OK Prairie Chick: 2011

So. Wow. 2012. Here we are, lurching towards a new year and here I am performing the annual duty of pondering my existence and purpose in life.

2011 was certainly interesting. It saw the end of my era at the OKC Chamber and my stint in politics as well as the dawning of a new adventure in fundraising with OSU.

In fact, I’m sitting here at Hideaway in Stillwater feeling very blessed indeed to have a job that allows me to come to Stillwater frequently and get in my share of great pizza. Ahhh…mmmm.

2011 also saw me usher in my 35th birthday. Yeup.35. Holy Lord. Thank goodness it was spent in Paris. I mean…you can’t be too depressed about aging when you’re doing so in the city of lights.

Right around that time I also decided to take one last stab at on line dating. Oh yeah. As you might assume there are some pretty good stories and I'm sure there will continue to be more.

Guy #1 made it past all the initial weed-out questions and actually progressed to meeting for a drink. He was cute, offered decent conversation, actually understood that conversation is a give and take interaction, and paid for the drinks. This entitled him to an actual lunch date.

Due to the timing of my Parisian getaway it was about a month before I saw him again. It’s about 2 weeks to Christmas at this point so I took him some cookies and we met for lunch. The guy who had initially seemed like such a normal, albeit a wee bit nerdy, fella immediately crossed the road into creepy weirdo land when he
proceeded to describe his favorite tree ornament he bought this year.

There was a long drawn out story about finding said ornament online and how excited he was to find it and how when he did he immediately purchased it. This story was prefaced with the fact that his Christmas tree is a little “Avant garde”. I’m not exactly sure what an “Avant garde” Christmas tree contains or why you’d want one…but I appreciate the creative attempt.

I appreciated the creative attempt that is…until he told me that his favorite ornament was a silver fetus.

Yes folks. You read that right. A FETUS.

I can’t imagine what the market is for a silver fetus tree ornament nor do I really want to.

This tree ornament story brings us the long way around to the whole purpose of this blog which is to talk about my 2012 New Year’s resolutions. I figure fetus guy is the universe’s way of saying…”Okay True. You’ve had 2 years of being totally selfish (for good reason) and now it’s time to change the focus and start looking at how you can help others. You need to put good out there to get good karma in return.”

So! My 2012 New Year’s resolution is to help 12 new philanthropies outside of the work I already do for the American Cancer Society and the Oklahoma County Tobacco Coalition.

Starting in January I will be focusing each month on a different group. It could be an on-going effort like listening to little kids read every Thursday for a month at a school…or a one-time event like the OKC Marathon.

Each month I will also do blog posts describing my experiences at each charity…the good, the bad, and the ugly…in an effort to gain enough good karma points to ward off any more dates with guys who think a silver fetus on their Christmas tree sounds like a good idea.

I’ll take any suggestions anyone has. If you have a favorite charity or event that you like to do or feel needs a little more “promotion”…please let me know! The one caveat being…it needs to be within a couple of hours drive of Oklahoma City. Sorry folks…I’m committed…but not THAT committed.

I look forward to sharing this grand experiment with you all
this year.

Welcome to the inaugural post for OK Prairie Chick! And wouldn't you know it coincidentally coincides with the 3rd Annual Wallace Family PEEPS Show. This year we decided to open voting to a larger audience and initiated the OK Prairie Chick blog for the occasion.

Please note that all PEEPS Show entries were done by members of the Wallace family (either by blood or marriage). In an effort to avoid vote solicitation all entries are done anonymously so you, the voter, will not know whose PEEPS Show you are voting on.

The rules are as follows:
1. You get to vote once for each category: First Place/Best Over All, Best Use of PEEPS, and Best Interpretation of the Theme.
2. You may vote in the Comments portion.

The identity of the PEEPS Show winner will be revealed after voting has closed. Voting will close at 3pm Thursday, April 28th.

Keep in mind this year's theme when voting: PEEPS at Work

Be sure you scroll all the way to the end there are 7 entries this year.

1. Better keep an eye on those swimming PEEPS because the PEEPguard on duty isn't doing a good job. I'm not sure you could really call life guarding "work" but I'm sure others might disagree.

2. "This is Jack Rabbit reporting live from Okarche for KFOR News where a HUGE F-4 tornado has cleared out a trailer park!" Being a Storm Chaser is hard work!