Today is the birthday of Sue Davis, also known as Suebob, also known as Suebob from Red Stapler, someone a lot of bloggers adore, and when I got an email asking me to post something for her birthday, something that would let her know how special she is to me, I knew exactly what I wanted to post. This is part of the Incredibly True Story of How I Went to BlogHer 2006, and the story starts with Suebob!

On May 16, 2006, I had been blogging for eight months when I got an email that changed everything. Suebob (yes, SueBOB, it’s been her nickname for a long time) from Red Stapler had run a contest to give away a free pass to that summer’s BlogHer conference, and the winner of her contest, IzzyMom, had already purchased her ticket and wanted to give her free pass away to someone else.

Izzy emailed me to see if I wanted her BlogHer ticket, which of course caused me to freak the heck out before emailing back YES and OMG.  When I emailed Suebob to let her know that I was the person getting the ticket and to ask how I went about finding a roommate to split the hotel cost with me, she replied back that she had booked a room and didn’t have a roommate, so how would I like to room with her and not to worry about the cost?

My mind was practically blown out of my head at that point. EIGHT months I had been blogging, I had never been to Sue’s blog, and yet she was fine with me taking this free conference ticket AND was offering to be my roommate AND was excited to meet me.   I didn’t know it then, but my entire life, not just my blogging life but my entire LIFE, was going to change in just a few short months.  Best of all, THIS:

IzzyMom and Suebob at BlogHer

Because Suebob had that contest, because she offered to let me share her room, and because another blogger used her Delta SkyMiles to buy my entire plane ticket and another blogger offered to let me stay at her house Sunday night and would drive me to the airport Monday morning – keep in mind, EIGHT MONTHS Of blogging and having never ever met another blogger in person – because Suebob’s contest set that chain in motion, I am not only the blogger I am today, I am greatly changed as a person today.

Because I went to BlogHer that year, because I listened to Ariana Huffington tell us in the Closing Keynote Address that she was overcoming her fears and starting a new website (HuffingtonPost!), because I grabbed a pen and on the back of one of my business cards I wrote:

1. Find your voice.
2. Stop apologizing. Be proud of who you are and what you do.
3.Stop hesitating. Move yourself forward.
4. You ARE worthy.

When I got home, I bought table4five.net and a hosting package. I bought a Pro Flickr account. Because I went to BlogHer, because Suebob set the wheels in motion, I became the blogger I am today – heck, I became the person that I am today.  I had been trying for years to find my creative outlet.  I had no idea what blogging really could be until I went to BlogHer ’06.

If you’ve been to a BlogHer conference, you’ve probably seen Suebob. She’s the lady with the camera and the red Swingline stapler, asking people to pose.  Go to Flickr and type Red Stapler into the search box and you’ll see what looks like thousands of pictures of people with Suebob’s stapler! I even got one of her with the stapler:

Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday Suebob! You are a beautiful person with an enormous heart and I hope your birthday is as special as you are. I hope you know that I think of you not just as a blog friend, but as a friend friend.

Send birthday greetings to Suebob through her Twitter, Facebook, or blog!

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I made my own BlogHer business cards last year, by purchasing Avery business card stock, and using the template on their website to upload an image and arrange the text. Then I had to print out the sheets eight cards at a time, and tear them apart by hand, leaving many of the cards with jagged and decidedly unprofessional looking edges. 123print has 1000s of designs to choose from and they say their prices start at $3.95, which I think is for 100 cards. That is an EXTREMELY GOOD DEAL!!!

I definitely recommend bringing some kind of card to BlogHer. People who didn’t were scrambling to write their URLs on anything they could find, including one creative blogger who used squares of toilet paper! As for how many you will need, that’s really up to you. I took 150 and probably only handed out half that many. I would say bring 100, you can always use sticky notes (or toilet paper!) if you run out.

helpful information: Over the years the growing use of debit and credit cards and e-checks through the internet bank has caused a decline in use of bank checks. Although it has added a new option in bank loan currently being provided, with credit debt to cover up the credit card balance. Leading american bank that has also been responsible for such trend is independent bank introducing the current trend of payment through cards in the market.

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When I started running Blogher Ads, I really thought I would make some money at it. I haven’t. And our family budget right now is so tight, it would be ludicrous for me to justify squeezing hundreds (and hundreds) of dollars out of it to go spend three days in Chicago.

So when I read this post over at Crazy, but that’s how it goes about how much money she has made writing for Pay Per Post, my first thought was that if I had followed in her footsteps, I would have already made all the money I will need for gas, hotel, conference registration and miscellaneous expenses.

So, let’s say I do sign up with them. Will it drive away my readers if every other post is an obvious ad? If you’ve never read a PPP post, it works like this: you might get paid $5.00 to write a post about an online company. You have to mention the name of the company and link to a specific URL, and talk about the product or service. And it’s not necessarily something that has anything at all to do with parenting, which is what I usually write about.

But then again, what if I could make two or three hundred dollars in a month or two? Then I could stop worrying about it and just reserve the hotel room already. Otherwise, I’m going to have to stay HERE, and that is just really, really scary.

EDITED TO ADD:  PayPerPost uses your Google PageRank and your Alexa ranking to determine what writing opportunities you can get. My PageRank is a surprisingly high 4, but my Alexa ranking is 2,217,049. Two MILLION. Yikes.

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