Monday, April 19, 2010

Fate2010

Anyone who knows me at all, knows that I'm not a religious person in the typical sense. I'm not Christian...I don't "Bible"...but I do believe in fate and signs and alternate meanings in things. I try to read what fate is telling to do and where it wants me to go. Sometimes I'm dead on and other times dead wrong. Let me just share the last few days with you and perhaps you can read into my fate as well.
As I said before, I was invited to my company's All Staff - which I also heard referred to as "Some Staff" (since they cut back on invites due to size of the company - too funny!). Only program managers (PMs) were expected to be invited to the event and I somehow got on the list!!! My PM asked me to help our marketing team put together a portion of their slide show for the All Staff meeting. I created a couple of slides describing how our field staff approaches our events. As terrifying of a thought getting up in front of my entire company and giving a speech is - I knew that if the speech went well it will put me in a better position...more in the forefront of everyone's brain and perhaps open up doors for me with other programs. The speech went great. Although I couldn't tell you what exactly I said and how I said it (I think I blacked out a little bit) I know that people seemed engaged with what I had to say. I was approached by other employees (higher, much higher up employees) thanking me for giving them insight into what our field staff experiences.
Prior to standing up for the events portion of the speech, I was also given the HONOR of being named the Volunteer of the Year and received recognition for all the hard work that Mark, the kids and I have done for our community. In addition to this honor, I was named the Community Service Team leader and am now going to play a greater role in our company's impact on the environment and in all communities that our company has representation. I am extremely excited about this.
However, I felt a little like All Staff was turning into the "Shelby Show" :-) It felt good to be recognized on both a personal and professional level. I feel good...I feel confident...I love my job. I know that some people have found our restructuring challenging - but I understand that with growth like this there is bound to be great changes and being across the country in the field shields me from much of the challenging part of the restructure. I feel like greater things are on my horizon and to quote an email I received, I feel like I "definitely made yourself known this week in Portland."
In addition to all the wonderful strides in the workplace - I was able to meet up with two of my favorite people. My girl who helped my connect with my company in the first place and another girl I went to high school with and haven't seen in 14 years! It was great to spend time in Portland, drinking, fooding, laughing, farmer's marketing, laughing, laughing, laughing...I wish Mark could come out to Portland with me though - just the two of us - so I can expose him to that part of my world.
So after all that...here is where some of the fate part comes in...prior to going out to Portland there was talk about a potential program in upstate NY. Which would be great! But Florida would be better - any where south would be better. So the first conversation I have - a potential new program...in Florida!!! On that same day, the high temperature was the same in Dayton as it was...in Florida (Mark is tracking temps with his class). On that same day, I received my new credit card...the first step in building my credit to potentially buying our farm (...in Florida???).
It is less than 8 weeks until Mark's graduation! Less...than...eight...weeks!
Wheels are turning faster now.
Oh! I forgot!!! I checked the garden after being gone for a handful of days...blueberry and strawberry blossoms galore, green pepper starts, more watermelon and cucumber starts. Oh!!!! BABY!!!! It is looking good out there.

2 comments:

  1. was so good to see you and girl, ain't nothin' wrong with the Shelby Show...they could use a LOT more of it :)

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  2. :-) BTW...Apparently I spoke to soon and had too much faith in the kids in my 'hood. Sometime between 4:30 and 8:00 today, someone pulled out all of our onions and shredded our potato box - whipped our potatoes into another garden etc. Oh well...eventually I will have a garden space that brats can't destroy.

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