Oh, my, so it´s been two years since I launched my digital publication Viva Fifty! 

It is aimed mainly at women who want to celebrate life at 50+. It was the logical thing for me to do, since I had already crossed the turning 50 line and was, and still am, passionate about showing others that life in your fifties and beyond can be grand.

(c) Viva Fifty Media

I incorporated as Viva Fifty Media LLC a year after I soft-launched the publication, and partnered with my husband, Phillippe Diederich, also a writer.

I was stoked when I realized that my efforts building a business very quickly rendered results beyond my own expectations. In the first year of launching the website, I replaced my income as editor in chief of Mamiverse.com and then some.

The second year, I surpassed it. But more importantly, my family of five has been able to live off of my digital business.

That inspired me to write the book REACH: from single mom on welfare to digital entrepreneur, which is also available en español.

This has led to speaking engagements and opportunities where I share how I made the creative life profitable, after having lost it all during the 2008-09 Great Recession.

So many women ask me via social media and in person at blogging conferences how I manage to be such a prolific writer (I write for NBCnews, AARP, Mom.me and Babycenter regularly in addition to managing Viva Fifty!), how I balance work and life, or what my secret is to staying in shape, that I felt the need to create a space to address all of this.

Viva Fifty! is a toddler, but it can walk, and so I feel like a mom that is ready for giving birth to her next child.

A creative mind is never 100% satisfied. And if you are anything like me, you know that writers come to a point where we need to feel challenged and inspired all over again.

I can´t stay still. Can you? (c) Shutterstock

Also, Viva Fifty! is a magazine with contributors. This blog is – for now, anyway – just me! That’s exactly what I need. A place where I can write from the heart about life as a Latina mom, wife and entrepreneur. I will write in English and Spanish. I will answer the questions you have about anything you feel I could shed light on, I will share my ups and downs, just as I do on Snapchat (find me as LorraineCLadish).

I will try hard not to edit my writing too much – after  a lifetime of making a living with words, it´s often tough to NOT be critical of what I put out there. I want it to be the best it can be.

But I also realize that done is better than perfect, and that if I over-edit my words in blogging, they will lose their authenticity.

Whether you know me in person or not, my purpose with this blog is the same as when I first started blogging 10 years ago, at SuccessDiaries.net and DiarioDelExito.com – to write my  way through life´s challenges and triumphs and hopefully inspire others to realize it can be done.

You CAN make it through a bad day, a bad month, a bad year. And you can celebrate a good day, a good month, a good year.

As far as I´m concerned, every day I wake up in the morning is a good day.

Welcome to this new leg of my journey and I hope you will share yours too!