Final Post

Well, I return. But just for one last post...I guess I want to come full circle with this blog.

As you may have figured out, by knowing me or reading this blog, things weren't quite going my way and I felt that I needed to make some very serious changes.

For one, you read about my transition into a house as a short-term alternative for staying in the craptastic place they called an apartment complex that was my nightmare of broken air conditioners, no hot water, incompetent office staff, and asshole neighbors. Am I exaggerating? I don't really think so.

Update on the housing situation is that I lived at the house for about 6 weeks and was able to move into a very lovely apartment that I was hesitant to get attached to at first, but now I call home. I truly love my new apartment and I'm just so glad that I don't have to worry about my living situation on a daily basis anymore.

You may have guessed that this living transition came with much, much more - and you'd be right, a new job. Though I learned a lot of the basics of research and supporting my Planning team, I quickly outgrew that position because Planning is much more about strategy than it is about research. When I asked my manager for more responsibility, I was essentially denied and that's not the kind of environment that I want to be in.

In advertising, networking is everything. And a dear friend Christie that first mentored me at my very first job was able to help me out once again with an important career move. I am now settled into a great agency where I can really use my brain and my talents to move forward. I dropped the crappy Junior title that does nothing but make you feel beneath others and have moved on to kicking some ass! ;)

My new position is a great position for growing and learning about creating strategies for clients. I have already tackled so many interesting challenges and I look forward to more.

So with this huge change is an absolute life change. A second chance at living in Dallas...

Now the only problem is that I'm not a huge fan of Dallas. More than that, I'm really starting to hate it. But what that means for me now is that I will enjoy my apartment and enjoy my job until these things run their course. After that, it is adios Dallas.

I believe I know where my next move will take me, at least city-wise, but it is something that I will take my remaining time in Dallas to look forward to, prepare for, and hopefully ultimately achieve.

Thank you for reading my blog. I highly recommend my recap of the '08 Planning Conference for any of you who have landed here wanting to know more about Account Planning.

I may have another blog floating out there somewhere about my next adventure...

So long!

Too Weird NOT To Share

What A Difference

Here I am, sitting at a Corner Bakery with a pomegranate lemonade, enjoying the free WiFi internet and I am starting to look at things with new eyes.

It will still take some time to be fully satisfied, but I took a very important first step - I have finally moved out of my hell hole apartment!

WOOOHOOOOO!!!!

I cannot believe how much I went through at that place. And you know what, it was truly telling when I had cleared everything out of there (which should feel really weird) and the apartment really didn't feel any different to me. I knew then that the place meant absolutely nothing good to me and it will just be so much better for me to be out of there and not have to feel weighed down by the place that I live.

:)

I can't tell you how relaxed I am right now...

So I still have some things to worry about. For one, where I am now is somewhat temporary. I will be house sitting for a friend while she is trying to sell the house...but we'll just see how everything goes.

The fact is, this feels so much better.

On the road towards happiness and feeling more like myself again! Yay.

Not In A Long While

Wow, how I have let the time pass. For good reason though...I've been thinking about a lot, making a lot of decisions, taking a lot of time to take care of myself.

There are a lot of things that I want to add to this blog very quickly so I want to do a posting of highlights of exciting Plannerly things that I have been able to do in the past few (how long has it been since I last posted?)...months.

For one, I have moderated!! I am a master at the back-end of research - all the setting up, recruiting, and running of groups. And now I have finally conducted the research myself. My first group moderated was for new business for our Seattle office - awesome! I really didn't have time to get nervous about the actual group because I was handling all of the recruiting, coordinating, and setting up on my own. The day of the group I was a little nervous but decided to have fun with it, and I totally did! I also did three interviews that day. Afterwards I felt confident that moderating was something I could do and have a lot of fun with.

And I did! Just last week I moderated my second group. This time with college students which was a lot of fun. This was for my account...

That's right, my account. I have been very active on an account in our agency to the extent that I am really the Planner on it. Now there are a few things about it: 1) it's one of the smallest accounts in the agency, 2) it's led by me because the other planners don't want it or don't have time for it, and 3) it has not always been easy to work on this account. But I am growing and learning and I'm just trying to look at the whole thing as a great educational opportunity for me. I'm working with teams of AS and creative people, I'm talking directly to the client and have presented a few things to them (over the phone and in person), and I have to deal with conflicts and obstacles as they come up. The great thing is that I really feel like I'm getting to a place where I'm more comfortable with my team and that they're coming to me for my advice and direction because I have tried to always be there for them and prove myself.

Oh, so much going on!

And on to life outside of the office...I am finally moving out of my hell hole apartment!! Woohoooo!!! It is long past time to leave this place behind and I move out next week.

Unfortunately, things aren't completely certain right now. I have decided to move into a friend's house as she is trying to sell it and I am trying to save a little money. *I'm 90% sure right now that I will be moving into this house.* I'll help her out and she'll help me out by doing this. But this will be a short-term solution as eventually the house will sell and I will have to be on my way. But this is giving me the opportunity to really get out of a shitty situation while I look for something better.

So as you can see there are a few things on my mind. I have been working a TON and trying to coordinate everything for the move and it has not been easy. Yep, I'm stressing! But I wanted to get back to blogging to see if letting some of it out here would help.

I surely hope to have more good news about work as I just continue to learn and grow!

Hooray for posting after a really long ass time. :)

Kraak & Smaak

Heard this song on the new Rhapsody commercial where the woman dives into different bubbles and hears music...could not get it out of my head.

It's called Squeeze Me by Kraak & Smaak. Cool video too.

Darn Ike

Well, Ike is hitting Dallas now with a pretty steady stream of rain. We seem to have come through the windy phase and I'm glad - no tornadoes for me, please.

I've been following the storm for a few days now and I'm just trying to keep all of my friends in Galveston and Houston in mind. I texted a lot of people today to make sure they were okay and it seems like there's a lot of power outage but overall people are safe.

There's just one friend I haven't heard back from but I'm hoping that she has just turned off her cell phone to conserve battery power - Mary, get back to me when you can.

Another friend's parents' house got hit very badly so I'm hoping to get an update at some point. A tree fell on their house and it flooded - no good.

Apparently the rain completely missed Austin though they needed it, and I really didn't think we were going to get much of anything until it finally started raining. I'm on the west side of Dallas, though, so I imagine I'm getting a lot less of it than some.

All and all, millions of people are without electricity, thousands didn't evacuate from Galveston and are in bad shape, and I'm just trying to make sure all of my friends and family are okay.

Go away Ike!

Heebie Jeebies

Got this kind of gross feeling today at work...let's just say it involved cockroaches - ewww. Oh, and I mean for work purposes. Yeah.