This year is rapidly coming to a close and it’s that time when many of us business owners decide to spend some time reflecting on the year past and planning for the future.

This year was my first year in business as a virtual legal assistant and it was a great year in my opinion! I started out last January with a 6 week old baby plus two older boys and the knowledge that things really had to change. I had already been researching virtual assistance for a while and really felt it was the right choice for me.

So I spent the late winter and spring months making plans, starting very slowly to blog and hanging out at a couple of my favourite VA forums (Virtual Assistant Forums and VAnetworking) to learn all I could about starting my business. Thank goodness for all the wonderful virtual assistants on those forums - they really helped me figure out where I wanted to go with my business!

Sometime in the spring I discovered one of my favourite blogs - Home Office Warrior. Grant Griffiths (also of Blog for Profit) has so much great information on his blogs! Lots of info about technology, blogging and networking and running a homoe office (particular emphasis on lawyers since Grant is a lawyer!)

Spring turned into summer and I excitedly went and registered my business name at the local registry office. I found someone to help me customize my site/blog and I designed some business cards. August in particular was a great month - I did my first guest post, found my first client and got quite involved in my favorite networking site - Twitter!

Then it was fall. My darling oldest son went off to grade one, I went for my first getaway weekend since having baby #3 and I got another client! Slow progress in the client department, but I knew that good things were coming!

And now it is winter. Not generally my favorite season and yet, as we move into 2009, I feel a real sense of achievement in this year and so much excitement for the year to come. I’ve gotten one more client recently and hope for many more next year. In the summer of 2009 I’m going to my first blogging conference and next fall my middle child will go off to kindergarten, adding some room in my schedule. I’m going to make a big list of my goals for 2009, but that is another post!

And now, time to go do some more work and then make some Christmas cookies! Take care!