughters’ birthday parties saying, “I don’t know how you do it. I couldn’t pull this off.”

And I’d stand there and say something polite and think, “But it’s just not that hard…. It’s a lot of WORK, but it’s not HARD.” See, there’s a difference. When you love the work, it’s not hard. You’re willing to put in the hours and the money and get things JUST RIGHT not because you’re a perfectionist, but just because you desire for it to be the best you can make it. The work is FUN. Birthdays should be, you know, FUN. And if it’s fun, it’s really pretty easy. Making … birthdays … easy.

The trick was: how to deconstruct the work for moms who looked at a finished party and felt not so much inspired or engaged but overwhelmed.

Even if they might want to create something homemade and truly about their child and not something off a store shelf … how? They just couldn’t see how all the pieces came together to form a whole party. And that’s the part that came easily to me. That was a genie I could bottle. I could give busy moms, who knew what they wanted, but didn’t know how to get there, a roadmap. A guide. A party plan. Or even a party kit if they wanted extra help. And if they wanted even more hand-holding, I could create something custom.

But the party plan was key, because I don’t have Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, to devote to this business. A party plan can be instantly downloaded. It can be available to you the moment you need it, while I can’t always be right there.

So there are other party plans available in the marketplace. But what I brought that was new and different (at least I think) is that mine are ridiculously thorough. They are pretty and easy to follow, but if you want details, I bring them. And that is all due to my day job. Seventeen years of being compulsively thorough about communication and explaining complex topics in an engaging and easy to understand way (or my client can get sued). Yup, that’ll bring the completeness to the table. So now, I’ve brought that to the party plan.

That’s why I do this. I didn’t need another job.

I just thought, I can help here. I can share what I’ve figured out and what inspires me and prevent yet another birthday in a florescent-lit commercial space.

We can throw birthdays at home, like our parents did. We can make them something our kids will always remember because they got to help in the planning and the designing of the party. We can start planning the next birthday the day after the last one because we love it so darn much.

We can make birthdays fun again, and special. Not over-the-top to impress the other moms — that’s not the point, Today show. We do it (or at least I do) because it lets me connect with my kids. It gives me a creative outlet. It’s something we all look forward to. But mostly, it lets me say to my kids, in a way that is purely visible, “I love you. You are worth this effort. You are special. This is your day, and I’m glad YOU were born.”

That’s why I’m here. If I don’t get a blog post up every day, it’s because my job that pays the mortgage comes first. But when I am here, it’s because this is where my heart is. And I’m glad you’re here, too. (If you’re new, be sure to subscribe and get my FREE eBook: Party Planning Cheat Sheets.)