Women I Admire

I decided to do a blog on real women I admire after being amazed by how truly cool my friends are.

My friend Julia was diagnosed with breast cancer a few weeks ago. I admire her positive attitude and amazing sense of humor, her strength and her unique spunk. Instead of moping or asking "why me" she decided to host a big "pre-chemo" party and we all wore hats, scarves, wigs. I love that she wanted to celebrate with all her friends. And I know that she's going to be an amazing survivor role model! I've really admire Julia's strength of character, her authenticity and her great taste in TV shows and love of tivo! I knew we'd be friends when she started talking about her "tv family".

My friend Kelly is fearless - not afraid to pack-up and try the next adventure that life throws at her. I love her outlook on life and her ambition for work and living life to its fullest. I love her contradictions - she's straight type A corporate gal who also has an eastern yoga spiritual side. I admire her dedication to following life's path and her personal mission. She could easily call me tomorrow and say that she's a vice president or that she's in Morocco at a meditation retreat. Neither would be a surprise!

My friend Cindy is a fabulous listener, extremely empathetic, deeply thoughtful and above all wise. I admire her sense of self, ambition, balance, and passion for learning new things. She is an amazing mother, wife, friend. I admire her ability to ask questions, analyze issues, and form an educated opinion. And I love that she has things that she does not do - technology, greeting cards, thank you notes. We can't do it all, but everything she does, she does with 100% dedication. Most of all, I admire how much fun she is to be around. Hard to believe I've known her for over 10 years now cause time just flies!

Other women I admire:
Oprah
Madeleine Albright
Hillary Clinton
Elizabeth Dole
Eleanor Roosevelt

TGIF

• 
  
  It's so nice to be home. This week I did things like:
  
  Go for a walk with Ben after dinner
  Met girlfriends for knitting
  Had lunch with old co-workers and caught up
  Watched Gilmore Girls, Veronica Mars, Greys Anatomy
  Gave a speech at Mesa Community College for Planned Parenthood
  And tonight I have a "pre-chemo" party for a friend who is going to kick breast cancer's ass!
  This weekend I'm going to spend quality time with my TiVo and shopping!

Tour of South Central

Sunday, Feb 11
Flew to Dallas, had dinner with an old co-worker from Acoustic who is now working at a start-up there called QuickFilter. Ed was so fun to work with and I do miss the energy of a start-up, working with such talented people....

Monday, Feb 12
Gave a product training in Dallas to local field sales, applications engineers and reps. This is my favorite part of my job and what I'm really good at. Spend the rest of the day at customer calls with local Texas sales guys. It's freezing in Dallas, who knew it got so cold in Texas? Had dinner at a place called Nate’s where they served crawfish - yuck! Texan men are very courteous and have great manners.

Tuesday, Feb 13
More account calls in Dallas all day, then flew to Austin at night. I could live in Austin. The downtown area is so fun and unique. The culture is fairly liberal (for Texas). Local sales person was a woman (thank god) and she picked me up and we had a nice dinner at French place. Fun to talk with a female engineer and hear her experience in college, design, marketing and sales.

Wednesday, Feb 14
Account calls in Austin started at Dell. (See my previous post about hating technology and you'll know Dell isn't my favorite company right now.) I had to bite my tongue so that I didn't tell them about my laptop issues!! Of course all of our local people had Valentine's dates planned so I had planned on a night at the hotel with knitting and a netflix movie. Luckily, there were a bunch of sales managers in from Cleveland, Chicago, and Milwaukee and they were more than happy to have another join them for tapas, wine, dinner and an Irish pub. I love how businessmen sure do party it up when they are on the road away from their families. It was a late night!

Thursday, Feb 15
Flew to New Orleans early in the morning for customer meetings all day. Busy busy busy. Our hotel was in the French Quarter and guess what weekend it is? Mardi Gras!! So Thursday evening a parade went right by our hotel. The city was CRAZY!! It just feels wrong to be walking by a cop with a beer in your hand while crossing the street. Again it's cold enough to see your breath. Sooo cold. Can't imagine there will be much "flashing" for beads this year! We watched the parade and had dinner with customers and then I dragged my nerdy co-workers to meet up with my friend Ashley from college who lives there (see us in photo above with beads on). It was fun to catch up with her and meet her boyfriend. I even brought home some beads to share with co-workers.

Friday, Feb 16
More customer visits today. Took us into neighborhoods were you really could still see lots of damage from Katrina. It was very sad to think about the people who lost everything. Lots of for-sale signs on homes. Many homes still under construction or just empty lots with a slab. I just finished reading Anderson Cooper's book "Dispatches from the Edge" which puts it into perspective. Then we were trying to drive to the airport and traffic just sucked. Finally we realized we were stuck at an intersection until a parade has passed. Only in New Orleans! And the comedy of travel errors in trying to get to the airport ended when we finally realized we had a map in the glove box. Ahhhh.... Finally got to the airport and made it home at 10pm. So nice to get home to my favorite things - Ben and my own bed.

He's Running!!

See video link above to see Barack Obama's Presidential announcement speech. I was hoping it might be on the Oprah show, but I supposed this is a bit more professional!

To me he represents hope, inclusiveness and potential. I loved him from the first time he spoke at the Democratic Convention in 2004. He moved me to tears. After reading his book "Audacity of Hope" I knew that he had my vote. And I encourage you all to read the book and decide for yourselves.

I leave you with this quote from his speech at the convention:
I believe that we are connected as one people. If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. It's that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper -- that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.... In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation; the belief in things not seen; the belief that there are better days ahead. I believe we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity. I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair. I believe that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us.

Travels, Adventures & Giving Back

I have been travelling a lot for work lately. My travels in January took me to both oceans - the Atlantic & Pacific.

I did a whirlwind tour of Atlanta, Huntsville, Raleigh, Charlotte, and Greenville all in one week. There were lots of "little" planes involved... eek. Of course I managed to catch the sniffles on one of those many trips.

Then I went to Orange County and San Diego. The best part is being able to find a little time to reconnect with old friends. In Atlanta I had dinner with Kristin and her husband - she is a friend from high school that I haven't seen in years. Got to see their amazing home and peak in on their sleeping kids. And in California, I met up with Nicole for dinner. In between my blowing my nose, we had a great visit and caught up on post-married life and recent adventures.

I'm off to Dallas, Austin, and New Orleans in about a week. I'm planning to meet up with an old co-worker in Dallas to do some networking and a friend from college in New Orleans. I'm leaving New Orleans just before Mardis Gras so that should be CRAZY!

I've been voluteering with a group of ladies in a club called Soroptimists here in Chandler. It stands for "the best in women" and we work through service projects to advance human rights and the status of women. We meet weekly for lunch and plan fundraisers to raise moeny for charities that help women.

We sold soda at Chandler's Multicultural Festival in January. The higlight was this amazing African fold band and tribal dancing. See "man dancing on stilts" photo - absolutely amazing.

We also just donated $500 to an organization called Heifer International which donates animals to families internationally who are struggling with poverty and starvation. They have an amazing mission to end world hunger. Check them out at: http://www.heifer.org/

These amazing Soroptimists ladies also have a bookclub, which I attended in January. We discussed My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Piccoult. It was the bookclub I've alway dreamt of. 20 women ranging from 30 to 85 years old. We shared a great dinner in an amazing cozy home, then discussed the book for over 2 hours. And the discussion was moderated by a retired librarian. It was inspirational!!

And to top it all off I had a great evening of red wine, hummus, and my favorite girlfriends this month. Kelly was in town so what better excuse to get together with the girls and compare notes on life, travels, work and fashion!!