Frankie says RELAX

Every autumn me and my best friends Stacy, Karen and Jill go on a girls spa weekend. For the last 4 years we have gone to the Sundara Spa in Wisconsin Dells. It's a great spa, nestled on a beautiful wooded property not too far from Lake Delton. Like most girls weekend, spa weekend is intended mostly for three things; relaxing, laughing and wine drinking. We don't wear make-up the entire weekend and our clothes need to have only one requirement; they must be comfortable and stretchy. The added bonus of this year's trip was that it fell on my birthday weekend. It was great spending my perpetual 29th birthday with my favorite girls. This year, instead of going driving down to the Dells, Karen flew down from Minneapolis and we ventured north to the Kohler Waters Spa. Part of the 5-star American Club in Kohler, the Waters Spa was everything we hoped it would be. The services were wonderful and the products used were top-notch. Since I have been "funder-employed" for a few months we decided not to actually stay at the spendy American Club and opted for the Osthoff resort in nearby Elkhart Lake. Elkhart Lake is a lovely little lesser known Wisconsin gem. Karen fell in love with it and wants to bring her family back sometime next summer. In addition to going to the spa, my friends generously treated me to a great birthday celebration dinner at the Paddock Club and we took two long hikes around the lake. We were blessed with some of the best weather I have ever seen in late November; sunny and about 55 degrees. There are some beautiful lake homes as you can see from one of my photos, and quite a few for sale. Maybe we all need to pool our money together and buy a vacation property? One was only 1.2 million dollars. Drop in the bucket.

As always, it was awesome spending time with my best friends and enjoying our beautiful state.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder?

Hi everyone. I know I have been completely remiss in keeping my blog updated. It's been a crazy few weeks since I last posted. As you all know, I've been "fun-employed" or as I now call it, "funder-employed" for the last 8 months or so. I took on as many part time jobs in the last few months as I could in order to pay some bills and stay busy while I searched for a new full-time gig that I really wanted. In addition to my bartending gig, I also have been selling wedding photography for a company called Bella Pictures and got a seasonal retail gig at Crate & Barrel. Working all these various jobs has actually been fun. I like the variety. Juggling all the schedules has been a bit more challenging, thus, my lack of new blog postings. Well, the GREAT news is that I did receive a job offer this week from a company called IMS (Integrated Merchandising Systems) whose local offices are in Hales Corners. IMS does Point-of-Purchase displays and branded merchandise for large customers such as McDonalds, Wells Fargo, Research in Motion and Pepsi Co. I will managing the Pepsi account. I'm excited because the job should get me back on the road traveling a bit which I have really missed. I should be spending a fair amount of time at Pepsi headquarters in Rye, New York and also some time at other Pepsi brand headquarters such as Frito Lay in Texas. I think this job may have been my destiny. As everyone knows, Cheetos are one of my top 5 favorite foods. In fact, It think the FDA should make them the 6th official food group. Lo and behold, Cheetos are a Frito Lay brand. You know this means that I will find myself at least a few Chester Cheetos tchotchkes to decorate my new cube (and don't be surprised if Pepsi branded items end up in your gifts in the next few years. :-)) And, the cherry on the sundae is that my favorite soda, Diet Mountain Dew is a a Pepsi brand. If all goes well, I'll never had to pay for another Mountain Dew again!

Anyway. I just wanted to officially thank all my family and friends for being so supportive of me in these last months. I honestly don't know what I would have done without you all!