Swoosh!

It's a very exciting day for the Seilers, because out of 46 people, I tied for 3rd in my company's NCAA bracket pool and won (a little) money!

I like my college sports, but I don't spend a lot of (okay, none) time tracking the teams outside of the Big 12 and Big 10 throughout the basketball season.

And while I don't pick my brackets by their uniform color, I really have very little rhyme or reason for my picks. So it's only fitting and realistic that I would do so well.

And the party continues...

After Saturday night's rendevoux that included Steve, my company had a second and different awards banquet on Tuesday night at Harrah's Casino.

The work fun never ends...and oh do I like my fun.

Because I didn't get enough casino/smoke action on Monday and Tuesday, I hopped on a plane to Vegas the next morning...

Awards Banquet #1

Saturday night (2.21) was my company's annual awards banquet for our professionals. It's not an awards banquet for the home office. Nor was the following awards banquet three days later. So no awards for me...but all fun festivities.

The event was at Union Station, and it was breathtakingly beautiful. I now remember why we got our winter wedding pictures taken there (which I still need to order. It's always gnawing at me). I thought maybe I'd wait until her prices quadruple until I place my order.

Nicole, Keri and me.


Candace, Cathy and me.

The BB girls... Ashley, Keri, Nicole, Cathy, Candace and me.

Working Hard for the Money

This morning about 9a (okay, I realize that means it really is 10a), I came into work.

I work in a 16- story building that includes multiple companies. When I pulled up, there were three cars in the parking lot.

Two of the three cars belonged to people with the last name Book who ironically are wombmates.

My parents either raised their children:

1. with strong work ethics.
2. with procrastination skills that force them to work on Sunday mornings.
3. to have careers where the work load is way more than one person can handle (even if your last name is Book).
4. to have nothing better to do on a Sunday morning.

Depending on the moment, I guess it could be any of the above, but I'm going to go with #3 because none of the other options are acceptable and are completely lame for a Sunday morning.

Talking the Talk and Walking the Walk

Steve is a popular guy. But I'll tell you since the news about the banking side of his company being sold came out and the market in general has happened, this guy is like the star quarterback of the high school team at homecoming. Everyone wants to talk with him.

I listen to him talk about it on the phone, I listen to him talk about it in person, I see him watching and reading about it.

This husband guy of mine is amazing. For almost eight-years I've tried to understand what he does for a living. I'm still not exactly sure but I do know he's an expert in his field. And, wow, when he talks, people listen.

Happy Hump Day

Wednesday after work I coordinated a going away happy hour for Anna who works for me. At the time "works" was correct, but now it's "worked".

So currently I'm a one person department that a year ago was made up of three people. Good times.

The work/home balance has been pretty out of whack lately, but after conducting over 10 first interviews, Friday I'm bringing back two talented people for second interviews so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

We received close to 500 resumes. I like to think it's because these people just had a feeling the job was connected to a really cool boss. But in reality I know the job market is tough and the idea of doing marketing and working in the beauty industry is the thing that sounds really cool. Which it is. But from first hand experience I can say it's much, much cooler with a full team!

HSM

Tuesday night Ann and I enjoyed "an evening under the stars". Because my company is the presenting sponsor of High School Musical, I helped host a best customer dinner outside which amazingly wasn't completely hot and then some great seats for the production.

To say a few kids were there, is an understatement.

I've never felt like such an outsider at an adult venue. I'm confident I was the only person there who had never heard even one of the songs!

Sun, Fun, Water, Shopping & A Conference

My conference and time in Chicago was fabulous!

Maybe it was because the conference was about customer loyalty (and so everyone was about the "experience"), but I learned tons and met so many cool people.

I arrived in Chicago on Wednesday alone and somehow figured out how to get from my hotel to the conference with no directions which alone made the trip a success. I was also quite proud during that initial walk when a random woman asked me how to get to the shopping on Michigan Avenue, and I was able to tell her.

Right away I met a girl who does what I do except for she works for Stride Rite in Boston. We clicked, and she hung out with all of us all three days which was fun. Each night there was an impressive cocktail hour so I met a lot of people who work for retail brands I throughly enjoy which was a cool experience in itself. And, to top it off, it turned out there were a couple other KC people I knew there.

Thursday night a few of us went on a vendor sponsored booze cruise around the city. We weren't so sure what to expect but it was a beautiful night in Chicago and it was a blast! We enjoyed wine, apps and we met some really fun people.

On Friday I pushed my flight back three times and didn't leave until early evening - gotta love Southwest - so I could spend some necessary time shopping. And H&M did not disappoint. Not counting my black flower hair clip purchase, Steve was impressed with all my finds and even suggested some outfits that could go together (which was relatively easy since all of my purchases were various shades of pink with a little black thrown in for good measure).

Chicago!

I'm attempting to fly to Chicago for a marketing conference tomorrow morning. When I last tried to fly to Chicago for a marketing conference in February, it didn't go so well. Ever since that fiasco was over, I think Steve's been more than happy to usher me back off to Chicago (which I don't blame him)!

In case anyone doesn't know this, while Steve loves me a lot, he also loves his alone time a lot.

So while Steve enjoys his down time of not having to take care of me (and me vice versa - right...), I'll be back in Chicago where I can go to my standard restaurant on Rush St. and have my standard pasta and red wine sitting at the bar after, OF COURSE, I finish shopping on Michigan Avenue (H&M is my major stop since we don't have it in KC. I have major expectations of H&M).

I'll be alone until Thursday night when I go on some vendor booze cruise around Chicago with a couple people from my advertising agency. I have a feeling it won't compare to the Cancun booze cruise during spring break where I happened to turn 21, but what does?

Getting back to the core reason of this post...if anyone really wants to drive Steve crazy, just call him a lot over the next few days at night. I'm sure he'll 1) pick up the phone. 2) talk your ear off. Or not.

My First Earth Day

We all know today is Earth Day. I was first involved in Earth Day when I did an internship at Des Moines' local landfill, Metro Waste Authority (MWA) in 1996-1997.

Trash isn't really my thing, but it was the coolest internship, and it was the reason I believe I got an actual marketing job in KC afterwards.

In a nutshell, I spent about 9-months hanging out at the landfill in Mitchellville, the recycling center on Euclid and at the Regional Collection Center for hazardous materials in Bondurant. Every month I'd hang out at the landfill for at least four hours driving around the landfill (I can vouch it's not a clean place, but it really doesn't smell as bad as it should) and interviewing workers for the newsletter. Once my car and me were even in a commercial at the recycling center.

The other side of this internship allowed me to sit in on meetings at the Capitol and at the City Council and do all sorts of marketing/PR/promotional activities around the residential recycling program (which was extremely new). One of my projects was participating in a group of city and state 'people' to plan Earth Day activities for Des Moines.

In 96-97, this wasn't a big deal like it is today. In fact, it was so lame I don't even remember what we ended up doing. I feel like we released balloons, but I'm sure we didn't since that's not friendly to the environment. I'm glad Earth Day is now bigger and better. And I have no doubt in my mind the 2008 MWA intern was much busier with this Earth Day than I was 11 years ago!

Disco Fever

Saturday night was my company's annual awards banquet. Steve's such a low-maintence guy when it comes to these events. It goes without saying, but this is especially true when there is an open bar.

This was my first time wearing my Barbie pink shiny dress from Marshalls. I soon realized it may very well be my last time.

Because when the awards banquet ended around 11 p.m., more than 20 of us headed to the bar down the street from our house to watch our co-worker play in his disco band.

Here is my friend dressed for his "night" job.

And then there was this guy in the crowd. He really was dressed this way just because he wanted to.

I believe soon after this photo, some guy spilled a drink Steve had just bought for one of us. Being the finanical guy that Steve is, he made the guy buy him a new drink.

I proceeded to immediately walk into my drink on the floor and down I went; and there went the dress.

Steve is taking my dress to the dry cleaners, but I have a feeling between laying on the floor of the bar and the smell of the bar, it will never be the same!

Wednesday Nights Have Indeed Changed.

All week I have been at one of our local gambling establishments on-and-off for work due to an annual meeting.

Last night we had the big event. The awards banquet.

My friend and co-worker, for almost seven years, Cathy and me.

I felt like I was at a sorority winter formal without guys (there were only a few men there).

Everyone looked beautiful. Many of the attendees wore extremely fancy dresses, make-up and hair-dos.

We had a Party Pic person taking pictures of everyone. We even had a snazzy, glittery backdrop for group photos.

It was like college all over except that we couldn't really drink since the majority of us had to drive home at 11:30 p.m. and go to work for two more days.

As it neared midnight, and I was driving home in pure isolation after 15-hours of being "on the clock", for some reason it made me realize that during college in the 90's I would most definitely be out at this time.

As we all know, Wednesday night was the start of the weekend in college.

We would go to Tazzles for quarter draws. (I like to secretly believe that the bouncer - who a decade later would become my husband - looked at the driver's license of a certain girl with a rockin' perm and thought, "Someday the girl attached to this frizzy fro will be my wife.")

And then we would walk down to Dean's List or to People's with our mugs for Mug Night until the bars closed at 2 a.m. And sometimes we'd go to after-hours.

As I woke up at 2:20 a.m. last night choking as a result of the second-hand smoke from the casino, and the fact that all of these drinking establishments no longer exist in Ames, it became extremely clear I am SO not in my early 20's in any way, shape or form!