Look at this post I found hiding in my drafts, just waiting and waiting for me to give it some attention. Poor neglected, abandoned post! Here’s the story:

A couple of years ago, IZEA (though they were only known as PayPerPost at the time) had a call out for pictures of ‘posties’ for their new office wall. They had just moved offices and wanted to decorate this big, blank wall in a special way and those of us that posted on our blogs for them were known as ‘posties’. (Hmm…are we now ‘Sparkies’? Cuz that’s way cute!) They were calling it ‘The Great Wall of Posties’ and everyone who sent in a picture for the wall was sent a ‘Postie Pack’ – which was a box of uber doober shwaggy goodness! Here – you can read this post that was another call out to posties to send in more pics: The Great Wall of Posties.

Now, over the years, I’ve gotten several Postie Packs from them, for different things, and sometimes just as a surprise. And the last two I received were sent from Ashley Edwards, a very sweet guy who works over there and who is a blast to hang out with, though I’ve only gotten to do so virtually, so far. (We used to have lunch every Thursday, remember, Ash?) And in his last two packs, he taped a picture of himself and Veronique (super cool chick who is PPP employee #1!) in the first one and in the second one was a picture of himself and two other sweet girls from there whom I can’t remember. (Bad postie! Bad postie!) Well, I do know that one of them is a cool hippy chick like me and may even be vegetarian. I just can’t bring her name to mind. Ack! *

It was such a surprise when he did that – when I opened up the first pack, I laughed so hard!! I thought it was really awesome – so up on the wall it went! Then a few months later, when I got the other one, up on the wall it went. And now I have begun my own wall – ‘The Great Wall of IZEA’!



Oh man! You know what I just realized – I did have a huge face picture of Ted Murphy that we had printed out and used as a ‘Flat Stanley-esque’ project. Sammie took him to school and took pics of him in band class – it was great! But I should have saved that for my wall, too! I imagine, though, that after traveling in Sam’s backpack for a few days, he was not lookin’ so fine! Ah well….

Ok, so – this is the picture I sent to them for their Postie Wall. I was pretty proud of all the work I’d put into it and it paid off, because, Ted said it was one of his favorites! Some of them were so funny – one guy sent in a pic of himself dressed as a woman and just workin’ it – too funny!

Here is the picture of my office and my little bitty ‘The Great Wall of IZEA’ over there in the corner – ok, so it’s lacking a bit…lol…

What a mess my office was! Ok, ok, it’s still a mess – but, it is rearranged differently now. And I’m working on the mess. It’s a process, people, a process! Here is a close up version of the two pictures:

So there’s my “Great Wall of IZEA” post, dragged up out of my drafts to see the light of day. It is happy. Hope you’ve enjoyed this segment of ‘Drag it out of Drafts’ – hey a new category, perhaps?

*(Edited to add: Oh, oh, oh, I think one of them is Carri Bright – she’s so funny and cool! And she got to see the space shuttle launch – and she probably shouldn’t come visit me in Alabaptistbama, but, damn, she’s funny!! Not sure she’s hippie-ish or vegetarian, though….I think that one I was thinking of had a baby and isn’t working there anymore. Or I could just be crazy and making up stories, as I am known to do. [be quiet, Micky and Mark! - evil brother and evil husband who like to tell stories about my telling stories! pshaw!])

Ted Murphy, CEO of IZEA, is one cool guy. And he’s also a funny guy and I just know he’s got to make one damn fine uncle, because, he’s always making kids laugh with all of his antics! And now, he has gone so far as to ‘become’ Flat Stanley! Or he’s become Waldo – or you could even say Carmen Sandiego! Whatever the deal is, Ted is traveling the world – and this time he’s doing it without any of those airport hassles he’s always telling us about!

See, Ted wanted to have a photo gallery on his blog of all of his readers that he’s met. Only, that would not really represent all of the readers of his blog – so he decided to just send himself to us – and that way he could have pictures with all of us! Ted’s been excited seeing all of the places that he’s ‘been’. It’s been pretty darn funny!

And when Ted came here, to Northeast Alabama, he decided he’d like to go to band class with some local sixth graders, my Sammie-girl included!

The first picture is Sammie in the car – practicing “The Ted”. Oh no, you can’t just do “The Ted”! It’s a very specialized technique that takes some practice! Ha!

The other two pictures are of Sammie and one of her best buds, Lacy – and you can see that Ted just decided to come flying right out of their instruments! He was a high C out of the Sammie’s trumpet and a low B out of Lacy’s trombone! Yessir, yessir, let it be known – Ted Murphy makes his own music! Ha!

I’m always telling my kids that I’m a ROCKSTAR, but, for some strange reason – they’ve never believed me. See, I’ve been buying these RockStar Energy Drinks for quite a while now and if the kids are with me – I tell them that, of course, that means Mom is a ROCKSTAR! Duh! What’s with kids these days, anyway? Don’t they know COOL when they see it?

Well, now I have proof – that’s right! I’ve got proof! Proof of my Almighty Rockstarness!! And it comes straight from the coolest crew in town – the IZEA Crew! Yep – they say I’m a ROCKSTAR and they’ve sent me an award to prove it. Those silly kids don’t know who they’re dealing with! Pshaw!

And that purdy little award is sittin’ on my desk right now – shouting to all who come this way just how COOL this dorky little mom is!

Wait a minute…

**shakes head**

“I’m a RockStar, this I know
For IZEA tells me so!”

Just can’t get that catchy little tune outta my head! Good thing I’m drinking my ROCKSTAR today to go along with the crazy tune in my goofy head! LOL!

Anyway, yeah – where were we? Oh – rockstar. Me. Right! Well see, the deal is, every month IZEA picks three ROCKSTARS. Actually in March they picked four awards – because the funny, goofy, awesome Ted, CEO of IZEA – got an “Above and Beyond” Award for constantly ‘Bringing the Awesome’! The other three awards are the ones they give out every month. One is the Postie of the Month (that’d be me), the Advertiser of the Month (Seaworld.com) and the IZEA Team member of the month (Grady Griffin from the Dev. team) – who is actually called the “Rockstar of the Month”….hey! Wait a minute! I’m not a rockstar? The kids were right?

Eh, well – I’ve been pretty cozy in my dork status for almost 39 years now – I think I can handle it. Besides – I’m a fun dork. Yep – that’s me – the fun dork! LOL! And I’m also the Postie of the Month for March!! And for this honorable distinction, I was granted this uber duber super cool award:

Now that is not all they sent me – oh no – when IZEA sends you goodies – they send you goodies and they don’t mess around! I’m not kidding! Check out my super groovy IZEA desktop:

They also sent me a new IZEA t-shirt:

And they sent me something else that I am saving for another post!

Thank you so much to everyone at IZEA!! It’s really been great fun working with you over the last few years!!

Recently I told you about Ash (Ashley) and V (Veronique) being some of the coolest people on the IZEA team – and I never really got around to telling you what inspired me to share that with you! They are both two very nice ‘faces’ to the company – they are both personable and approachable. And now they have started ‘having lunch with all of us’ every Wednesday, via webcam and chatroom. It’s been a really fun experience!

At one of the chats, I asked them if I sent in some goodies, if they’d send me some updated schwag. I’ve got PPP schwag, but, I haven’t gotten anything with the cool, new parent company name or logo on it. (The new parent company is IZEA. All of the fun, useful, goofy, awesome companies that get started over there, fall under this umbrella, IZEA.) And without missing a beat, Ashley told me to email him my shirt size. Now how cool is that? Without even a second thought, he was gonna go to the trouble of picking out some goodies for me and sending them my way! And they got here so quickly, too!

And in just a matter of days, one of those lovely green boxes we’ve all grown to love and enjoy showed up on my doorstep!

Woohoo! I was so excited! And when I opened it up, I was delighted to see some lovely, delightful IZEA schwag!

I’m going to have to get busy getting a treat together for them and get it sent out to Orlando! Oh, and I also need to send them a postcard – I keep forgetting that part. They are collecting postcards from posties – so if you’re a postie – send a postcard over to Ash and V! And of course, there in the box was my gorgeous, new IZEA shirt! Don’t I look great?

The most exciting and hysterical thing of all, though, was the surprise I got when I first opened the box. Let me tell you, every time I passed by this certain thing – FOR DAYS AFTERWARD – I laughed my ass off! These two are not only sweet and kind, but, they are a SCREAM, too! A couple of HOOTS, I tell you! Just check out what they taped inside the box for me:

Isn’t that just classic? I love it! And they sure made my day special!! And like I said before, they’ve always been so nice, so for GOOD PEOPLE DAY 08, I wanted to tell you all about my two groovy friends at IZEA!!

Thank you so much, Ash and V!