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Nearly Wordless Wednesday – Why Being A Mom of 3 Is My Special Occasion

August 17, 2011 By

At BlogHer, Hallmark had a booth in the Expo Hall with these shirts to customize and then they took your picture for a virtual mosaic. I stood there for a minute, thinking about what exactly in my life is a special occasion, and the answer came pretty quickly.

Chris and I were sure we didn’t want kids, maybe because we were still kids ourselves when we first started dating. Neither of us had any experience at all with babies, and when we tried to imagine ourselves as parents, we just couldn’t, so we agreed that kids were not in our future.

And then I had an unplanned pregnancy that ended in a blighted ovum, and I realized with much shock that I had actually been excited about having a baby, and it turned out Chris knew just how I felt, and a year later, Ryan was born.

From not wanting kids at all to having THREE of them, and doing a pretty okay job of raising them, makes the fact that I’m a Mom of 3 a special occasion every day! And so, the caption on the shirt :)

Filed Under: Being a Mom, BlogHer '11, Wordless Wednesday Tagged With: , ,

BlogHer ’11 Friday Continued – Old School Bloggers Session and Two Parties

August 9, 2011 By

Read this post first.

So I left off having taken some Immodium (thanks again, Robyn!) and deciding I was up to doing at least something conference-related.  I found the room for the Old School Bloggers session where I met up with some of the bloggers I’ve known since BlogHer ’06!  Here’s  TwoBusy, LaurieWrites, and IzzyMom:

And here’s Jenny, SJ, and Sarah:

On our way out I snapped a photo of three women who have been there for me since the beginning, who I think of as part of my blogging family – Jenn from Mommy Needs Coffee, Liz from This Full House, and Elizabeth from Busy Mom:

From there, I went to the MomCentral and Johnson & Johnson cocktail party, which was wonderful because there was actual FOOD and not just tiny nibbles grabbed from passing trays. I stuck to a virgin Strawberry Daiquiri, got lots of hugs from the MomCentral reps, sat and chatted for a while, then a bunch of us left to go to the Cheap Sally Dance Party, which was AWESOME.

The party was at a bar in the Gaslight district called Stingaree, and we had it all to ourselves until 9:00 pm! They laid down a red carpet for us to walk in to get inside, then there were three floors all for us, each floor had a bar (with free drinks, woo hoo!) and REAL FOOD again (penne arrabiatta and a sourdough roll, so good). On the rooftop though was the real party. This was the first thing I saw:

Yeah, just a little freaky. So, all around the perimeter of the rooftop were these cabanas, and inside each one were couches and chairs, a table, and the sponsors. Free drinks were flowing, there was a DJ spinning great tunes, and lots of great people to meet! I learned about Gordon Ramsay’s new line of kitchen appliances, got some cute flip flops from SearsStyle, posed with a cardboard cutout of Roseanne from her show Roseanne’s Nuts on Lifetime at the Lifetime Moms cabana (I hope someone posts that picture!), and scooped up a ton of Smarties (excellent choice for a sponsor!). I also chatted with the folks from Big Fuel, a social media agency, about joining their Mom Network that connects bloggers with large brands, it’s called momentum.

And yes, I did let my hair down a bit! I did a little dancing (yes, really) and then caught a Pedicab back to the hotel. A Pedicab, if you’ve never been in one, is a person on a bike pulling a cart with two bench seats. And while it feels weird letting a person do that, they must do all right because everywhere I went, if I stepped even close to the curb, a Pedicab rushed over to see if I wanted a ride.

Our driver (biker?) had a stereo, and he blasted Rapper’s Delight as we flew down the street. What was awesome is that people we passed would raise up their hands and yell “whoooo!” and start dancing along! One guy ran down the sidewalk next to us for half a block! It was definitely an adventure.

It absolutely sucked not having a camera. My cellphone camera’s not great, and while the tablet does do okay, I didn’t always have it with me. I’m hoping in the next few weeks I’ll pop up in some pictures on Flickr or Facebook that I can grab and share.  Next up, BlogHer ’11 Saturday!

Filed Under: BlogHer '11

BlogHer ’11 Friday – Started Out Crappy, Ended Up Awesome

August 6, 2011 By

Before I get into the insanity that was yesterday at BlogHer, I just have to say one thing – San Diego is AMAZING! The weather? 75 degrees, no humidity, bright blue skies, every day. After the last three weeks in Michigan of it being so humid that you could wring yourself out like a sponge, I stepped out of the San Diego airport and it was like my pores breathed a sigh of relief. Even my hair is happy here.

The people that I’ve met so far, the pedicab driver, the taxi driver, the hostess at a rooftop restaurant – every one of them told me how much they love living in San Diego.  There’s San Diego Magazine in my room, the “Best Of” issue, I flipped through it last night, and the reader comments page was full of love for every part of the city. It must be so amazing to live in a city that people love so much!

Okay, so on to my adventure. I got here Thursday, went to the Welcome Reception for the Bee Squad, chatted with the CEO of Bumble Bee Foods about how is three boys surf, asked Chef Scott Liebfried who develops recipes for Bumble Bee and is the Sous Chef on Hell’s Kitchen with Gordon Ramsey how to make better tuna salad, ate some appetizers, drank a lot of water.

Then I went to the Clever Girls Party which was awesome, with an ice sculpture shaped like a Smurf, and free Smurf dolls for playing Wii Smurf Dance Party, and blue Smurfette cocktails. I stuck to water,  left about 10:30, came back to the room, and went to bed with my alarm set for 6:00 am.

Friday morning the alarm went off at 6, I stumbled into the bathroom, and realized I had a horrible headache but worse, a tummy that just did not feel good. And that’s when the puking started. I knew there was no way I was making breakfast at the conference, so I got back in bed. Two hours later, I woke up and bolted to the bathroom to, um, sit down with some urgency. Back to bed.

I’ll spare you the gross details. I sent out a tweet that I was sick and staying in my room until I felt better, then fell back asleep until 12:30 pm. At that point, I forced myself to get out of bed. Took a shower, got dressed, and headed next door to the conference.  I hadn’t even gotten into the convention center when someone coming towards me stopped and said they had seen my tweet and was I feeling okay? That made me feel good, I have to admit, knowing that someone cared like that. You know?

I got into the convention center and spotted Robyn, went over to say hi and gave her the brief story of where I had been. She immediately dug through her purse and gave me a pack of Immodium and pointed me towards the Gatorade booth. You’d think as a Mom that I would carry a pharmacy in my purse but all I had was gum, so it was nice that someone had just what I needed!

A sip of Tropicana’s Trop50 Raspberry Lemonade (SO GOOD) and a Quaker granola bar stayed down just fine, then I had to head back to the hotel to meet with Verizon for a lunch (I’m a Verizon Midwest Mom but they didn’t sponsor any part of the conference for me, just so you know). At the lunch, one of the Verizon reps offered me some pretzels and they got me some water, and by the time we walked back to the convention center together I was feeling pretty much back to normal.

Then I went to a session titled “Old School Bloggers”, and sat at a table with five amazing bloggers I’ve known since BlogHer ’06, and Donna ran up to give me a hug, and it was like getting wrapped in a comfy blanket of blog love. THAT’S really why I go to BlogHer every year. The sessions are great, the brands are great, but even if I only get a few minutes with someone, it reconfirms that connection we have, that affection we have for each other because of our shared love of blogging.

Friday night I went to a fantastic meet-up sponsored by MomCentral and Johnson & Johnson at a restaurant in San Diego’s Seaport Village, then to the Cheap Sally Dance Party which was unbelievably awesome. I have to run to breakfast now so I’ll have to tell you about those in another post.

Oh, wondering where the pictures are? Yeah, about that. I discovered Wednesday morning that my boys had left my camera outside after I asked them to go out there and take some pictures for a review. And it had rained. And the camera, a Canon Powershot, was ruined. I’ve tried taking some cameraphone pictures but there isn’t a good enough flash to get them at night. I’m hoping there will be some pictures of me on Flickr I can share. Gotta run!

 

 

Filed Under: BlogHer '11 Tagged With: , ,
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