Foggy Thoughts

One thing that I've learned from spending the winter in Wisconsin is how to drive in terrible weather.  This week I endured driving in dense fog.  It was unlike anything I've seen (or not seen in this case) before.  And frankly, I don't want to experience it again.  I fear that won't be the case.  The fog was so bad that parts of the highway between work and home closed down on Wednesday and Thursday due to pile ups.  On Wednesday, they passed out maps at work on how to take back roads to Madison (probably 3/4 of LE employees live near/in Madison, if not more).  Pretty much everybody began to rush out of work to tackle the longer drive, the fog, and the setting sun.  Not a great combo.

Thursday morning wasn't much better.  There was another pile up on the highway.  About 50 feet up there were fire trucks, flares, cop cars, and ambulances blocking off the highway and pushing traffic off to a side street.  And on the side street, there was a line of cars pulled over because nobody knew how to get to work.  I joined that line and tried to use my GPS on my phone.  Unfortunately, the perks of being in the country is little/ no cell service (every phone call gets disconnected AT LEAST once, if not 3 times).  Essentially, my GPS couldn't determine my location.  But in all seriousness, a perk of living in the country is being around friendly people.  A man with a chicken coop on his truck pulled over and walked down the line of cars and and helped give directions.  He was so helpful and quite the gift to me that morning.  I was really hating the country, Madison, Dodgeville, weather, the commute, all of it.  But when that man pulled over, he reminded me about how great the people really are here.  I'll miss that.  I'll miss them.

Work is going well.  I've been put in charge of designing three tops for LEBO (Lands' End Business Outfitters).  Companies like Best Buy, AT&T,  and Chase bank buy from LEBO.   So this is actually pretty awesome!  One day I'll walk into Best Buy and say to the greeter, "Hey... Hey, guess what? I designed that shirt you're wearing.  You're Welcome. "  ;)   Jokes.  But, it's pretty exciting.  I'm also still working on bottoms for Core and Canvas lines.  Also pretty cool.  

This week I was in a fashion show at Lands' End.  The goal was to raise money for women's heart disease.  We ended up raising over $500.  All of the UC interns and merchants in training (17 of us total) were instructed to create a red outfit from LE clothes.  We then modeled the clothes in a fashion show where employees voted for the best outfit.  The catch was that they had to pay at least $1 for each vote.  It was a lot of fun!  Here are some pics

I think the next post is going to be a reflection over where I've been in the past 2 1/2 yrs and where I'm heading.  Something to look forward to.  Love you and miss you all.  Prepare yourself to be hugged tightly upon my return.