#39 - Unexpected Recognition

Earlier this year, I decided to do something totally out of my comfort zone and start working as a Pure Romance consultant. Never, not even in my most bizarre dreams or terrifying nightmares, had I considered any sort of job where I would be involved in sales. But I realized that being a consultant was, as its name implies, more about consulting, educating, and empowering than it was about sales. I wanted to have that type of impact in the world and maybe make a difference in someone's life the same way my consultant (and now team-lead) had in mine. So I ordered my kit in February and hit the ground running....and then I seem to have tripped.

Like I said, things started off really well. We have monthly team meetings and I felt like I was receiving a lot of recognition and encouragement. The first meeting I attended I was recognized just because it was my first time and congratulated for taking the leap. The second meeting I received recognition for having sold $2000 in retail in my first two months as a consultant. I felt like I was doing great and my hopes of having an impact and empowering others were being fulfilled.

And then, like a false spring common to Utah, the clouds rolled in, the snow fell, and my budding hope was buried and told to reemerge in warmer weather. Two parties cancelled and one rescheduled, leaving me with nothing in April and little hope of scheduling something for May. Life became busy and I struggled to find time to dedicate to regrowing what I felt I had lost.

But I'm stubborn and I don't like the idea of giving up. The brief taste of having empowered someone else motivated me to find that struggling sapling and nurture it back to life. With some words of encouragement and advice from other consultants, I got things going again. But it was too late to have any impact on my success for April.

I walked into team meeting tired (it was one of those days where you leave home at 8 AM and get home at 11 PM), frustrated (I had forgotten my name tag and notebook) and disappointed (I had managed $60 in sales in April). After two previous meetings of recognition, I just felt I had no reason to be recognized and no success to show for my work.

I sat in the back, listened to the training and took notes on a blank page in my planner since I didn't have my notebook, and watched as my sister consultants received recognition for the awesome jobs they each did the previous month. And though I was happy for them, I was still disappointed in myself.

Then Dani, my team lead, began talking about the "Random Award" for the month. I had forgotten this award existed and, to be honest, can't tell you who received it the previous two months or why. Dani declared this month's random award to be the "Fighter award" for someone who had fought through difficult times, kept pushing forward despite disappointments, and refused to give up. I never imagined my stubbornness would earn me an award, but she called me up and gave me a cute tote and a hug. 

I signed up with Pure Romance because I wanted the opportunity to empower and inspire others. In that moment, trying not to cry, I realized that I had received something even better. A room full of people who empower and inspire me. 

Next time my plans fall through, parties cancel, and sales drop – I'm probably not going to receive a cute bag and congratulations for keeping my chin up. But I will remember these wonderful women who tell fun stories about their kids as we carpool, who bring cupcakes to every team meeting because there is always something to celebrate, and who empower me to press forward when things get rough. These women are a miracle in my life. 

#38 - I have lost count

At the end of 2016, I challenged myself to record 1000 miracles to go along with the (at the time) new name of my blog. I successfully recorded up to #37. Around that time, life started to be really busy and really wonderful and I just never found the time to sit down and write about the miracles I was seeing every day.

You may remember I've done this once before and was heartbroken to only find time to write about the wonderfulness after it was over. I didn't want to only write about my new miracles and wonderful experiences once they were over, especially because I'm planning on this never being over. So, for a long while, I kept a list of miracles that I needed to write about with the good intention of sitting down and writing them all. But I've since lost the list and lost count of how many miracles I needed to write about. I'm just going to pick up with where I left off.

Today's miracle is the fact that I have lost count of the number of miracles in my life. To lose count of something, you generally have quite a lot of it. For example, I cross-stitch and have successfully completed 2 projects. I'm not going to just lose count and forget that I've only completed 2 projects. My great-grandmother, on the other hand, has a house filled with beautiful pieces she has completed and I know she has given some away as gifts. She may have lost count of how many she has done.

I sat down and thought about how many miracles I have experienced since I last posted something and I can't count them. The miracle is the reminder that I am not limited to 1000 miracles. Every day, I receive so much more than that.

Europe Trip: day 10 (#36 and maybe #37)

Yesterday (day 10) was a unique and stand-alone experience from the rest of the trip. Instead of strapping on the tennis shoes and taking the metro system around the current town, we spent the whole day on a tour/trip into the Swiss Alps. Milan is fairly close to the Swiss boarder, but now super close. So the day began with waking up earlier than any of us really wanted and rushing off to the tourist center to board our bus. With a quick intro from our tour guide, the doors closed and we headed toward the Switzerland boarder. 

Of course, there was a lot to see before we actually reached Switzerland. The day began with a 3 hour bus ride, filled with incredible views, quaint towns, and hillsides covered with vineyards. I can only imagine how beautiful the hillsides will be when they are filled with vines and grapes in the summer. The bus tour ended in Tirano, Italy, where we had time to grab lunch and briefly explore the town before meeting back up with the tour group and boarding a train destined for the alps. 

The train quickly pulled out of Italy and into Switzerland. In the two-and-a-half hour ride, we passed many lakes, traversed up and across numerous mountains, and transitioned from a world in which our light sweaters created too much heat to one which had been frozen for a long time and would continue to be frozen for a while still. I love the mountains and felt so blessed to have the chance to travel up into them. It was a perfect opportunity to find a world which still lived slowly, where the only noise was the train passing through town and the wind through the trees. Seeing those places was my miracle for today. Attached here is a little snippet of what the ride was like (hopefully it works for you, it works on my computer. It will be miracle #37 if it does).

Our train ride ended in St. Moritz, a small, cold, tourist town. Actually, considering the quantity of snow surrounding us and the very solidly frozen nature of the lake, it really wasn't that cold. We explored the small town, and found ourselves a place to buy hot chocolate. After finishing that, we found a store selling Swiss chocolate and each probably bought more than we reasonably should have. Finally, running out of time and wanting to avoid spending more money, we headed out of the town and took a stroll along the frozen lake, which is not only frozen, but further covered in snow and veined with walking paths which the locals frequent.

We returned to our bus, which met up with us in St. Moritz, to head back down the mountain and eventually return to Milan, tired, but very pleased with our adventures into Switzerland. 

Europe Trip: days 8-9 (#35)

Oh my gosh - I LOVE Italy!!!!! Ok, backing up for a moment, I need to give my last day in Paris it's proper dues and report on it first.

So, Sunday was my last day in Paris. Most of the group who came for the Paris Photo Workshop left in the morning and those of us who were continuing on for the Europe Tour enjoyed a lazy day around Paris. We started off with a slow breakfast, or brunch...which turned into a lunch. We started around 10:30 and didn't finish until 1. Then we attempted to go see the Catacombs, since it's one of those standard Paris things to see and we hadn't had a chance to see it yet. Unfortunately, the line was about 4 hours long and we didn't feel like standing still for quite that long. 

Instead, we took off to see the Luxembourg Palace - or rather - the gardens around the palace. But we found a beautiful fountain in the gardens and you could rent little sail boats to push around the fountain. Each sail boat had a different country's flag and came with a long stick to help you retrieve your sail boat and push it back out into the middle of the fountain. We rented a boat ourselves, but spent a long time just watching the kids play.  The day ended with a wonderful french meal, a train ride out to our hotel for the night, and preparing to fly off first thing in the morning.

On to the part about Italy! I've been here for barely 12 hours and I love the place. I've always found those I Heart Insert City Name Here shirts and bumper stickers and whatever to be kinda silly, but I might actually by myself one of those shirts in regards to Italy. We are staying in this adorable little apartment. The owner is this kind older gentlemen who did his best to explain everything in English and left a table full of Italian snacks for us and little Italian chocolates on each of our beds.

The moment we finished checking in, we headed to the street corner for pizza. There is a good chance we will return there every day. The piece of pizza was about $5 and was bigger than the average dinner plate. 

After letting lunch settle, we headed to the Duomo di Milano, or Milan Cathedral. This cathedral is this incredibly huge, white marble building with some of the more intricate carvings and statuary I have ever seen.

Now - I saw a lot of cathedrals in Paris, and they are all gorgeous, but I happen to own a puzzle of this particular cathedral, and it's this really cool aerial view of the roof. The puzzle took me forever because it was half blue-sky and half white stone statues. Anyways - Do you have any idea how excited I was when I learned we could climb up to the roof. Not only that, but the tickets are good for 3 days, so I can go back if I want to. I was going to take a picture that looked exactly like my puzzle, but they are doing some restoration work, so there is scaffolding over that part of the building. But I got this cool picture instead of the city spread out beneath the cathedral.

Our last event for the day was an Italian cooking class.  It was held at the teachers house in her own kitchen. We began at 6 and finished around 9.  Working with her, we made (and then of course ate) our own 4 course dinner. It began with Tagliatelle Bolognese, then spinach Ravioli, followed by stuffed bell peppers, and all that was topped off with Tiramisu. 

K- I'm totally stuffed, but in heaven. As much from having the chance to cook it all as from having the chance to eat it. We made the pasta, both the tagliatelle (a ribbon like pasta) and the ravioli by hand and I discovered that all I really need is a pasta press and it's a super simple process. I got to make the tiramisu while others in the group prepared the spinach stuffing, bell peppers, and bolognese sauce. Then we sat down and the kind woman who taught us each recipe transferred everything to beautiful serving dishes and brought each course of the meal to the table. Good food, great people, and all of us being way too tired resulted in some priceless memories (I'm counting that as miracle #35). I could be happy staying here forever.

Europe Trip: day 5-7

I have been in Europe for a week. This is my own life and I can hardly believe it. The trip continues to be incredible and I feel so grateful for everything I have had a chance to see.

Day 5 (Thursday, for those of you who are as lost in the days of the week as I am) began with a trip to Versailles. This location has always held a special place in my heart. As a child, the first address I can remember was on the street Rue de Versailles, which was a mess to try and spell as a 6 year old, but sounded really cool. (On an unrelated side note - I saw the Rue de Nicolas Flamel yesterday and had a brief Harry Potter freak out).  Of course, the primary reason to visit Versailles is to see the palace. Despite all the stories and pictures, nothing prepared me to expect how truly extravagant the palace is. There are rooms in that 'house' which took me five minutes to walk from one end to another.

After touring the palace, we had lunch and returned to Paris. I went back to the Arc de Triomphe, this time to climb to the top! This was a view worth paying for. I'm sure other look-out points were pretty cool, but at the top of the Arc, I could see the whole city spread out around me, with the Eiffel Tower close enough to get some really cool pictures.

Afterwards, we wandered into a random restaurant for dinner and ended up in an Indian restaurant. Not exactly what I intended to eat while in France, but the salad I ordered was great.

Friday was a continuation of tourist spots with Sacré-Cœur, which translates to Sacred Heart, and Notre Dame (apparently, it was a day to visit catholic churches, didn't notice this until just now). Sacré-Cœur is this incredible white building which stands on a hill looking out over the city. Unfortunately, the morning was foggy, so we couldn't see most of the city, but after visiting the church, we wandered the streets at the bottom of the hill and conducted some very successful souvenir shopping.

After lunch, we headed to the top of Notre Dame, another activity definitely worth paying for. Admittedly, the view at the top wasn't drastically different from the Arc de Triomphe. The Arc, however, is pretty solidly in the city, while Notre Dame stands on a small island in the river Seine, so it was cool to see the river down on either side of the building. The most exciting part of the climb (which was probably more than 270 steps, but I forgot to count) was getting to see the bells and the gargoyles at the top of Notre Dame.

The vast majority of today consisted of photo shoots with different models. We took the models into the little courtyard outside of the place we are staying and around the Louvre and the (of course) back toward the Eiffel Tower for more pictures there. While at the Eiffel Tower - we saw a guy proposing to his girlfriend and it was the cutest thing ever. Of course, since we are a group of photographers, anyone with their camera out snapped a few pictures and one brave soul even went and offered to take pictures for them (after he was done proposing and the girl had obviously said yes).

Europe Trip: days 2-4 (and #34)

The second day in Europe was spent doing something both very familiar and very new - Disneyland Paris! So much of it felt just like Disneyland, but everything was also different. The Indiana Jones ride is an actual rollercoaster and the Haunted Mansion isn't nearly as scary when you don't understand what everyone is saying. But the highlight of the day was discovering that there was a Mr. Mime nearby (a pokemon - for those who have no idea what I'm talking about - one which can only be found in Europe). So, of course, my cell service was turned on and I caught Mr. Mime.

After exhausting ourselves at Disneyland, and playing a lot of Pokemon Go, we returned to Paris and checked into the Loft which had been rented for the Tour portion of the trip. We are staying in the most adorable little loft with beautiful wooden floors, which are super old and creaky, and the most random arrangement of bedrooms, but I love it.

Oh - and Miracle #34 happened today. It rained most of the time we were at Disneyland, but my feet stayed dry all day!

Day 3 was the day that the rest of the tour group arrived. We spent the majority of the day at the loft greeting people as they showed up in ones and twos. We briefly explored the area around the loft to locate a pastry shop and find something to eat, then again to take pictures and just keep ourselves busy.

Once everyone arrived, McKenzie and Casey, who are leading the Collective, gave their welcoming message and explained the plan for the week ahead of us. After this, we needed to keep the new-comers awake until it was late enough to reasonably go to bed, so we went out to see the Eiffel Tower again. We also bought amazing crepes from this little corner store next to the tower.

Day 4 has by far been the busiest day. We started off with a bus tour to see the city, then transferred to a river tour to see the city from a different angle. The river tour was actually really cool, and the bus tour wasn't half bad, though several individuals in the tour group fell asleep in the semi-comfortable seats. 

We returned to the Eiffel Tower again, but this time to go inside. We had reservations to eat lunch up on the first floor. Absolutely incredible view and equally incredible food. After lunch, there was just enough time to go up to the second floor and take a look around (unfortunately, there was not quite enough time to go all the way to the top - I'll have to go back later this week to do so). 

The afternoon was spent doing a photoshoot with one of our models, followed by the Louvre. I got my 30-seconds with Mona Lisa, saw thousands of incredible paintings and sculptures, and wished briefly that I could just move to Paris and spend the next several months visiting every day. Of course, I'm not an artist and probably would get little out of the experience other than enjoying several months of interesting artwork. 

As the evening approached, we broke into groups to explore different parts of the city.  I headed off with two other girls in the group to visit Angelina's, which had been recommended to another girl as a great place for hot chocolate. That recommendation was a severe understatement. I have never had hot chocolate which was so good and anticipate never finding some as good again. I think they just took a chocolate bar and melted it. We each received a little teacup and saucer and the hot chocolate was delivered in cute little pitchers which we poured ourselves. And the taste - incredible!

We wrapped up our evening by visiting the Arc de Triomphe - the giant arch at the end of Champs Elysee. I took a dozen or so pictures, at this point, on my phone because my camera battery had died. My favorite is included here. I found myself an awesome angle of the arch and the busy street...from right in the middle of it. Don't worry, I was being safe, I was standing in the median and I got there using the cross walk. I'm sure I just looked like a crazy tourist as I intentionally stayed in the median to take pictures instead of continuing to the other side of the street.

Europe Tour: day 1(and #33)

When traveling to Europe - Day 1 is the absurdly long day when you wake up on Saturday and sit on a plane for several hours and get off the plane Sunday afternoon.

Of course, posting this implies that I made it safely to Paris. (Hence - Miracle #33 - arriving safely in Paris).  I met up with my friends without issue and we checked into the hotel we are staying at for the night. Tomorrow night, we transition to a loft we got from AirBnB for the 'photo tour/workshop' part of the trip where several more people will join us.

After checking in, we headed right back out and explored Paris for a little bit. And by explore - I mean we went to the Eiffel Tower, wandered till we found some place for dinner, ate, and came home.  We didn't actually go in the tower, just looked and took pictures. I'll visit it again in a few days as part of the tour.