Hello everyone and happy Tuesday! I am blogging today from Orlando – where my full time role’s Annual Conference is being held. This is our biggest event of the year, when we catch up with our membership in person! My professional career is in association management, with a focus in membership development. This translates to:I love to work with people and this week is all about spending time with people – my favorite! These meetings are a chance for our whole team to come together and work as a unit, we get to meet and greet the smiling faces we spend our days phone chatting and emailing with, and we are on location at a fun destination. Its a little crazy – but I love these weeks!!
As you may have seen – we went public Sunday so I am hoping to keep up with my blogging while on travel. So away we go to another Weekend That’s A Wrap!
An extra fun little tidbit about my professional career is that I work with my dad and brother, Grant. My Dad is the executive director of the association and Grant is part of the membership. So these work trips also involve a little family time. This year, since my grandmother is now a Heppes family resident, she too is making her way to sunny Orlando. This meant mom and I had to show her the ropes: that for each new meeting – you gotta have the fancy footwear and accessories to go along with your look!
Friday evening, while Danny was at hockey, I met my mom, Ganmommy and Bridget for a little shoe shopping, dinner and then some Charming Charlie (if you have never been to a Charming Charlie’s – let me tell ya, you are missing out! Well that is if you love a store organized by color with every accessory you could every need for any type of event). We were in the midst of an awesome evening that had the perfect blend of fun and productive shopping….. until we took too long eating and the stores we had wanted to go to closed. OOPS! Too much chatting – no surprise for the Flaherty gals! So I will be surviving without the orange statement necklace to match my staff shirt….but my feet will be happy campers in darling flats I did manage to pick up as I log the meeting miles.
Saturday was a work day. Flying out first thing Monday morning and then leaving my work trip to head to UVA for a wedding this coming weekend, I would be away from my contract work, blogging, and our household projects for quite sometime. When your used to spending a little time on these projects each day, seven days away feels like a lot. So no way around it – Danny and I hunkered down and got to work.
Some in the loft……
Some in dining room together….
It was a day that went quick and because my eyes are always bigger than reality of the time I have – my to do lists were just a little too long for the time we had available. But we made a great dent and I am continuing to try and understand that perfection is unrealistic, while progress is what should make me feel accomplished.
Sunday I got up early….. took my pup on our favorite drive thru run at Starbucks for coffee and croissant – our last little date together for a few days – and then settled in to finish my why I blog post . It was so exciting to really capture what this experience has meant for myself and my little family. My heart is just bursting with pride and excitement that HALF is out for our world to experience. Once I get back from this trip – like within hours – our spring and summer season gets rolling with so many fun amazing memories in the making, so I feel like this is a fun time to jump in and start following along. Thank you to all who have been excited for us and supportive of this dream of mine!
Blogging was followed with a little house work, a great workout, and the final round of errands. I swear it doesn’t matter if I am going for a few days or three weeks it requires errands and I am ALWAYS doing them at the last moment – sigh. So I raced around like a chicken with no head wrapping up just in time for evening mass with my sister Bridget. My goal was to be done with packing and have a nice night of enjoying our favorite Sunday night TV together, a little wine…. but alas I was left wrapping up to dos and packing all night (yea – just like the errands, I am ALWAYS packing at the last minute). So instead of enjoying that last night together, we all three climbed into bed promising to really enjoy our little meet up next weekend for a nice wedding getaway amongst the hills of Virginia.
It will be a big week and an even bigger weekend….. but spring is here, the sun is out, flips flops are on….. and life is all good! Hope everyone has a great week!!
Thank you for reading and remember to make it a great day!
Jackie
Have A Little Faith in We 