I Salute You!

By no means posting this photo am I saying I am a feminist, far from it. Actually, I have always been a guys girl throughout most of my life. However, the older I get the more I realize how important girlfriends are!

As I have begun my healthy lifestyle and started to keep myself motivated, it's the women in my life who make me feel stronger and sexier! To each and everyone of you out there, you know who you are, there have been times in my life I could not have gotten through without you!

So to the girlfriends who walk with you, laugh with you, cry with you, tell you that dress looks amazing on, indulge in ice cream or margaritas, force you to buy a $300 pair of jeans becuase your ass looks great in them, etc. - I salute you!

What's In a New Job?

I started a new job this August at a company called www.SparkPeople.com. SparkPeople equips people with the know-how, motivation, tools and support they need to achieve goals in many areas of their life. The program starts by helping people improve their health and fitness, and use the energy and momentum as a springboard to help them succeed in other areas (family, financial, professional, etc.) and change their life into a long-term healthy adventure.

Needless to say, we focus on staying fit and healthy in ways that are manageable for your entire life. We have a small office in Cincinnati, OH and like to have fun and play around with some new equipment.

The video above cracks me up becuase it pokes a little fun at the crazy antics people go through to stay healthy sometimes.

Tutu

July 22nd would have been my Grandma’s 93rd birthday. The woman I grew up with for 27 years of my life and for the first time in 27 years, I didn’t celebrate a birthday with her having a glass of Kentucky Bourbon and Deviled Ham Spread on Wheat Thins….sounds gross huh? But I guess it is a generational thing, because Deviled Ham was my Dad and Grandma’s favorite and they passed it along to me – the meat that looks like dog food but when mixed with mayonnaise is amazing!!!

Her passing and her birthday jogged a lot of memories about her I felt compelled to write about to express my sorrow. So here it goes, what I loved most about her....

The way she made Bracke’s toast and jelly, how her house smelled when she made fried chicken, being “washed over” by waves in our beach chair on Kiawah Island, everything Kiawah, riding bikes on sea shells in Kiawah, thinking she broke her arm when she fell off her bike, staying up late to watch SNL, her front porch during storms, swimming in the make shift pool in the summers, laughing about nursing home stories, sharing lunch for her first year in St. Margaret Hall every day possible, playing gin, playing rummecube, squeezing into her bed with Brad and me during sleepovers, telling her everything when she was sick, holding her hand before she passed, her blue floral suit she wore every year in Kiawah, going to St.Cecilia festival, taking the bus downtown when we were kids, going to KidsMart to see her at work, her Old Fashions, swimming at her brother Eugene’s pool with their dog Tarzan, her Alicemont house she lived in most of her life, her scent and a ton more.

For those of you who know me, you know this has been a tough year for me. With life and love - death is inevitable, but knowing that our loved ones are in a better place and we are the ones left suffering brings a sense of peace. I’ve had a lot of people ask me how I hold it all together, but I’ve learned that falling apart and losing a sense of who your are happens, but if you let it happen all the time it becomes a habit (a little insight as well from Eat, Love, Pray)– and who wants to be around those people? Finding your own peace and making sense of things takes time, but eventually the hurting goes away and the paing still lingers, but you learn to forge on.

I could go on for days and months and talk about those I’ve lost the past year and some previously, and one blog won’t be enough to talk about these people. But in loving memory of the following people I’m just mentioning their names because they too won’t be and can’t be forgotten.

Richard Jay Uhlmansiek (Nov’99 – my Dad), Jack Kaine (Nov’07 – My Grandpa), Dan Kaine (Aug’07 My Uncle), Peyton Mckenna Asman (Nov’07 – my Cousin’s Baby), John Alexander (’07 – Friend), Kevin McCallum (June’08 – Friend) and of course Henrietta Uhlmansiek (Jul ’08 –Grandma)

I think the quote below sums up most of these people so I wanted to end with this...

“Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels. The round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things just a bit differently. They are not fond of rules, and they fear the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them, because they change things, they push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, I see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who actually do.” John Alexander

Back to Blogging

Ok, so I've been gone for awhile from blogging, it's not like that much has happened since then right? Well sort of...

My friend Sean started logging/blogging his trip to Dublin and I love reading about the crazy shit people do and his thoughts on the worls and how weird things are, so why not provide my insight into things right?

So zero-based, starting from nothing. Look forward to more of my blogs, but in the meantime a list is below on why to read my blog.

1. I am funny
2. My travels only bring weird stories and interesting people
3. You will most likely be featured in a post
4. My look on life is nothing like you would ever imagine
5. You can get to know me without even spending time with me

The Office Dog

Charlie is the office dog. In this video he is telling all of us to get back to work, as a matter of fact work 9-5. If I could have any job at Empower, it would be to be Charlie. He comes into work, everyone rubs his belly, he sleeps in several peoples offices, eats crumbs and yelps. Charlie even goes to Red's games and has an opinion when he is getting on a plane where he wants his final destination to be. That's right, Charlie has human thoughts and secretly relays messages to the appropiate people. Maybe every office has a dog, but our dog is a 8 year old terrier who roams the halls and crop dust evey floor.

The Office Cologne

The office cologne/perfume...every office has those people who wear too much or sometimes too little. Well here at Empower, that person is Andy Wiggers (pictured on the far right in the blue T). I was not going to specifically address people or names in this blog, but Wiggers has eagerly been awaiting this post since the day the competition started. I have even given Wiggers the satisfaction of creating a poll about his scent, so please complete.

The thing about Wiggers scent is that it is totally awesome! I've even heard people say "I get off the elevator and take a sniff and I know Andy is here!" Somedays it can be a lot to handle... like if Andy went out boozing, didn't shower, and had such red eyes he didn't know how many squirts he spritzed on. Those are the days when you are like....geez, did Wiggers bathe in Old Spice or what? But then there are those days when his scent is like a fresh of breath air. We call those days three squirts, not too much but not too little.

Andy would determine his scents to be classified kind of like how you order your wings at BW3's - Spicy, medium, or mild (three squirts). I don't know about you, but I like spicy garlic at BW3's, so I've been pushing Andy to mix some scents, but aparently to have your own cologne made can be quite expensive...but for Wiggers, it would be worth it.

Andy is mysteriuos about the colognes he wears, he doesn't want any of the other men in the office to steal his scent. I only know that Spicy is Dolce & Gabbana....so other Empowerites go ahead and steal his scent. It will be a personal mission to find out the other colognes, but I've also heard that he found a secret stash of his roomates cologne's and we could get as deep as 25 flavors...so this may be a life long mission.

So Andy, if you ever read my blog which I know you will becuase you are obssessed with it... I love your scent, I love when you come to my desk and I can smell you, I love when you wear your Gap pants and you smell spicy, I love sitting at your desk and staring at Roscoe and kicking pizza boxes under your desk, I love the fact that you are a clownbaby2, I really appreciate that you value my opinion on where to take your dates and last but not least I love the way you smell when you first get out of the shower!

Empower Video

This is a video we made at work poking fun of our new offices. Feel free to enjoy and stare at some of my co-workers. That's right, the main dork in the video is Jim Price, VP of Media Innovation...aka...staring out the window!

First Time Blogger

So...we have this contest at work where if you create and manage a blog for awhile you have a chance to win some cash...so I thought...why not blog about work.

Almost once a week someone ask me, what do you do? What's funny is that I really can't say what I do - every day is different. What's even more funny, is that once our company actually gave us a card titled "What I Do". Here the PC answer...

"Advertiser turn to us when they are struggling with questions like, "Am I spending my advertising dollars in the best way? Am I reaching the right people with my advertising? Is my advertising working?"

So there you have it - that's what I do.

But, why do I work here? Well, of course the correct PC answer again would be....it's furthering my career. Of course that's true as well, but I think I'm still finding my way through life and am not 100% sure where my future and career will take me. So, I work here because it's fun and different everyday and I'm learning a lot....but more so, the people I work with.

So, in light of this being a blog originally started because of work I am going to blog about my life at work. The people I encounter, maybe post some photos, and of course my thoughts and stories as well.

As a media maven it is only so fitting to say stay tuned......