7/13 – Leftovers and Ramen Contest
So I made a LOT of food over the weekend – primarily soups. I had some delicious Roasted Garlic and Tomato Soup and Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup to get through before leaving for Colorado on Thursday. It’s nice to have your meals almost completely planned out before the week even starts…
In other news, I told you guys about a week ago that I entered Furious Spoon’s ramen rap battle contest. I’ve got great news – I won! I decided I would take my Chicago Cheap Ass bloggers out the following week to reward them for being such brilliant writers.
7/14 – Flywheel (Protein Bar), Fleming’s Networking Event, and Social Media Beast Interview
I have an awesome relationship with Protein Bar, especially their Brand Manager, Teddy. After seeing him at Social Media Day at Rockit, he invited me to an event sponsored by a new Protein Bar partner – Flywheel! I’ve done spin before at David Barton Gym, but this was completely different. The shoes clicked into the pedals, the resistance and speed were easy to measure, and the instructor was incredibly uplifting. I’ll do a better recap later, but I had a blast. Teddy dished out some awesome Protein Bar samples and swag afterwards 🙂
Social Media Beast started working with the River North Business Association (RNBA) recently, which means I have some new networking events to check out and new, interesting people to meet! This one was at Fleming’s Steakhouse. I met some interesting people and they had some nice goodies for attendees – a box of chocolate truffles and a $25 gift card to come back. I’m excited to see what the next one has in store – I think it’s at Weber Grill.
Every employee at Social Media Beast is getting a spotlight interview on the blog. Mine went live today! Check it out here.
7/15 – Shanahan’s in Forest Park, Hyde Park Itinerary and a Marketing Blog Post
Most of the rest of the week after today was spent getting to, being in, or coming home from Colorado. I met up with my parents in Forest Park at a Creole restaurant called Shanahan’s. I tried fried green tomatoes for the first time. Basically anything fried to me is delicious, but this was something new! I handed over my dog and went back home to pack before the trip.
Two blog posts I wrote were published today.
One fits the scope of this blog – an itinerary for Hyde Park for Choose Chicago’s Chicago Like a Local blog.
The other is for one of my freelance clients, and is about Gmail plugins for sales success and productivity. There’s likely to be something you can use in there.
7/16 – Giveaway, Hootsuite Ambassador and Colorado!
An exciting announcement for the blog – My Argo Tea and Adagio Teas giveaway is live! There’s $50 worth of gift cards on the line and the contest ends 7/30 – get on it!
Another exciting thing that happened today was my acceptance into the Hootsuite Ambassador program. Basically, the program encourages Ambassadors to use Hootsuite and it’s various features, sharing them with their network. In return, Ambassadors get access to Hootsuite Pro and Hootsuite University for free. Not to mention, it’s a great association to have for someone going into digital marketing. And sometimes they send out some fun swag 🙂 I’m excited to get more involved in the program and meet fellow Hootsuite Ambassadors!
Finally, I began my journey to Colorado after work. I recently accepted a position as a Race Director for Cupid’s Undie Run. We were all to meet in Estes Park, Colorado at Peaceful Valley Ranch for a weekend of training and team bonding.
I got to the airport and met the fabulous people I would be sharing a shuttle with. We got a bite to eat and some beers and waited until it was our time to get to camp. Eventually the shuttle came, we turned it down, got to camp, and called it a night.
7/17 – Camp Cupid Day 1
I woke up bright and early to get breakfast. I met a couple people, then got ready for a day full of training sessions.
I was grateful for the information overload during the day. A lot of people had a lot of knowledge of Cupid’s Undie Run, even from the volunteer side of things. I only knew what it meant to be a runner. A marketer at heart, I enjoyed getting event planning knowledge from an organization that has a great track record of making things happen and making themselves known.
We had a brief rest after training, then made our way even higher up the mountain for dinner. They served a really solid BBQ dinner. We met in teams after dinner and came up with skits as one of our first team building activities. Ours was modeled after 50 Shades of Grey. Not sure if I’m allowed to get into more detail than that 😉
7/18 – Camp Cupid Day 2
The second day was a lot less training, a lot more team building. Throughout the day, we got into an intense group Rock, Paper Scissors contest, Trivia, Flippy Cup, a Twerk Off, a Scavenger Hunt and a Relay Race. I’m competitive by nature, so we had a lot of fun, but were cheated out of some wins (hehe). The night ended with some barn dancing complete with a line dancing instructor. Nobody wanted to say goodnight, but eventually I had to – my shuttle left at 7am the next morning.
7/19 – Coming Home & Surprise Party
I got to the airport about an hour before my flight. Not exactly the ideal situation, but it was kind of out of my hands. Next time I’m taking an earlier shuttle! Anyways, after cutting a few lines, I made it to my flight just as it was boarding. I walk into the plane and it just so happens that my second cousin, her husband, and their 7 month old baby are there! I traded with their almost-seatmate and spent most of the flight catching up 🙂 The rest of the flight was about getting through “The Martian” which is a crazy page turner I highly recommend.
My parents were in town for my uncle’s surprise birthday party. I thought I wasn’t going to be back in time, but managed to hitch a ride with them after they brought my dog back. It was nice seeing my family, but I was exhausted. I had a crazy weekend!
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