Bitter...bittersweet

I quit my job yesterday. I can't believe I'm this sad about it. I hated the long hours. I hated being away from my kids that much. I really didn't like some of the "sharky" personalities on the sales floor. I couldn't stand the drama and pettiness that is inevitable in a big-ticket retail sales environment. And yet...I cried all day yesterday.
I'll spare anyone reading this the sales jargon and boring details involved in my decision to quit. It all came down to the fact that my heart wasn't in it. I love furniture, I love decorating, I love design. I just didn't like the retail side of it. I was always the nerdy one at work who sat at the computer on my down time checking on the new things coming out and old things being axed. I knew our product better than almost anyone there. I just didn't like trying to talk people into buying it! If they didn't love it or need it or want it, I didn't want to make them take it. For that reason, I didn't make the big bucks and it didn't make sense for me to stay there.
Oh man, I was a mess...crying when I was writing goodbye notes to my friends, crying when I cleaned out my locker, sobbing when I told my manager my decision, sobbing as I hugged all my good buddies goodbye. What was hardest was seeing my tough-girl, Stacy, cry. We've been in it together since the first minute of training. I'm going to miss hearing that southern accent every day.
I knew it would be hard to leave that place...and only because it was my second home and my second family. I spent more time with my co-workers than I did with my husband or kids. Sad, I know...that's the life of a salesperson. It's going to be weird for a while, but I'll adjust...

Oh! And if you ever need furniture from Ashley, go see Stacy. She'll take good care of you. Make sure you tell her who sent you.

2008, The Year of Reunions

2008 was a year of reunions for me. Thanks to the advent of various social and blogging websites, I found people I hadn't seen or spoken to in 2 years, 5 years, 10 years and even 15 years... It's been nice to satisfy all my curiosity about what they're doing and who they've become.

I found a lot of high school buddies...most have gotten married and started little families. A few are still kickin' it in their wild and crazy "phase". Hopefully they'll decide to take it easy before they fry their brains. I saw my old next door neighbor (aka "the little brother I never had") get married after completing a study abroad in Italy...now he's a chef. He better come make me some food to pay me back for all those sandwiches I used to make him. I found some kids I went to school with from about 5th to 7th grade. Cool people, crappy school. People can change a lot from age 12 to age 25...then again, some of them still seem the same. I even found a few people I've known since before I can even remember...preschool through 4th grade. That's pretty awesome.

The most incredible reunion of 2008 was finding our family that we didn't even know we had. Mimi, being the tenacious little researcher that she is, found out our mom had a birth sister who she then tracked down near Houston. We ended up contacting them through our cousin's myspace page. We met them all when we flew down to Houston for pur cousin Jon's wedding. Now some people might argue that this wasn't a reunion...but I would argue there couldn't be a better description. Oh, and month or so later they even came up to Salt Lake for Mimi's wedding!

Uncle Steve and his partner, Vincent, came down from Seattle for Mimi's wedding as well. It's been a few years since we've seen them, and every time I'm around Steve I get so inspired to get back into my art. He even helped me with Mimi's wedding cake. It doesn't get better than that-- a famous artist helping you decorate something? RAD. I guess the swirls were inspired by him....he thought so too.

Old friends and family.... and some new family too...2008 was a pretty amazing year.

Ouch.... (updated 1/8/09)

The following blog was written yesterday. It was written before I even felt the pain. Today when I woke up I felt like I had been hit by a truck... I'm sure I'll have loads of fun trying to walk that giant sales floor tomorrow!

As I type this I am hunched over, my hands are resting on my leg, which is awkwardly propped up in front of my keyboard with my other leg stretched out across the top of my desk. Funny mental picture coming through yet? No, this is not my attempt at some new hybrid version of blogging and yoga. This is me after a day of snowboarding...my first in about 3 years, as far as I can recall. My arms were too fatigued and shaky to type without resting on something.
This is all Rick's fault. Thanks for the rockin' Christmas present, babe! It was the first of four one-on-one lessons I'll be taking this month up at Brighton. The weather was perfecto and the snow was so fluffy my instructor, Gina, was inclined to cannon-ball off the lift...but she held back. She was the perfect instructor for me and by the end of the lesson I was cruisin down the hill without falling once! I was so stoked. I had an all day lift pass, but I only managed to take one run by myself before I wimped out and stumbled to my car. All in all, I was still quite proud of myself.
Oh, I almost forgot! I was lucky to get out of that parking lot at all! Some genius directed me where to park my car in the morning when I arrived... and when I came back out to the car I found that he had instructed about five people to block me in. Smart.
Can't wait for next week...but for now I need to go pass out for about 20 minutes before Grey wakes up.

Happy Birthday, Rick!

Happy 30th birthday, baby.
Hahahahahaha
Here's to another 34 years...and more. I love you.

Sweetness

So before Rick and I went out to dinner for his birthday we took some family photos in front of our tree. Unfortunately Ricky was not feeling very social and decided to throw a pretty heavy tantrum right before we started. Stacy snapped a bunch of them and took them home to her lovely photographer man to sort through and he chose these two as the best shots of the night. If only I had been looking in the same direction as the rest of the family! Still cute though.
My hair is loooooooong! Maybe that will change on Saturday...and maybe not. I'm torn.

Now that I've neglected this blog for a year...

Wow. What an interesting and emotional day today.
Let me go back a bit...about 5 weeks ago, when the head of our PR department asked me to head up the "Dear Santa" contest for our market. All I had to go off of was a copy of the script for the television spot and a vague project outline. The idea was that the owner of the company wanted to give away bedroom furniture to 10 kids in our market that wrote letters to us with good grades and/or helped in their communities. My job (up until today) was fairly simple, and didn't require too much of my personal time... aside from spending four hours creating a pretty ridiculous candy-cane striped mailbox receptacle in which we collected the letters, which I was very proud of. (Pictures soon to come)
Today was the big day. My little panel of judges and I sorted through and read EACH and EVERY letter. Of course this became an all day event, as we found it difficult to narrow it down to 10 winners. We laughed, we cried, we even argued a bit. It was incredible how, over the course of about six hours, we became so connected to these kids...and most of them will probably never even realize it. Their stories were varied...some kids were outgoing leaders who had no trouble listing each and every accomplishment they had under their little belts, and some humbly struggled to explain why they needed the furniture and yet managed to keep their heads up through enormous difficulties in their lives. Like I said, we all cheered for them...or cried for them.
In the end we chose our winners, and stumbled back to the private office to contact the winners. We all looked and felt like little kids who just got the tar beaten out of them at a massive playground brawl...battered, bruised and ready for some fun. It was strange how draining that process was. I don't think any of us expected that.
The phone calls were so much fun. Our youngest winner (a six year old boy) made some of the cutest squeals I have ever heard. I can't wait to contact the rest of them tomorrow.
We finished the night with a work Christmas party at a bowling alley...and I have to say that, surprisingly enough, it was the perfect way to chill out and be thankful for the insanely emotional conclusion of our "Dear Santa" contest.
Cheers.