All I can say is WOO HOO! I am grateful to the depths of my core to Elisa from BlogHer, who called me today and offered me a job working at the conference. She reads this blog (hi Elisa!) and has been following my saga of trying to figure out how to get myself there. I will be working as the coordinator between the bloggers who are coming to sign and sell their books, like Heather Armstrong whose book “Things I Learned About My Dad (In Therapy)” will be released on April 29th, and the bookstore that we will have come to take care of the payments. I will be making sure that everyone gets where they need to be when they need to be there. It’s the perfect job for me as a book lover!

Oh, and because I apparently have less than a fully functioning memory at the moment, I originally told a friend I was going to San DIEGO and not San FRANCISCO, and I apologize right now to native Californians for making that mistake! I’m chatting with her and saying hey, I need to look up the city on Google and see what fun things there are to do, oh look, I could visit some San Diego microbreweries! It’s a little embarassing, I know.

To those of you who have so kindly nominated me for the “Who’s Your BlogHer Hero?” contest, I am still in the running for that, and if I do happen to win, we will work something out as far as the prize is concerned. And to all of you who have nominated me, left me the greatest and most supportive comments, who have emailed me and chatted with me on IM and on the phone, THANK YOU. If I didn’t have the support of this blogging community, this blogging family, I don’t think my hopes would have stayed as high as they have been.

It takes a lot of fortitude to be a blogger, to hang in there through the ups and the downs, and to look at negative situations as temporary while assuming that positive situations are ahead. It just makes me want to work that much harder and be that much better at what I do. I know that even while working at the conference, I will still be absorbing knowledge and making contacts that will make this blog even better in the year to come! Thank you, all of you, for being on this journey with me. From the bottom of my blogging heart, I love you all.

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Okay, so I know I said I wasn’t going to go to BlogHer this summer, but it would seem that there are actually other bloggers who, well, want to hang out with me. With ME! And they have all been so kind in their emails and IMs, asking me isn’t there some way I can make it happen? I’m not going to win the BlogHer website’s contest, I already know that, because it involves writing a winning post about how I’m helping my family be more healthy this year and, well, I’m not. So, Plan B.

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I please introduce to you my ChipIn Widget:

Isn’t that a nice looking widget? But isn’t that a SCARY looking number? $1,000. One THOUSAND dollars. That is the amount I will need to pay for registration, my share of a hotel room (depending on occupancy and how many nights, I’m planning on needing $400 which is two nights if I share with one other person. It will be less if there are four of us in the room). The absolute cheapest airfare I can find on ANY airline is $450. So I’m rounding down a bit and getting an approximate amount of $1,000. YIKES!!!

So, the purpose of the ChipIn widget is this-if you should happen to be looking for an incredibly worthy cause for donation purposes, please considering donating any amount at all to my BlogHer fund. I’ll be trying to find only the most worthy of paid posts to do to make some extra money, and as the amount I have saved goes up, I’ll change the widget to reflect the actual amount I still need to raise.

And in case you’re now thinking to yourself “who does this chick think she IS, asking us to give her money for a blogging conference?”, let me plead my case like this-I went last year because I was invited to speak (free registration) and it was in Chicago (took the train, $40 round trip). While there, I made contacts with companies that I am still working with today, like MomCentral and Coburn PR and eMomsAtHome. I absolutely think that the contacts I made last year have made Table for Five and MomReviews better blogs. And every time I go, I learn more and get better at it. So you would be investing in the FUTURE OF THIS BLOG, and that’s pretty cool.

/shameless financial pleading

edited to add: I applied for a BlogHerShip today, for one of the registration/goodie bag desk positions. I would get free conference registration in exchanging for working. So keep your fingers crossed for me!

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