Last month I had the great pleasure of attending the Disney Social Media Moms Conference in Orlando, Florida. Our second day of the conference we attended a celebration of volunteerism at Epcot Center. Trucks were rolling out, carrying food to people in need both domestically and in Haiti. But in order for that to happen volunteers were needed to stack cans, seed trees and stuff Ziploc bags with supplies. The most impressive message of the day for me was that every little bit counts. (more…)
Thank you so much to everyone who contributed so creatively to my Quaker CrEATe Your Day post. Each comment made me hungrier and hungrier. But only 2 people can win. Thanks to Random.org we have our winners.
Drum roll please… (more…)
Do you believe in fate. I used to believe strongly that everything happened for a reason. hen some really unexplainable things happened and I kid of fell off the bandwagon. But I still wonder about fate. Never more than now though.
I met Maxine Clark, CEO of Build a Bear Workshop last month at the Disney Social Media Moms conference. We really connected about children. (Big surprise). I then had the great fortune to converse with her by email when I returned home. She and I were bandying about an idea for me to work with her and her husband on a project that they have going in their home town of St. Louis , Missouri. the are working to help young people be healthier. You know that subject is near and dear to my heart. Maxine wanted to know if St Louis was on m radar. I told her that I don’t currently have St Louis on my tour schedule. So we agreed to keep talking till we found the right time to get me there.
The very next day I got a Facebook message…from my sister. No, not the two I have known my whole life, my birth father’s youngest daughter,…my sister. You see, I am adopted. I have known that I was adopted for as long as I have known my name. But this information was an out of the blue smack in the head. My… sister was messaging me because her.. (our) father had passed away the Saturday before, and she wanted me to know about it.( I had to sit down because my head started to spin.) (more…)
So here’s the skinny. If there is anything I have learned from the last year and a half of pro-blogging it’s that you’ll never get anywhere unless you put your ideas out there. l have been an entertainer my whole life, so I am used to putting myself in front of the public, but it took me a moment or two to figure out how to put myself properly in front of businesses. Part of that was because I didn’t believe that I truly had something to offer, from a marketing stand point. But what I have gained more than anything from my time spent in the blogosphere is a clearer sense of marketing, social media and most importantly myself. I’m not just a performer who blogs a little. I am”marketainer”. (more…)
I started my day with a very happy tummy this morning thanks to Quaker Instant Oatmeal. When I was a kid I used to eat oatmeal all the time. But it was very plain, (and kind of lumpy to tell you the truth). But lately I have gone back to the future. I have been eating oatmeal, but not my mother’s oatmeal, my children’s oatmeal. Oatmeal of the future. What is oatmeal of the future you ask? It’s whatever you want it to be. You get to CrEATe Your Day. The great folks at Quaker Oatmeal want me to think outside the box and get creative with my oatmeal. (more…)
The CAMPUS Kids and I are so happy to be contributing to a fantastic new website for tweens and teens, girls in particular. It’s called Young Chicagonista. It had it’s official launch party last night, and I wrote a special song in honor of the celebration. In my household Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten” has been sort of an anthem for me and the girls. Which is why it was the first song that came to mind when I was searching for a tune to use for the event. (more…)
I’m going to the OSCARS®! (Boy it’s fun saying that!) Kodak is sending me and 10 other bloggers to work the red carpet bleachers at the OSCARS®! Woo Hoo! However, with all that I have been busy doing for the past weeks, (months, year, decade…well whose counting), I find myself not as prepared as I would like to be for the event. For one thing, I have not seen all of the movies that are nominated. With my own live performance schedule, and my main job as personal chauffeur for my children, getting to the theatre is hard won. Plus, my subscription to US magazine expired over a year ago, so I am totally in the dark about whose hot and whose one the way of the leg warmer. So, I need the cliff notes for the OSCARS®. (more…)
When I was growing up we did a few projects at school where they would ask you to name what you parents did for a living. Answering about my Mom was easy, she was a therapist. I always new that. Heck anyone could figure that out just by talking to her for 5 minutes because invariably you would start telling her your life story. She just has that way about her. But my father, well that was a little more difficult. You see, what I knew about my father’s job was that he got up and went to work early in the morning, and came home fairly regularly around 530 at night. Usually I only saw him fleetingly for dinner just before I would rush out the door with my mother and sister to an evening dance class or rehearsal. But nevertheless I did have an answer for people who asked what my father did. He gave away the free cheese! See in Wisconsin there was this program that gave away free cheese to people in need. And though I didn’t know much else about my father’s job, I did know that he had something to do with that program. As I got older I finally got a real title for my father. He was the Regional Director for Health and Social Services for the State of Wisconsin. I still didn’t know exactly what that meant, but it was a great title!
That was his present while I was growing up. His past was something a little more colorful, but truthfully still elusive. From 1952-58 my father was a Harlem Globetrotter. Yes, you heard me right. He was a Harlem Globetrotter. And the only reason I have the dates down pat was because he had this award from the organization that hung in our house and it had the dates in raised characters on the front. I memorized them. I had to, because that was about as much detail as I ever really got about his experience. It’s not his fault totally. I don’t remember if I have ever really asked for detailed memories, I’m embarrassed to say. Amazing how we take the people close to us for granted. Their histories.
Last week I learned something more about my father that I didn’t know. Not from him, but from a newspaper article. (more…)
I have been an actress since I was a child. So of course award ceremonies have always been a great source of fascination and fantasy. None more so than the Oscars TM. Singing into my hairbrush, and then practicing my acceptance speech in the mirror for my great movie musical starring role debut, was common place in my bedroom growing up. 3 decades, 3 children and what sometimes feels like 3 lifetimes later, my theatrical career has been a strong one, but didn’t lead to the movies. Instead the path I have walked has been rooted in live performance and interaction, with a sprinkling of television. I am very proud of what I have achieved thus far, and hopeful about what I have yet to achieve in the future. And yet still when awards season comes around I get a little twinge, a slight longing for what might have been. But not this year, (more…)
About 3 years ago my family and I made a vacation of our city of Chicago during Spring Break. It was a lot of fun. The highlight for the kids was the day we spent at Navy Pier, most of which was done in the Build A Bear store. We had never been there before, mostly because it seemed a little pricey for our monthly budget, but this was special. So, we went, and all three of my kids made a special friend. It was a great time. A lasting memory for us all, but especially for my youngest. That day a friendship was born that would stand the test of time, doctors and hospitals.
This story is not unfamiliar to Maxine Clark, CEO and founder of Build A Bear Workshop. I had the pleasure of hearing Maxine speak recently at The Disney Social Media Moms Conference. She shared her very personal, and inspirational story behind the creation of her corporate phenomenon. But Build a Bear Workshop is not your typical International company, because what Build A Bear runs on is kindness, compassion and dreams fulfilled. (more…)
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