Loving What You Do

A friend of mine suggested that I blog about my old Advertising days. Oh, the stories I could tell...

But honestly, it's been a decade since I worked there and I'm not sure I remember any real specific stories. But what I do remember is having a job that I loved. There's a feeling way down deep in my gut that flickers every time I think about it.

I started there right after school. It was the first job posting I read, my first interview, I got the job. It was a great job! I loved it. My goal at that time was not to work in Advertising, no I went to business school, I started as the secretary when I was 21. But Advertising has a way of sucking you into it. It was a great place to work. Creative people are really fun to be around. They usually have really good senses of humor, they are artistic, they were all young and full of ideas and antics. I soon realized that this is where I was destined to be.

The agency was small when I first joined, about 25 people. The owners were great, they treated me like family, my Uncle bosses. I learned so much those first few years, I was like a sponge just sucking up all the information I could get. I learned how to use the stat camera, run films and plates, hell I even learned to use the drill in the print shop. It was a blast. The owners were so great at letting you spread your wings and learn what you wanted. I wasn't an artist, but I learned to do page layouts and keyline and began to really develop my artistic skills. When the advent of the macs came into play I learned to use the graphics programs. At times I wrote and edited copy for brochures and flyers, I got to take part in photoshoots and video shoots. They were really willing to let me try pretty much anything I showed interest in. I couldn't have been any luckier to land a first job like that one.

I will never forget the feeling of really loving my job. Looking forward to going to work every day, not minding if I had to work late, coming in on Sundays...it was all good. I was growing and changing, I was excited and challenged. I felt is if I had the world at my feet and there were endless opportunities in front of me. What a wonderful feeling.

These days I'm not feeling that way too much. I mean my current job is OK, there are parts of it I really like. But I so miss the camaraderie of my advertising friends, the laughs, the excitement. I'm not sure that I will ever find another group like that one. Those first few years we really had a great bunch of people there. The agency grew fast and by the time I left it was up to 65 employees. Some of the dynamics changed, the bosses were spread pretty thin, things were more serious, but I know the heart of the place never changed, their core values are still in tact. I still hold fondly the memories of those creative folks; the bosses who let me spread my wings, those people who molded me and taught me everything I know about Advertising today. I will always hold them in high esteem. And every job I shall ever hold will always be compared to that one.

My Heart is Full

My heart is full today. I had a very over-due and wonderful conversation last night that left me with so many warm feelings, so much hope, so much happiness. My step-daughter, no my daughter, wants to call me Mom. How cool is that.

For a long time I wanted her to feel that way, but never wanted to push it. I never wanted to come between her and her Mother, I just wanted to be a part of her life. She let me know just how much I have meant to her and feels so close that she wants to call me Mom. I am so touched, I am so honored.

Steps are for buildings I guess, I am family now....

My Garden

I spent most of the day in my garden. Such a fulfilling way to spend the morning. When I got out there it was so cool and quiet. The only things that were awake were the birds. Oh, how they serenaded me.


This year for Mother's day my hubby bought me a tiller, no it was a great gift, I really wanted one - I loved it. And I loved it even more that he did the tilling for me. He spent the entire day letting me tell him what I wanted done and doing it without questioning me or arguing with me. It was a dream come true! Now just to clarify, we don't spend our time arguing in the garden. No in fact usually we both have our own agendas. You see we have his and hers gardens. Mine is strictly flowers, his has become what I call, the woodland garden. So we often go our separate ways and work our own areas. We have strict rule that we don't mess with each other's gardens.
I do my thing, he does his.


At one time his was a vegetable garden with these fancy raised beds he built with bendy board and cedar. But after a couple years and a few end-of-the-season sales at the garden center, the once veggie bed had become an oasis for sad, half-dead shrubs. He mixed this fantastic soil. A blend of peat, poop, black dirt, clay and sand with a great drainage field of river stones for a base. The magic soil worked wonders on the pathetic looking shrubs he'd bring home in October. By spring they would be twice their size and flourishing! So, some of the shrubs stayed and some moved around the house, and the addition of a weeping willow near by gave his beds shade and his flair for structure and symmetry gave the beds depth. Thus the name, woodland garden.


I, on the other hand , just want flowers. It's a great blend of perennials and annuals. And this morning I finally got some annuals in. After the tilling we had cleaned out the beds of all the grass and weeds that popped up in spring and mixed in some new compost to give it a boost. My first round of perennials: ajuga, phlox and spurge are done blooming and the second round is coming right along. Only for some reason it's all purple this year. My catmint and salvias are blooming beautifully but I pulled all the annoying spreaders that had been bugging me and now I have a monochrome garden! It's kind of cool though, but I'm in desperate need of pink and yellow. I'm determined not to fatten the bunnies again this year so I'm avoiding my favorite petunias and going for marigolds, zinnias, dianthus and for kicks, a couple spreading geraniums. We'll see how it goes. But the annuals, oh, they are such instant gratification!

Networking

I went to a networking group today. This one was different, this was a creative group. The gal who started it was right, you could feel a different energy in the room, different from other networking groups I've been to. This one was easy, I felt like myself. Like I didn't have to put on a 30 second commercial about myself, but I could actually speak my desires.

This was my first time there, and of course our table had to get up and speak first. I wanted to go last, to see what everyone else said , but I got up, said my name and told them what I do for a living, or what I've been doing for most of my career. By the time everyone else spoke I wished instead of telling them what I do, I could tell them what I desire to do. There's a big difference.

I love creative people, we are just on a whole different plane then non-creative types. As our leader put it, "we have a light behind our eyes that leads us to our passions." I like that concept and it's so true. How many people have you meant that are left-brain, obsessive types that have to cross all their t's and dot their i's just so or they can't sleep. They have a specific goal in mind and most often achieve it. Creative types on the other hand like to look at the possibilities of how else they can make the t or the i look. Perhaps we dot our i's with flowers or hearts. Maybe our t's are swirly or backwards. Ok, I'm not a flowery type person, and I'm not 12, so I don't dot my i's with flowers, my literal i's and t's are normal, but my perspective is different I guess. I look at the possibilities of things in many shades rather then sticking to black and white or right and wrong.

So next week when I go to the meeting I am going to speak my heart, not my resume'. I'm going to mention my love for writing from my heart, my longing for jewelry and interior design, my quest for natural health and spirituality. I want to use this opportunity with this rare bunch of right-brainers to see if any of them can help me find my passions and live the life I've only dreamed I could.

Busy-ness

Why is it that when you decide to start making a change toward something suddenly everything else in life changes too. I mean it's good, don't get me wrong, it's energizing. But suddenly your once peaceful life becomes a hectic array of appointment after appointment.

I'm generally a homebody. I like my house, I like my yard, I like being home and putzing around the house. I have oodles and oodles of projects and hobbies to keep me busy for weeks and weeks. If we were ever snowed in for any length, I'd be totally happy. Leave me a few bottles of Riesling and I'd be even happier. I might go a little stir crazy after a while, but I'd be occupied.

Lately everything is changing. The job world, networking, social media commitments, my body, my mind, you name it it's in flux right now. I like it, I feel kind of buzzed from the energy, but I sort of feel like I'm on a merry-go-round too. Just spinning aimlessly watching things whizz by in a blur.

Networking

I'm on a job hunt. It's not fun. I've never really had to interview for a position in the last 20 years, and I'm kind of freaking out. Everything has changed. Now you can't even get your foot in the door if you don't know someone. And if you've been out of the loop even a little bit, you have a lot to learn. I think I interview well, but just getting an interview these days is difficult. I can't tell you how many resumes I've sent out on these vast job-hunting sites to never hear a word back. I just know my resume' is drifting off in cyber-space somewhere like an abandoned rocket in space.

As a kid, I got pretty much every job I ever applied for. Must be my charming personality that got me this far; but now, things are so different. You have to learn how to socially network in this vast new black hole we call Linked In. Personally I can't imagine how my moment-to-moment thoughts on Twitter are going to get me a job, who really cares after all? Isn't it just another plugged in way to waste time?

And spending an hour or two a day to update my accounts and network some how seems out of reach, I mean if I don't have enough excuses not to devote an hour a day in the gym, what do I use to get out of the social media time commitment? But, I'm learning, I'm trying to reconnect with old colleagues. I had my first re-connection today, and it went pretty well. Fortunately, the gal I hooked up with was a sweetheart and I didn't have to twist her arm too much to agree to meet for coffee. But it was a positive experience, something to keep me going until the next time I get up the guts to ask some one for help.

I've started going to networking groups too. Boy, that sort of freaks you out. You know how it is when you are afraid to get up in front of a class to speak, same thing now, only it's grown up strangers you are meeting and in 30 seconds you have to give your schpeal, impress them and hope that they are willing to take time out of their day to help you. I'm ok with that, I mean I try to do good deeds and help people if I can, I would hope that karma comes back to me and helps me out some day.

But I sort of feel really sorry for well-connected people. They are probably being bombarded by old colleagues and high school friends coming out of the woodwork hoping to hook them up. "Hi Joe, remember me, we were in first grade together, say I'm sort of remotely qualified to work in a business that's twice removed from what you do, so if you don't mind could put in a good word for me and get me an interview??? Poor Joe, he just wants to be left alone and unplug.

As for me, I'm going to keep trying. No one is going to change my course of fate but me, so I have to keep going. I will Facebook, I will Link-in, I will blog, I will network...I will seek out new people from careers far beyond my skill set, to boldly go where no one in my family has ever gone before....

Being a Step Mom

I'm a step-Mom. I love that I am. I was sort of thrust into the role when I was in my mid 20's. I fell in love with a man with two pre-adolescent girls. I loved him, so I would love his girls too. It made sense to me; it felt right. You see I never really pictured myself having babies. I mean, I like babies, I just never saw them in my life. But I did see me having older kids -- going out to lunch, shopping, long talks about life and love, that's what I envisioned. I love the relationship I have with my Mom, especially the adult relationship. Oh sure, all the growing up years are important and all, but I feel like the adult years are far more interesting for both parties. I always wanted to have that.

We had our ups and downs, me and the girls. The first couple years were really fun. I loved staying up late and having girl talk about boys and school and life. We did fun activities and had family dinners and watched movies and stuff. I wasn't a full time Step Mom, I only got the weekends, and we tried to cram so much into those weekends it's a wonder we can even remember any of the details now. They were so open to what I had to say, they asked so many questions and shared so many feelings, it made me feel really special, like I had a little piece of them that no one else had. The teen years were not all that fun though, there were a lot of challenges all parties had to face; there was a lot of hurt that had to be overcome. But we got through it.

My girls are grown and live far away now. I know they have to be free to discover who they are and what they want out of life, but I wish they were closer. Long distance relationships are hard. You get busy in your day to day life and routine, and I don't know about you, but after I leave work for the day, I don't really even think about the phone unless it rings. So I don't call as much as I should, but that doesn't mean I don't think about the girls every day.

I wonder how school is going or how big the baby is getting. I wonder if they are happy and feeling ok. I wonder if they are happy with the choices they've made in life. I wonder if when they are having a bad day do they get a hug only a Mom can give, and I wonder if they think about me as much as I do them. I wonder if they wish they were closer so we could see each other more often like I wish we could. I wonder what it would be like if we had regular Saturday lunch dates like I have with my Mom, and do they even want that from me. I wonder if when I'm old and gray they will be around.

I know I wasn't their birth Mom, but to me they are the only kids I will ever have. And in my heart they are mine. Ok, so I didn't potty train them, but I taught them other things about life and love - at least I hope I did, I hope they take that with them, wherever they are.