The Secretest of Road Trips...

... and how I became obsessed with Steam Punk.

In 3 short days (world, don't you dare throw some long days at me because I mentioned that the next three will be short and if you give me one more long day, it's quite possible that I'll disown you for the remainder of the days... which will hopefully stretch beyond December 21, but I digress) I'll be shutting down the work computer, disabling work emails on my phone, and heading off on the secretest of road trips with the Sweet Boy. I'd like to think that keeping the road trip location a secret will allow us to actually escape for some much needed rest and relaxation... and perhaps the consumption of a frosty beverage or two... and maybe head to the zoo and go on a picnic. It is a vacation after all.

The hardest part of a super secret road trip is not checking in on Facebook or Foursquare to any of the cool places we're going. If anything, it will allow me to be more in the moment and less on my phone. I will keep up with words with friends, however, a few of you are going down... and you know who you are!

Other than planning the secretest of road trips, I've been falling in love with all things Steampunk. I've known about the genre for the past few years - actually, maybe longer than that. Thanks to Etsy, no pop-culture genre gets away with coasting under the radar. And yes, I called it pop-culture. I'm sorry if any diehard Steampunk junkies disagree, but it's pop-culture, end of discussion.

Since when have I taken such an interest into the world of cosplay? Walton Arts Center is hosting a Steampunk night while we have Circus Oz in house later this month. Being the type A personality that I am, I never do anything half way. If someone is coming to work wearing a brown trench coat and motorcycle goggles for this one day out of the year, you bet your bottom dollar I'm going to make sure I have the same thing PLUS striped bloomers and a way fabulous laser gun set to "stun them with awesome". Sure, it's all cliche - but knowing me, I'll only be interested in it for a few months, so I can get away with cliche.

Then, it's on to something else.

But I promise you this, I'm going to blow you away with the most awesome Steampunk costume to ever set foot inside of the Walton Arts Center lobby.

Just you wait...

just you wait.

How to start at the beginning

I've been having trouble lately. Trouble finding sleep until the wee hours of the morning. Trouble finding time to read a book. Trouble finding some downtime to just unwind and be myself.

I'm also having trouble pinpointing what it is I want to do tomorrow.

It's the most unsettled I've felt in quite some time... actually, it's probably the most unsettled I've ever felt.

A large, very large, part of me is ready to find my next big step in life. I'm 31 and have been itching to move. I want a change in scenery. I want a change in finances. I want a change in what I do 10-12 hours a day. I recently met with someone to talk about this and left the meeting in tears. I was more confused than I was when I went in to talk.

What scared me was how easy it was to talk me out of wanting a change.

What scared me was how obvious it was to me that I have no earthly idea of what I want.

What scared me was how I don't seem to have any true convictions as to what I want to do next.

So I cried.

After gulp crying (think about it... you know the type) to my sister on the phone for longer than I care to admit, she came up with the idea of me writing a personal mission statement. YES, a mission statement, that was what I needed. A self written road map helping me decide which direction to go on almost every life decision. It's really quite brilliant.

It would be even more brilliant if I could get it started. I've read website after website after blog after website explaining to me what it is and how I should go about starting it. In the end, however (or am I still at the beginning) I'm left not knowing how to start the thing.

So maybe that's my problem... it isn't about defining direction or purpose but about figuring out how to get at the beginning of my trail in life. How do I start the course if I'm not sure where the start is? How do I find the beginning to my next story?

I have to answer that before I take my next step.

I owe it to myself.

Things that make you go zzzzzzzzzz

It should be easy to write about my recent trip to New York City. So many things were seen, toured and experienced while there. As with every time I go there, I had the time of my life.

So, why this heavy case of writers block - or rather, writers block when it comes to conference blogging (as you can see by my words, not everything I want to put down in writing is blocked)?

I could blame it on being tired. I'm worn out. I want to talk about the things I learned and the shows I saw but my brain is beyond exhausted when it comes to talking about work. Actually, I will blame it on that.

I've been meeting myself coming for the past 4 weeks... more so than usual. Sure, we all take work home at night (or do you, I do hope I'm not fooling myself) if we're not already hunkered down in the office until the wee hours of the morning. Sure we all work through lunch only to find your half eaten PB&J stuck in a file folder weeks later (don't deny that you smelled it to make sure it was beyond it's prime). Sure we've all been there, but I've been living what seems like 40 hour days since mid-January.

Now wait, don't get on to me for complaining, that is the last thing I'm doing. I have adored my time over the past few weeks. I've volunteered at the Super Bowl which the thought of still blows my mind. I've been planning a major fundraiser that went off without so much as a hiccup this past weekend and raised quite a bit of money in the process. I've also attended a conference smack dab in the middle of the city that never sleeps. All of which have made my awesome list.

They also have made my 3 ways to leave Erin wanting a nap by 11AM list. I'm tired. I can't talk about work because I'm tired. I can't make dinner that doesn't come from a box because I'm tired. I also can't seem to stay away through an episode of Chopped because I'm tired.

Maybe I'll catch up on rest this weekend... but then again, I've not graced the local thrift stores with my presence in a while and the flea market booth doesn't restock itself (and I can't just let my awesome sister sustain it all of the time, I need to put in my work too).

There is always next weekend... after all.

No time to blog, only time to explore

I'm sorry if I've disappointed anyone. I fully intended on blogging each day while at the conference in NYC, but it seems I've been busy.

NYC is truly one of the most inspiring places. There is so much to see... do... and experience, finding time to download the information while here seems like a waste of precious time in the city. I promise a big, huge, fat post upon my return to Arkansas (and after a few days back in the office).

Until then, enjoy one of my favorite late night stops so far...

It Never Sleeps

Once again I find myself in NYC at the beginning of a conference. As I blogged about recently, it was in NYC a little over a year ago when I had a defining "ah ha" moment. So much has happened since that conference... so many personal changes... so much growth... I can only imagine what this week will bring. I look forward to finding the time each night to download my thoughts and do a bit of blogging (which we all know I'm not very good at when at home - I can't be trusted with continuous blogging).

I can't say that today has provided much more than airport time, plane rides and the most amazing corned beef sandwich in the world (thank you Carnegie Deli, I love you so). It also provided a solid 2 hours of awkward laughs. A colleague and I scored a couple of tickets to Book of Mormon and I'll just say that my seeing it will result in spooky Mormon hell dreams tonight. If I was Catholic I'm sure I'd find myself in church tomorrow morning ready to confess my sin...

my sin was that I laughed, hard, at that musical...

hopefully worse things have happened...

like war... and murder... and clubbing sweet baby seals...

yes, all of those are worse than laughing at the topics that were sung to lively tunes tonight. If you're reading this and thinking that surely it wasn't that bad and perhaps I'm just a prude... go do a search for the song Hasa Diga Eabowai and then come join me in church tomorrow.

One last thought before I sign off for the evening. Champagne glass hot tubs are so 1989. Apparently they are a big thing in NY. I've seen 3 commercials for resorts with those gawdy things in the rooms in the past 20 minutes. Oh NY, I'm embarrassed for you... jealous of your corned beef sandwiches but still embarrassed for you. I'm sure I'll turn a blind eye to your champagne glass hot tubs by the end of the week because you'll blow my mind with awesome, but for now... for now this can't be ignored.

To Remember

Taken at my 18th birthday party - this post goes out to the awesome guy to my right, Tyson.

This has been quite the week. Sometimes I hope for a momentous week and sometimes I prefer the weeks stay unremarkable... this week falls within the latter.

On Thursday morning I spent a couple of hours in our bi-weekly Sr. Team meeting at work. It was fairly tame considering the amount of work we've all be doing lately, but a lot of work issues were on my mind. I sped back to my office after the meeting to quickly get started on another project while I had a few minutes at my desk only to see that I had a handful of texts from a couple of friends down in Texas. The last time this happened was in 2002 and it was a handful of messages on my answering machine to announce the death of a close friend (things have changed in the past 10 years). These texts were very similar - Tyson, a close friend of mine from my Jr. High/High School days, passed away the day before.

Whatever work project that I was about to start was quickly forgotten. My heart instantly turned inside out. This isn't news you expect... ever... let alone when you and your friends are barely into their 30s. I had not seen Tyson for quite some time and only kept up with him on Facebook. I mean, at least we posted on each other's walls for birthdays and marraige congrats and when he announced his twins made it safely into the world. I am afraid, as wonderful as Facebook is, that it has lead to a complacent upkeep of old friends.

Tyson had been a close friend. What started out as the most redonk crush ever (like, could not stop thinking about him and wrote his name on every notebook I had) early in Jr. High, turned into a great friendship before 9th grade was over. He came to my birthday parties, my regular parties (parties were popular back in the 90s), he did a mock strip tease at one of the parties when we were 15 on a dare and then brought it back as the main attraction for my 16th birthday complete with costume (don't worry, we were young, my mom, the party supervisor, was modest, she never let it get further than it needed to). We competed together in lip sync competitions in 9th grade and he, along with his best friend, made my biology class both highly entertaining and extremely stressful (just ask me how i feel about having my tennis shoes tied to my desk over and over again and having to look at rubber bands from braces wrapped around your desk neighbor's tongue while they taunt you when you should be learning about frog dissection... okay, I'll tell you, I hated it although my mom said it was flirting... I didn't buy it).

However, when college came, we went our seperate ways. He attended Texas A&M and I went down to UT.

And that was that.

And now he's gone. My heart hurts for his close friends, for his wife, for their tiny new babies. My heart cries for his family, his mom and his brother.

My heart knows how to react, buy my brain isn't sure how to process this. He's the 3rd guy who I was close to in one way or another that I've lost since graduation. First was Chris, then Ben, now Tyson. Does this happen to everyone? Do we all lose good friends this quickly? It seriously has me considering what it would take to pack up and move south to find a house right next to my best friend. Life is so precious. I know this. Sometimes I forget it but I hate how I'm reminded of it.

In conclusion, I didn't decide to post this to make people sad. I did it as a reminder that one moment can change a life.

Please live yours beautifully.

Who do you work like?

I recently saw a status update on Facebook that went something like this:

Act like a lady, think like a man, work like your boss.

While acting like a lady is something I am constantly trying to do (just ask anyone about my high level of modesty and if you aren't my significant other, sibling or close friend, you won't hear off color comments coming out of my mouth). I think you could go as far as to just act appropriately. Chew your food with your mouth closed, put the smart phone down in meetings, and other similar things that keep those around y0u from wishing you had called in sick that day.

Thinking like a man probably won't get me anywhere. I think like me. Thinking like I do has propelled me pretty far down a path I rather like, so there is no way I'm even going to consider changing the way I think. How does a man think anyway? Who wrote that? It's silly.

Now, working like your boss, that's the golden ticket. It's a pretty fair assumption that your boss likes the way they work. They like their output, they like their style of work and they like what they accomplish. While they don't expect everyone to be like they are (at least, we hope they acknowledge that fact that everyone works differently from one another), they might wish that those around them at least kept up with their speed.

I've used my bosses as models, if you will, of how I need to work. My job might be similar to theirs or vastly different depending on the day of the week, but I want the quality of my work to at least be something they don't have to dwell on. If they aren't dwelling on me at the end of the day, then I'm doing something right. If I work for someone who is the most detailed oriented person I know, then I need to be one step ahead of them and have every single thing figured out before they ever have to involve themselves. If they are the best editor/proof reader in the company, I guarantee you that I'll have 4 people check over my work before I ever submit it to them. If they are one to follow up with me on a project a day after it's assigned, I promise you that I'll have my details and plan laid out the night before.

It's how I work and it works very well for me. It isn't the degree pictured above that has me sitting where I am looking down the path I gaze at every day, it's how I work. I also look beyond my boss for examples to model my work style after. Who have I met within the industry that impress me? What can I take away from each of those encounters? What attributes make up the perfect employee? While I'll never be perfect, I will try my hardest to get there.

I think many times people fall back on their bosses as someone up on a pedestal. These bosses work long hours because they are paid more (ask me about how many LONG hours I worked before I was ever a boss). They have been around longer so they are there to check/correct what you do. It shouldn't be that way. Shouldn't you want your boss to see you as capable of doing it on your own or with your peers? Will you be given more assignments and ladder climbing projects if it means they are going to have to spend more time on your other projects?

Probably not.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I challenge all of you to work more like your boss. My goal this week will be pinpointing new ways to challenge myself to be 2 steps ahead of mine. What is your goal? If you're your own boss, who do you look to for work style inspiration?

Now for my disclaimer. As a boss and as someone who has a great boss, I know that that dynamic makes an excellent team. It isn't a hands off relationship. However, the relationship should be about moving forward and creating some amazing projects, not trying to figure out what went wrong.