My Favs, Ramblings

Just call me Miss June

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One of the great things about being in public accounting is that we are encouraged to network our little hiney’s off.  When I came back to the Akron area, I started looking for a networking group to join.  At first I attended the standard accounting networking groups, but I was feeling less than motivated.  Oftentimes at these meetings you will exchange business cards with the attendees at your table and do a 30-second commercial on who you are and what you do in your career.  At one of my first meetings, I did just this and as I turned to hand my business card to the old man in the blue suit sitting next to me he held up his hand to stop me and said “No thanks.”

Are you kidding me? 

Needless to say, that was the LAST time I ever attended a meeting for that group.  A couple months later, I stumbled on the Knowledgeable Network of Women (KNOW), which is a program of the Greater Akron Chamber.  As I walked into the lobby for my first KNOW meeting I was immediately taken aback by the energy that exuberated from the room.  Tons of women from all types of career backgrounds crammed into a lobby talking, laughing, and getting to know each other.  THIS was the type of group I needed.  No old men in blue suits to refuse my business cards, but rather a group of 300+ women all genuinely interested in getting to know you and helping you to achieve success in any way they could.

Women helping women.  It doesn’t get any more awesome than that!

Over the years, I have become more and more involved in the KNOW in Akron, and I am very excited to say that I will serve as the chair of the group for 2011!  As such, I was included in the 2011 calendar (on the centerfold, no less).

Just call me Miss June 😀 

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My Favs, Ramblings

Sometimes, it’s not about the food

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Sometimes, it’s not about the food.  Sometimes it’s about life!

I am extremely lucky to have an amazing family, and an amazing mom in particular.  My mom is good at LOTS of things, but she is specifically good with words.  Whether long or short, her words always touch you.  Given that I have a lot of words on this blog 😉 I wanted to share some words from a very wise woman with you all 🙂

Hey Mare–

I had a horrible day at work on Friday–tears, panic attacks, heart palpitations, you name it. My immediate supervisor gave me a list of things to accomplish that would require a rare and amazing feat of endurance. I only got through 85% of the list by quitting time. I tried to talk to my boss about how unrealistic it was to assign so much in one day and he said that it had to be done and that we’d all better get used to it.  Even after I got home, I felt traumatized by the day and couldn’t stop crying. But this morning, it made me think of you and how stressed you get about doing things right, doing them well, and doing them timely.  HERE’S WHAT I THINK:

1. For some reason, we both feel the need to push ourselves too hard sometimes–either because others expect it of us or we expect it of ourselves.

2. We are largely the source of the suffering we experience in those situations.

3. We would suffer less if we could acknowledge that we expect too much of ourselves, that we force ourselves to rise to unreasonable demands–those placed on us and, more often, those we place on ourselves.

4. Life is too short, too precious, to get so worked up over most of the stuff we get worked up about. It’s not healthy emotionally or physically. After all, what’s the worst thing that could happen if we don’t try to do too much? Really? What could possibly be worth having a stroke or a nervous breakdown over?

Did I get fired because I didn’t finish the tasks I’d been given? NO,

Did I feel like a failure at the end of the day? YES. Why? Because I am way too hard on myself.

What actually might happen is, since my bosses KNOW what a hard worker I am, they will, when we bring this up at the next department meeting, HAVE to listen to us when we tell them they were unfair and unreasonable to put us through what they did.  If I had worked through lunch, I probably would have completed my list, but I forced myself to take at least that much time to detox as best I could; it didn’t help much, but god only knows how much worse I would have felt if I hadn’t done that.

Okay, I hope all of this makes sense and makes you think. Think about your mom having a meltdown because she expects too much from herself the next time you’re in the same kind of situation–maybe you can feel more empathy for me than for yourself, which may help you slow your ass down and give yourself a break!

I love you, girly.

Mom.

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My Favs, Ramblings

I am a food blogger.

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A few months ago, I had no idea the world of food blogging existed!  What I love most about blogging about food is that I now have a creative outlet in life.  I get the opportunity to write about one of my greatest passions — FOOD — while simultaneously expressing my personal opinions and feelings.  How awesome is that?

My  boyfriend Jarrod posed a question that I found very interesting.  He asked which came first — the food blogging world or the movie Julie and Julia?  I must admit, prior to the movie I had never even considered starting a blog.  I knew I was passionate about food, but I figured nobody in their right mind would be interested in reading a blog that was just about food.  That is until I found a blog that was centered almost entirely on food and to which I was instantly enamored with.  (Thank you Peanut Butter Fingers!)  So I figured, what the heck.  It doesn’t really matter if anyone else enjoys the blog — all that matters is that I enjoy the blog.

So here I am.  A new blogger trying to find her way in this crazy blog world 🙂

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