For a few posts I am going to highlight people who have influenced change in my life. I won’t call them role models however because I have this belief that idolizing humans when they are susceptible to failure isn’t fair. Thus, I will never set myself up for disappointment. Also, these people will feel better about making mistakes if they have to, since we are all not perfect. I think it’s a wonderful thing to let people know how they affected your life positively.

With that said, I will start with Gardenia (I’m writing about you!). Well, I worked with Gardenia at Publicis Modem and didn’t know her personally. My earliest memory of her was actually her dog, Biscuit (Biscuit must be one of the most loved dogs in the world he also has his own twitter account @no1cuter). I turned around one day in the office at Publicis and there was a dog running around. He was incredibly small and right away I wondered if it was normal for Americans to carry their dogs to work (aren’t some people allergic?). Biscuit is actually a Pomeranian which are hypoallergenic (that I found out later).

I didn’t get to work directly with her at Publicis but when she left, I worked with her when she reached out to me to be a designer on Riocaliente.com, a spa that she was interested in acquiring. I was very fortunate to have been able to. I was fortunate enough to visit Mexico where I had an incredible time according to this post (where I got a Spanish translator for the iPod) and this post (where I purchased Huichol Art).

This is the website:

While working on that site, I learned a great deal about Gardenia that set alot of my life in perspective and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Especially because I met her, I had the best vacation ever!

Have you ever done this before? Where you’re happy to have known certain things about someone. I found out that we had a great deal in common and she had actually studied design, is well-read and travelled many places. She seems to be confident in a great deal of things and is quite lovely. All the while she is enjoying life and starring on her own reality show.

She is also a vegetarian, a lifestyle that I just adapted (I will write an entry about this soon). So I definitely follow her blog about the types of produce that she gets and food she cooks.

Follow her on @gardenia