Help a Seestor out!

When thinking about my favorite people, my college roommate Emily, her siblings, and their spouses dominate the list. Lucky for me, I've been symbolically adopted by the lot of them and taken my rightful place among them as a "Seestor"! Make no bones about it, this is a big deal to me. Every person in their family is crush-worthy. I get woozy when I'm around more than 2 of them at once. This is no joke as they make up a huge group of people. HUGE. Remember that show, Eight is Enough? Well, Emily's parents didn't think so! It's a good thing they had more than 8 kids because Emily is the 2nd youngest. I'm really glad they didn't stop with Em because one of my favorite memories includes the "baby" in the family: Seestor Amy.

Oh, darling Amy! She officially became one of our college group of peeps when she stayed at our off-campus house a week before Emily's 21st birthday. The timeline is only important in that there may have been a run-in with the police, who were doing I.D. checks at our favorite little bar in town, and there may have been people running away on foot from the police and some of those people may have been caught. There may have even been a fundraiser to pay for the tickets issued for underage drinking and running the eff away from the scene. That's a story for another day, though. Oh man, is it ever a story! I mean, maybe it's a story and maybe it's not. Could be, or I could be making it up. But I'm not, so keep that between us.


Amy & Emily, at Em's wedding. This isn't their mugshot. Not that they have one.


Joking aside, I'm really writing this post for a serious reason. One of their older sisters, Nancy, got diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis thirteen years ago. I remember being in our living room at college with Emily when she got the news. It was devastating. Nancy is an incredible person. Perhaps without intending to be, she's also an inspiration to not only her whole family, but to everyone around her, including the adopted seestor typing in this blog post (me!).

Every year since Nancy was diagnosed, Amy has been raising money towards a cure for Multiple Sclerosis by getting pledges for her participation in the annual "Walk MS". It was something she could do to really show support for her seestor.

This disease does not discriminate: Nearly one year ago, in May 2008, Amy was also diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.

In her own words:

I wondered where my donations went, what I was REALLY walking for, and if the MS Society REALLY utilized their money/resources wisely, since Nancy was not getting any better.

Then with my diagnosis came the answer...there was immediate assistance from the Society guiding me through each step of the process of now living with MS. All of that monetary help from every sibling, friend, spouse or loved one of someone with MS revealed itself. It was in the financial assistance of my medication; the check-ups from RNs on a regular basis; and the continuous support of people who truly understand all that I'm going through now.

I've registered for Walk MS 2009 because I want to do something for the people who have been diagnosed and because I want to do everything to prevent more people from learning what it means to live with this disease. Today, there is no cure for MS, but hopefully with the support from you, we'll be that much closer to finding a cure!

Nancy, was diagnosed with MS about 13 years ago... to everyone's surprise. She has shown amazing strength and determination in battling her illness, so I had a guide as to how to deal with adversity. I've been relying on her example when dealing with my own illness; I can only hope that I'm making her proud.

Nancy & Amy. You make ALL of us proud!


Nancy and Amy have inspired me to offer the following: 

Everyone who donates $10 or more to Amy's Walk MS team before THIS SUNDAY will get a one of my photographs (your choice, see the teaser shots below) FOR FREE. They'll eventually be for sale for in my halfway-completed Etsy store for... more than that. 

If you donate $20, I'll send you 2 photographs of your choice. See how this works? I'll ship them right to your door, at ZERO cost to you. 

Mother's Day is coming up, you know. Someone you love is about to have a birthday. You deserve a little something! A beautiful photograph would be perfect for this occasion, don't you think?

Go on, click HERE and give up some cash for my beautiful seestors Nancy & Amy, and for everyone else affected by Multiple Sclerosis. Amy is already 91% of the way to her goal! With 48 hours to spare, help her get there!

E-mail me after you've donated (or leave a comment) with your information and donation amount so we can get this whole thing rolling.

All of the following images ©HouseofJulesPhotography. All rights reserved. Ahem, please don't steal.

Mini-Gallery:

All images ©HouseofJulesPhotography. All rights reserved. Ahem, please don't steal.

CLICK TO DONATE HERE!!

If things go well, you might be showing off your O-face!

I've already written about how my job has involved many pitch meetings for different products, and that I probably pay attention to commercials, slogans, and advertising in general more than the average person does. I think about what goes into a pitch meeting, and how I'm sure some advertising agencies must be amazed when a client goes with (and pays big money for) some half-baked or unintentionally hilarious idea.

For example, I was surprised by this product name and was saddened by this spokesperson/song, and I couldn't believe that this winter accessory actually made it into production. The last marketing campaign that caught my attention was way back in November, and it was True North's"extraordinary nutsnacks". I even asked my friends Spammon & Lindsey to be the official House of Jules extraordinary nutsnack taste-testers. You can read that post (and I highly recommend it, for the nutsnack comparison photos alone!) HERE.

Since that time, I haven't seen any glaringly awful or awesome product advertising, that is until this week when I saw this:



1. Yes, they are asking you to "upload your O-face*" so people can VOTE ON IT.

2. Not only do they want you to "upload your O-face*", but if you win, your O-face* will be featured in a national ad campaign. C'mon. Nobody wants to see that.



I'm guessing the nice people at Three-O Vodka told the female model to act like she walked into her own surprise party, and told the male model to act like he was being held up at gunpoint, giving a sad, new meaning to stick 'em up. I bet they just want everybody to think to themselves how easy it would be to win. Sneaky bastards.


*"You know what I'm talking about...O! Yeah..."