spirit and stands like a rock when you need them.
MEET OUR BADASS BOARD
The BB Board founders are friends from different parts of my life. Cheryl and I met while working in Wisconsin. We threw some fabulous dinner parties together while kids played in the basement and to say we are professional shoppers is an understatement. Judy is a newer friend who I had the opportunity to meet when she was looking for an insurance team for her business. She didn’t hire me but in her amazing way, we became friends, and most try to never miss her famous cocktail meet ups. Renee is my daughter’s mother-in-law and just an amazing person with a beautiful view on life. And Lori, well…she is a badass from coast to coast with the energy that beats all of us put together.
Like us, we think there are other women that find themselves wanting to appreciate and enjoy more of what they have worked for. Still, we rarely finish a day where we don’t have the burden of a thousand other jobs on our minds, yet we know we want to find the time to give to ourselves. A moment to breathe, the desire to stop striving and start enjoying and stop competing so we can start winning. I recognize this may just be in our DNA but what if we build a place to break away, a weekend with the girls that you don’t have to plan or a local night out that is just about friendships and fun? We think you know what we are talking about!
So BBs, it is time to invest in you! Time to capture the feeling of walking into your hometown bar, hanging out at the sorority house, or resurrecting those slumber parties in third grade where we stayed up all night and talked. BB Life is laughing until our stomachs hurt with our besties and capturing moments that are selfishly ours where we can be our genuine self. It is time to celebrate our journeys with a familiar inclusive group that will become our BBs.
So, until further notice, celebrate everything! BB Life is a mindset that frees us from the need to lean in or break the glass ceiling. BB Life gives us permission to know we deserve to drive the lime green car, eat the dessert, and take some time just for us! We can’t wait to meet you.
Julie
JULIES STORY
Hi! My name is Julie. I live in Boca Raton Florida with my husband, Harry and our two daughters, Brooke and Jenna.
I grew up always knowing I was adopted and always felt lucky to have two amazing parents that loved me. I had an ideal childhood growing up in a little town in upstate NY. I took dance and piano, I loved to swim (my uncle always called me fish) and I had a giant swing set in the backyard. My little world had everything I needed. A wooded area behind the house where my friends and I would build forts, a bedroom filled with pink flowered wallpaper, a dog and cat to always give me kisses. My hometown was safe. We could ride bikes through the rolling hills and play TV Tag down the street until dark. My biggest battles with my brother were who would get up to change the TV station.
My house was near the school, and I almost always had a friend to walk home with. We would rush to my basement to listen to Billy Joel or Styx while we did our homework, eating homemade chocolate chip cookies and talking until we got called for dinner. My mom was a housewife and my dad was an entrepreneur who had quit his job at the local factory to start a real estate company. For his time and our small town, he always lived big. He was a giver and often his real estate work would provide opportunities to own some locations like the local ski lodge, a country club, or the mall that I thought made me cool. I was proud of my Daddy and yes, a bit spoiled. We spent summers on the boat or camping at different fairgrounds to show horses, well, actually pulling up in a big coachman bus wasn’t really camping but anyway… Life was good.
I learned a lot too from my parents. They loved and respected each other. My mother could entertain at the drop of a hat and my father had a phenomenal business mind. He was tenacious but with a good heart. Smart without a formal education. He was a man of his word but when others were not, he always got back up and pressed on. As I entered the workplace, I was a lot like him. Possibly scarred though, from the ups and downs of his risk taking, I did take a more corporate course.
When I got married and had children, I was fortunate again to have the support that allowed me to excel. I built my way up and pretty soon, my husband stayed home with the girls while I continued to climb the ladder. Like many others, I also had plenty of downs. I know the fear when you aren’t sure you can pay the bills, the concern over a bad boss or a health crisis of a close loved one. In 2016 my husband had to have an organ transplant and that required a new focus. Getting him better has been a journey.
As I look back on all the times in life, good or bad, what always made it either alright or the best was knowing I had supporters. In addition to my family, the friends that I have laughed and cried with have made every moment of my life special. Friends that encouraged me, showed up for life’s special moments and held my hand, if I needed it. Those friends have made my life richer. I have some amazing women in my life; Together we know how to have fun. I am the planner and the next level entertainer. My son-in-law joked as we were planning their wedding, that it was always in my blood as he looked at his wife’s baby pictures, and there I was painting T-Shirts for every guest and waving the custom printed napkins that said, “Brooke’s 1st Birthday”.
While I am still working in the commercial insurance field, I want to continue to fill my life with things I enjoy. I have invested in my husband, my children, my work, and now I want to invest in me. This investment includes starting BBlife Social Club.BB Life is about living life to the fullest with amazing people! It is the feeling you have when you are with your best friends, dancing in the kitchen to the best song on the radio. It is the sweet smell of fresh air in the spring and the taste of cotton candy at the county fair. It is celebrating our accomplishments and strutting like a badass. We have earned it. We deserve the title and to invest in ourselves.
BBLife Social Club is born, and we can’t wait for you to join the fun and get to know us!
CHERYLS STORY
My name is Cheryl.
I am happily married to my husband Patrick and was blessed with my only child, Preston. I was born on March 5, in Chicago Illinois, in a small town, in Washington state. I am the oldest of 3 siblings. I have a sister and 2 brothers. I was raised by a single mother and in my opinion, I had a perfect upbringing. My mother was a “Kool-Aid ” Mom and she made sure that we were raised with good moral standards and had everything that we needed and most of what we wanted. She instilled in all of us to dream big, to visualize and to set goals. It wasn’t a question of “if” we would go to college it was a question of “where ” would we go
We were a very close family with rules and structure and the way that my mother presented that to us growing up made the four of us kids to never want to disappoint her, nor each other. This gave me all the foundation and ammunition needed to be my true self. I knew from a very young age that I could do anything that I put my mind to and, as a result of this type of thinking, I have always set short-term and long-term goals for myself.
From the time that I was 8 years old I somewhat knew what I wanted for a career and operated my first “store” selling candy out of my grandmother’s kitchen window. Now that I look back this was my version of a lemonade stand. By the time that I reached 7th grade, I had major body insecurities. I was teased a lot about how skinny I was, and this caused me to retreat within myself and dive in even deeper to my long term goals. I always thought that I am going to show them!! School was the most important thing to me because I knew that success there would mean success later in life. I was obsessed with magazines Home/Food/Fashion… you name it I would buy it. Most of my goals were formed around the things that I saw in magazines of which I still love today. Due to what I was exposed to in the magazines… I made my decision and knew that I wanted to be in the Fashion and Interior design industry in some way.
My mother had hoped that I would follow in her footsteps and seek a career in the Medical industry. She even went as far as to try to bribe me with a newer car, while in college. At the time, I was driving a school bus yellow Ford Pinto. I politely declined her offer and went on to drive that car throughout college because I was passionate about a career in Fashion in some way, shape, or form. I went on to graduate from Washington State University with a BA in Home Economics and Clothing and Textiles. A perfect foundation to start on my path to a career in clothing industry and what became a severe passion for my hobbies of entertaining and decorating.
I had decided that I wanted to be an Apparel Buyer, as fashion and travel appealed to me. I began my professional career, where else but, in Los Angeles, California in a large department store in the Beverly Center. It was fun working in an environment where you got to see celebrities every day but, at the same time, I was extremely homesick and lasted in LA just 9 months before moving to Seattle, which is where all of my college friends had moved to. From there, I worked in management for a regional specialty chain and then a regional department store before getting promoted into the buying office. My career continued to accelerate and over the years I held several buying jobs for Regional and National chain department stores in apparel, accessories, handbags, home, cosmetics, and fragrances. My husband was and is a strong supporter of my career and put his career on hold and was able to be a stay-at-home Dad until our son was older. My work travel started to get very hectic, as I was traveling for 2 weeks out of the month, and I, unfortunately, started to miss out on some key events in my son’s young life.
This broke my heart and I then made the decision to go on the Wholesale/Sales side of the business. It was far less travel and I was able to work out of my house. I started as a Sales Rep for a major denim manufacturer. I am still with the same company 26 years later and over the years I was relocated 4 times for different advancement opportunities in different cities /states. I am finally back in the Great Northwest and still loving what I do! I have maintained my avid love for cooking and entertaining and still single handedly manage to keep all of the Fashion, Home, and Décor magazines in business.
I have a lot of passion for my work and my hobbies, although in recent years, with a few health setbacks, I learned very quickly that you have to speak up and be your own health advocate. After having some issues (which ended up being treated by a Chiropractor) I was diagnosed with NOTHING; although three different neurologists prescribed medications for me to treat something that I was never diagnosed with. Needless to say, this changed my outlook on life as I knew it. I have had to re-evaluate everything about “Cheryl”, and now I am concentrating more on myself vs making sure everyone else is fine. It is all about me now… I matter and plan to LIVE my BEST life. BBlife is my new foundation and roadmap!
JUDYS STORY
Hi! My name is Judy.
I live in Buffalo, NY (Go Bills!) with my boyfriend. I do not have any children, but have always been the “Fun” aunt to my friends’ kids. I was born in a coal mining country in Scranton, PA (love Loretta Lynn) but grew up in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. My father served our country in Vietnam, looked amazing in that uniform, but returned with PTSD that was never addressed. My parents divorced when I was 7. Growing up in Ft. Lauderdale, where the sun always shined, you could ride your bike to the beach and enjoy Spring Break, for three months of the year, it was great. We lived in a very modest home, but I could walk to all of the schools and made wonderful friends. I am close to three of them today that I have known since 2nd grade and one has afforded me the opportunity to be a world traveler. One of our favorite sayings is, “You can sleep when you are dead!” My Mom would work multiple jobs just to barely keep a roof over our heads. She taught me the value of a dollar and the importance of being self-sufficient.
I was active in high school, and in extracurricular activities. We had little, but she still taught me it was better to give, than receive. She also believed that Karma, good or bad, would always find its way. I went to work as an administrative assistant, for an insurance company, and was taken under the wing of one of the first female branch managers. This woman inspired me! I thought, “I can do this.” She had a sign in her office that said, “Work like you don’t need the money; Dance like no one is watching; Love like you have never been hurt!” I married a police officer and always told my Mom that the uniform thing was in my genes since she fell for my Dad in his. You really have to love a man who wears a uniform well! The best part, I got his mother in the divorce.
My Mom died young which was, and will always be, the worst thing that ever happened in my life. They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. On a positive note, I have an amazing ex-mother-in-law and I have been able to take her traveling, from Alaska, to the Panama Canal, to Portugal, and beyond. Our next adventure is Austria, Switzerland, and Germany. I currently work in Risk Management and have a very different world view, in my business world, than my personal one. I like to live life, experience new places, and personally connect with people. I grab the gusto in my personal life and am conservative when it comes to work. I have always been driven to succeed and to support others and I am energized for this new adventure and to meet all you fabulous women out there. One of my favorite mottos is, “Life’s journey is not to arrive safely at the Grave in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out shouting Holy Shit…What a Ride!”. So what do you say ladies, are you with me?
