(Source: http://thebtcring.com/)

Hello Steemians, ooh the pressure of an introduction! Let’s start with my name, its Olive and as my username suggests, I am indeed an Irish ladybird, who is now living in the UK. I love this time of year, as it carries with it so much giddy hope and uncertain possibility. I am honestly so excited about Steemit, I love what it stands for and it has come to me just at the right time. 2017 was a rather rubbish year for me, and I really enjoyed sticking my two fingers up at it on new years eve. Having quit my job as a scientist several months ago, I have come to somewhat of a crossroads in my life. I know I need to do something totally different for me and my family, and I feel that Steemit may have a part to play in this.

I am excited about a lot of things in 2018. You see I have just got engaged to my love Julian, on Christmas Eve to be exact. We met on an internet dating website 6 years ago after many many hilariously disastrous dates, and we are now 2 kids older. His proposal wasn’t entirely a surprise, as he had asked me just a month before this on his deathbed. I just thought this was imminent mortality talking and didn’t think any more of it, having more pressing things on my mind at the time, as you can imagine. Now I have always been a bit of a commitment-phobe, and never really saw the need for marriage. This probably has something to do with the Catholic rebel in me. However, when you come face to face with your love slipping away from you, minutes from his death, it kind of kicks any ideal's you may have had deep in the gut. Making me quickly realise there really isn’t anything else I’d rather do than to be with this man for the rest of our lives.

Pollensa, Majorca, 2017

Actually, it was he who introduced me to Steemit. You see, he is an entrepreneur, which is largely the reason he was on his deathbed in the first place. He has had a lot of different businesses in his life, 9 to be exact. Verging from almost successful to not so successful, bless him, but he never gives up and that is why I love him. You see after two heart attacks in November, one minor and one major, he has come to the existential realisation that he needs to retire as soon as possible. Now rather than kicking back, he has decided to start up yet another new business, much to my concern. Believing that his current tech business meracdoone.com won't get him there as quickly as he would like. Without giving too much away at this early stage, his latest venture is a social media platform which intends to incorporate a cryptocurrency.

As such, we suddenly find ourselves in unfamiliar territory trying to get our heads around blockchains, pre ICO’s and ICO’s. So now I am sitting with him at the kitchen table, laptop to laptop, as the kids are mentally playing catch with the dog in the background. We are trying to find a catchy .com URL that hasn’t already been taken, not an easy task.

You see this new business, whateverthehellwecallit.com has to work because our rent is two weeks overdue and in fact, we don’t have a penny to our names. Also realising how very precious life is, we have (perhaps stupidly) decided to get married in Italy with everyone we love there to help us celebrate. Now a wedding in Italy isn’t cheap, especially when you don’t have any money, but we have decided to go for it anyway.

This story is as much Julian’s as it will be mine. This is our story and I want you to come journey with us through our life until, I hope, we get married in Italy in May 2019. Follow us as we circumnavigate the unfamiliar waters of a new cryptocurrency tech business and a wedding. I am sure I will give you a dummies guide on the subject of setting up a cryptocurrency business as it evolves. I also hope to gently bounce you back and forth through the stories of our lives and everything else my mind will wander into really.
Now I’m not even sure how this story will end, I really hope it’s a happy one, but I promise to give you a transparent account as it unfolds. As Julian always says “we have to believe we will make it”.

Now I just have to pluck up the courage to press the post button.