Fashion Beauty Friend Friday: Gratitude

Happy Friday!!  This is the official one-year anniversary of  Fashion Beauty Friend Friday! This post is dedicated to Katy and everyone who participates on Fridays. Its been a great way to get to know each other!!!  Anyone who would like to join us, please head over and sign up at ModlyChic, come on, its FUN!!

Gratitude 
1.  When it comes to me personally – I owe a lot of who I am to: 
My mom for one. My mom has always been unconditional. She has always been my best friend. She has always been fun and creative.  She taught me the art of being compassionate.  My GRAMMY. Oh how I miss grammy. She was 93 when she passed away 2 years ago and she was always my biggest cheerleader.  She was so outgoing and creative and loving. Grammy was always there for us no matter what- and we laughed alot together!!  AND all my friends. Especially those ones who have always been straight with me. Those who havent been afraid to say what's really going on for them and who have always stood for me to be the biggest most amazing person I could be (even when I havent wanted to :).  Fiance. He is amazing. I am so blessed to have such a open, loving, generous, caring, talented, hot guy in my life. He is not only fun and creative, he is smart, fast (triathlete) and adventurous!! 

2. When it comes to me professionally – I owe a lot of who I am to: 
My friends Colleen and Robin. They were always like another set of parents (younger parents) for me. They were always so encouraging and kept stressing how smart I was  and that I would GO places. They helped me to see my true skills and passions that really led me to going to university for what I studied.  Also, my Supervisor for my masters thesis, who also became my boss and great personal friend.  We have so many heart to heart conversations she made a HUGE difference for me in terms of freeing me up to see that I could pursue what I loved as a job rather than just have a job for the sake of paying the bills.  The job I have now doesn't occur as work for me. Instead it is an absolute expression of who I am!!!

3. When it comes to the art of blogging, I’m grateful to these people for helping me through some rough spots: 
Colette (Statements in Fashion) She took me in under her wing when I was a bran new blogger and I always felt so 'special' having such an amazing blogger as a friend!!! Thanks BABE I totally LOVE you!!!


Marilou (Twenty York Street)- She was an instant friend and Canadian too!! We shared many emails back and forth and had the great opportunity to meet in March and it was awesome!!!


Emma (Daily Clothes Fix)- Always there to share great ideas, creativity and a supportive word.  I plan on going to the UK sometime soon to meet up!!


Pete (Emma's partner in blogger crime)- quite some time ago I emailed Pete and picked his brain about photography ideas and he sent me back the BEST email with lots of ideas and feedback on my photos. I thought that was the  coolest thing.  So of course I want to meet him when I go to the UK and have a photoshoot of me with Emma!!   


Rita (The Adventures of Cinderita)- We were developing our blogs at around the same time and spent many a night on the phone while working out kinks in design and format on blogger.  We did photoshoots together and also constantly send each other emails with ideas about what each other could do on our blogs.  She, of course, has more ideas for mine than I do but I am too chicken sh*t to do some of them!! LOL she is adventurous alright!!

4. One blogging challenge I’m grateful happened because it made me stronger was… 
There was a blogger I was emailing back and forth with all the time and it seemed like she just suddenly stopped emailing me. I was so worried that maybe did I say something wrong? Did I offend her? She wasn't posting comments on my blog anymore. She wasnt returning emails. She was posting everywhere else though.  I started doubting myself and thinking I must have said something that hurt her feelings... anyway, this went on for several weeks until I accidentally found out that her emails had somehow gone to my SPAM box!!  Since I hadn't responded back to her in awhile (so it seemed to her), she began thinking the same things about me.. maybe she said something wrong etc...  Anyway, All that worry and stress for nothing. We are back to being blogger BFF's and just keep laughing about this!!

5. To my readers, I’d like to say…
I LOVE you. I love chatting with you, sharing outfit ideas with you, supporting and receiving support from you, seeing your great photography skills, laughing with you, and being able to be real with you.  I really do feel that I have made great friends on here and some of you I likely will never even meet in person, but you are still a friend.  I now have friends that span all across the globe just based on a daily fashion blog and THATS totally cool!!  So, I send a hug to every single one of you today to show my love and appreciation and I look forward to more great connections along this journey!!!