Elise Baumann joined Beacham & Company right around the time I started this blog (5 years ago).  I knew we were going to be friends as soon as we met.  She has the biggest smile and infectious laugh, and I just loved her immediately.  She's been reading this blog since the first post, and I can say without a doubt she's its biggest fan.  In a lot of ways  blogging is a very lonely process - just you and a computer.  You think and agonize over posts, and then once you hit publish you don't hear anything.  Elise always read.  She always went out of her way to come by and encourage me and tell me I was doing a good job.  If it weren't for Elise I would have quit at some point in the last 5 years, but knowing she liked what I was writing was always enough to make me think it was worth doing. I recently started reading The Artist's Way, and there is a section in there where you think of the people who encourage you the most in pursuing your passions, and Elise was the first person I thought about.