I'm In the Southwest Again

Well I'm back in Az...for good. I have been wanting to move back here for some time now and I couldn't handle the harsh Midwest winters anymore. I was lucky enough to come across an opening with my company here in Arizona so I jumped at the chance. I won't go into much detail on anything else at this time but I'm excited to take on a new chapter in my life and see what the future holds. My blog name will change here soon but I haven't decided what to call it...

Hartford CT Here We Come

So the few of you who actually do read my blog since I've been SO bad at actually posting lately know I got a new job in advertising sales. I'm liking the change but still learning the ropes. I feel like I haven't quite found my niche in comfort. I do however like how everyone has been very understanding of my newness and I feel my co-workers are really there for me. We just did our taxes for 2009 and I'm glad I made the change financially as well. Last year I made less than I did the year before-by more than I was expecting, so I'm glad I got out of my comfort zone and am trying something new and exciting and I hope will be the best for me and Brian.

The weekend before Easter (aka Holy Week) we have a sales conference in Hartford Connecticut. I've never been there before and while we won't have a ton of time to do anything super involving. My colleague and I, who will be traveling from Omaha together, will be getting to CT a day early since the flights were so much cheaper.

Has anyone been there before? Any suggestions as to a nice place to hang the night before?

Been a While and Changes are Here to Stay

Well it's definitely been a while since I've blogged. I've been going through some major changes in my life--Career changes. Mid January I quit my job at the Toyota Scion dealership I've worked at for almost 4 year! I was definitely sad to leave all my co-workers and friends I made over the years but I still feel it was for the best. Everyone was so sweet my last week at the dealership, it definitely made it hard. Here's my "going away" cake courtesy of our service department...apparently there was a problem at the bakery...
she was blond but not after the guys got a hold of her and "dyed" her hair with a magic marker.
They also threw me a nice going away lunch catered by Qdoba! It was so nice.

I didn't waste any time, and started my new position with LPi the following Monday in Minneapolis for training. All of my new colleagues are really nice too. I am one blessed person to have great people to work with yet again!

While inI stopped off at the Mall of America.
The mall wasn't what I was hoping for, but definitely overwhelming. I couldn't believe how many food options there were in one mall.

I did however happen to find the cutest restaurant (not at the mall) called Patrick's Cafe. This place was a treat! I got a chicken salad and this stellar cheesecake for takeout.
It was almost too pretty to eat...but I managed. Look at that yummy surprise in the cheesecake--raspberry filling!

I'm learning a lot at my new job and hope you girls are doing well. I hope to get back to blogging now that I'm home and working. Please pray for my success at my new job in advertising sales...there's a big learning curve and I need it!

Healthy Lunch

Since Fall is here, I really wanted to pick up some canned pumpkin but there wasn't any on the shelves. Apparently there's a nationwide shortage? (You'd think an ex-newsie would be up on that sort of thing), so instead I'll embrace summer a bit longer with beautiful strawberries. They just had to make it into my lunch for my trip tomorrow to our sister dealership where I work half the time.

This is my take on the Bento lunch bandwagon.
What's your favorite lunch?

Working and West Coast Stylin' at Ribfest

I've been working CRAZY lately! Tons of work events. This weekend I've been stationed at the Lincoln Ribfest. It's been really hot here. I am also very bored in the mornings so I tend to play a little too much with my photobooth. Here are a few from this morning.

Fashion Dilemma!

Tomorrow I'm headed to Kansas City for a work meeting! The festivities start off Tuesday night with dinner and bowling, a fun night right? Well, I've got a TON of stuff to do. Numero uno: Outfit for dinner at Chop House and another outfit for bowling!!



Do you girls wear more than one outfit in a night? I'm guessing I'll have to do that.

Grr...Blowing Off Some Steam

Me at the Chicago Auto Show in '07.

Some of you know I work for two Toyota-Scion dealerships managing their Scion departments. For those of you who are not familiar with Scion, here's a little background. Scion is Toyota's youth line. It's designed as an entry vehicle for young Generation Y individuals who Toyota corporation hopes will someday graduate to their parent line of vehicles.


Mid March we were presented with two Scion challenges by our regional office:


1. Come up with a cool grassroots marketing event promoting Scion in the community.
2. Design an accessory mailer promoting accessory sales for customers who already own a Scion.

I caught wind of the winner a little too early--before they had a chance to announce the results. A person at another dealer won BOTH of the challenges! I thought to myself "Okay that hurts, but he must have just brought his A game and blew us all away...". So not the case.

The next day I called my rep to confirm the results were true, and they were. He said the guy won both but he had some "help" and he was just using his "resources". My inquisitive mind asked what exactly does that mean? Long story short He didn't even design the mailer (challenge #2) himself, he had their dealership's marketing guy design it for him! I told my rep I thought since it was a competition, our resources were our minds and the challenge was to inspire the Scion Champions (that's what Toyota Motor Corp. calls our position) at each store to think creatively in promoting the Scion brand. It's the principal matter this guy wins the challenge and doesn't do the work!

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Toyota and the automotive industry. The company is a great company and they are usually very good to us and have the utmost respect for the corporate employees. Toyotas and Scions are the best cars out there and have great reliability. Scions are so unique and fun yet have the quality of Toyota with a more affordable price tag. It's a job I enjoy but it's discouraging when something so injust happens. I don't think I've been this hot about an issue in over a year. Okay I vented...now I can go back to liking my job again. :-)