Wednesday, February 9, 2011

what i'm currently looking at...

This is the view outside my office window...



Will this snow ever go away? Good luck all you Arkansans on your snowpocalypse!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

January 2011

Finally Finished!!!!

So, this month has been an awesome month. It started on January 3 when I started as the Public Relations Manager at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM for short). My very first day I was introduced to TOKY, our advertising firm, at the training session for our new website, and that's where it all started. One week to get all of the information up. One week to get everything tested, fixed, and ready to go. One week to unveil an entirely new website. There was no better way to learn about everything that CAM does then by helping to upload all of the information about our programs/exhibitions/events/etc and find photos to accompany all of those postings. Check it out here: www.camstl.org.

Now, it's been four weeks and here's a run down of what I've done and what I can look forward to over the next however long I work here, which I hope is a long, long time, because this is the most kick ass job ever!

-Write and distribute press releases
-Serve as the liaison between CAM and TOKY on copy writing/design edits for all advertising/promotional material
-Media buying/ad placement
-Coordinate sponsorships
-Help plan/promote/staff CAM events
-Write and distribute monthly eNewsletters
-Monitor press mentions about all things CAM
-Maintain all social media
-And all additional job duties as required...

Going to work for an art museum seemed very intemidating, but it's become such a welcomed change in my life. I moved to St. Louis knowing a set number of people, and hadn't really branched out from there. The great thing about CAM is that it's more than an art museum – we throw some awesome parties to!! Over the past three weeks i've worked an event or two every single week. Almost every event is free, packed with 300-1000 people, and an event i'd want to go to even if I didn't work here. They're all so much fun and have become a great way of branching out and meeting other young professionals in St. Louis.

For anyone who heard me talk about my previous job, you can tell how excited I am about this one. It's exactly up my alley with fun parties, fun people, and fun/fast paced job requirements.






So, enough about my job, this month was also special because my little Anners was initiated as a Chi Omega!! Big day!! Jeff tells me on a weekly basis that I need to move on, take the Chi O sticker off my car, and take my owl collection from 20 or so down to 4 (blasphemy!!). I drove down to Fayetteville with Aaryn and Cindy and met up with my family, Lindsey, Sarah K., Spencer, Margaret, Rachel, Anna and Clay. We spent a great weekend having fake bachelorette parties for Anna and her fake fiance Graham (oops), being Chi Omegas at the Psi Initiation, and patio drinking in the 70 degree weather in Fayetteville (thank the Lord)! Great weekend with fun friends and family.



Today, I am hunkered down on the couch updating my blog and working from home on CAM and Celebrate Style stuff. Snowpocalypse is about to hit St. Louis so Jeff, his roommate Tim, and I are snowed in the apartment watching movies and working diligently (or so we're pretending). Here's a picture of what we're seeing outside, and they're saying a white-out blizzard is on it's way and hitting within the next hour.



Ya'll stay safe. Stay warm. And I promise i'm going to start updating this blog more often.

December

ALMOST DONE! YAY!!

So December meant my very first Christmas on my own. I know I've had Christmases in my own place in college, but this was my first real Christmas where I didn't spend a month back in Little Rock. Mom was sweet enough to buy Jenna and I our first Christmas tree. She, Jeff, Jenni, and I spent the night decorating. Really it just consisted of Jenna and I decorating and forcing Jeff and Jenni put an ornament on every 10 minutes so they could be involved. Sad to say that Christmas tree is still up, but I think it's beautiful, and meaningful, so I don't care.




Jeff and I flew to Little Rock for my cousin Olivia's wedding. It was a beautiful wedding, and a great reason to go home for a weekend.




Then, the next weekend was CHRISTMAS!! We spent Christmas Eve with the Wertenbergers. With so many babies, and so many toys, I was able to feel like a kid on Christmas again. We felt so adult waking up on Christmas morning together in our new city, made french toast and opened presents together on Christmas morning. Just another added bonus of living in the same city. We were up super early so we could make it to Little Rock in time for my family's Christmas celebration that night. The next few days were spent with family, friends, and celebrating different religions among my group of friends at Chrismakkuh.











Then, one of my very bestest friends in the whole wide world, and one of the coolest people I've ever met in my entire life, Miss Lindsey Rose Shindler, rode back to St. Louis with Jeff and I to spend New Years with us. We stopped in Memphis to hang out with Esther in her new home, and then spent the next few days celebrating the New Year.

Another BIG thing that happened this month is I got a new job! YAY! I'd been looking around for a while and just keeping my options open. It wasn't that I didn't like my job at HEC-TV, but I needed something a little more fast paced, and i'd like to start saving money, which was absolutely impossible at the rate I was going there. I interviewed with a company in St. Louis since November, and found out the week before Christmas that I was offered the position of Public Relations Manager at the Contemporary Art Museum. YAY! More updates on that in a bit.

November

November:

November=Thanksgiving to me. It's one of my most favorite holidays, and it means the beginning of the holiday season which I absolutely love. The girls and I had a STL family Thanksgiving meal. We all potlucked it, which was awesome because all of us are becoming pretty good cooks. I brought a Pittman family staple – green bean bundles. YUM!! And, of course, the turkey Mum.




The night before Thanksgiving in St. Louis is apparently one of the biggest nights to go out all year. Jeff and I spent the evening supporting a charity that is near and dear to both of us through our work – Guns 'N Hoses, an event that raises money for the families of police officers and firemen killed while on the job.



November=Thanksgiving=LSU v. Arkansas game. I'm not sure what it is about this game that gets an entire state so excited, but every year that this game makes its way back to Little Rock, Thanksgiving break is a little more fun. This year was no exception. Jeff and I spent Thanksgiving day in St. Louis with his family, drove to my family's that night, and the rest of the weekend in Little Rock.

October

October:

This was a great month! The month I turned TWENTY-THREE! One of my best friends Cindy and I have birthdays a day apart so we have had joint birthdays for the past three years. This year we rented the St. Louis Road Pony Party Bus – a club on wheels. 25 or so friends joined us as we drove around St. Louis, listened to Cindy's gangsta rap, and went to some of our favorite bars (or at least tried to get into some of them).

Here are some pictures from our Road Pony adventure:





October also means HOMECOMING at Mizzou! This has always been around my birthday, which makes it such a fun weekend. But now, as a graduate, it means reunion with everyone from school. This was the first time since graduation that all of the girls got together. 3004 - the group of girls who lived in our two houses on Wilson senior year - took this to an expected extreme with our 3004 Alumni shirts. We spent the weekend remembering old stories, laughing about funny nights from college, and making new memories as adults reliving college. And to top it all off, ESPN College Game Day was at Mizzou, we won the game, and the girls and I grabbed the primo spot in Harpo's and led the entire bar in the Mizzou chant. MIZ-ZOU!!!

Here are some pictures from this amazing weekend:




September

September:

September we all started to finally feel settled in our jobs and in our place in St. Louis. Jeff finally stopped traveling every week (THANK THE LORD), and we settled into our routines. We spent weekends hanging out in St. Louis, visiting our Alma Matter (so weird to say that), and enjoying the company of those that we love in STL.

I was also fortunate enough to spend a weekend with my family at a weekend celebrating my mother: her 50th birthday! Jeff and I flew to Little Rock and we spent a great evening at my godmother Jan's house at a 50th birthday party for Mom.



Here's Mom, Anna-Lee and I that night.



Here's me, my roommate Jenna, Hannah, Bonnie, and Cindy on our weekend adventure to Ol' Mizzou for a Tiger football game.

The last 6 months...

Update on the past SIX months of life in STL:

Okay, so it's been FOREVER since I've blogged. But, i'm currently home from work for a snow day, laying on the couch watching Pawn Stars, and decided it was a great time to update the readers (or one) of my blog on what's been going on.

My last post was on August 13, so i'll update you on all of the other months:

August:

The St. Louis crew gained a new member: Bonnie Joy Thomas! Bon, one of our best friends from college, got a job in St. Louis and moved here from Phoenix, further completing the St. Louis wolf pack. Of course we wanted her to feel at home, so we spent the month of August having girls nights, showing her our new favorite spots, and further exploring our city.



The girls at one of our most favorite spots, and where we pretend we are still in college, even if only for a night: DD's Karaoke Bar.