My trip to New York was a whirlwind of awesome. That pretty much sums it up.
There are fewer things better for the mind and soul than having high hopes that people you admire will like you back should you meet them and those hopes coming true. I think many of us still hold on to feelings of rejection from middle school or high school, and those can resurface at events like BlogHer. And when people aren’t snobs, and instead embrace you willingly, with arms oustretched, and shower you with positive thoughts, well, it’s nice. It’s better than nice. It’s fan-fucking-tastic. I finally met so many awesome, amazing people I’ve been sharing my life with online, and they were smarter, and funnier, and more intelligent and fun than I thought possible. And when I met these people, they gave me giant, genuine, real hugs. The level of positivity and emotional generosity is unlike anything I’ve experienced.
We just spent a few days up at Clear Lake in northern Iowa with my family.We rented a house on the lake, just like we did in Blackduck, Minnesota two years ago, and cruised around on a pontoon while drinking beer and making pathetic attempts at catching fish (except for my dad; he caught fish). We didn’t get to town until almost midnight on Friday, as Chris had a workshop all day and we got caught in some crazy rainstorms that send many a less-fearless driver to the shoulder. Of course, we pull up, and Big Ed is waiting in the street to direct us in, despite the fact that I had received no less than three texts from my sister-in-law about Ed falling asleep in his camp chair. Midnight is really past Big Ed’s bedtime, for reals, but his love for directing parking is limitless. → continue reading
Begin staining process. Convince husband that he really has to do the staining himself because you would mess it up.
Start to believe it yourself.
Realize this process is taking four times as long as you had planned.
Feign normalcy by inviting friend and three-year old daughter over to lunch in the basement. Reassure three-year old, upon urinating on the floor, that she wasn’t the first to pee on the floor that day.
Resume role filling scratches and holes with wood putty because you are an equal partner in this project.
Go ladycamping while husband stays behind to stain. Decorate your own coozie and drink vodka-spiked Capri Suns. Talk about periods.
Realize giant pimp tent is less claustrophobic than basement, smells better.
Return to beautiful, untouchable floors.
Clean up basement dog pee, vomit, poop, and shredded personal items.
Repeat #9.
Repeat #10
Referee countless rounds of Basement Dog Thunderdome.
Thank Baby Jesus for awesome husband as he seals the floors.
Agree to do all tangential helper-type activities until floors are finished.
Do that shit with a smile.
Relax in clean, fresh, carpet-free bedroom. Breathe.
Please to ignore our bare bedroom. We’ve only moved essentials thus far. More pics on Flickr.
**If you are not going to BlogHer, or do not care about BlogHer, or think us ladybloggers are nutso, this is probably not the post for you. Go look at this instead.***
Dear Baby Jesus, the interwebs blew up this week with BlogHer hubbub. It was like the announcement of the Voices of the Year was some kind of signal for everyone to start freaking out about the conference all at once.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m stoked. I’m pumped. I can’t wait.
Great things happen at BlogHer. At its heart, the BlogHer conference is about celebrating the writing of women and the community that surrounds those women. And that’s why I go. I have always been a writer and I will always be a writer; it’s something I do for myself because I love it. The internet allows women writers from all over the world to engage with and support each other. It’s a little like college: no matter who you were in high school, you can find your niche. You just have to look hard enough. And I’ve been fortunate enough to make several real life friends across many niches from my experiences blogging. → continue reading
I was totally humbled and thrilled to be named a finalist in the Life category for this year’s BlogHer Voices of the Year contest. I may have peed a little. For those non-BlogHers, members submit posts in one of five categories that they feel were the best posts they’ve read over the past year. Each category is narrowed down to 20 or so finalists, then three are chosen to read at the Community Keynote at the annual BlogHer conference. → continue reading
Sunday I turned 30. Truth be told, I have relatively little anxiety about it. I was too damn stressed last Thursday and Friday, what with the complete failure of my hard drive on Thursday and (delayed) travel to school on Friday. I have a lot of friends who are older than me, which must be because I’m so mature I pronounce it matoor, so it just wasn’t that big of a deal. I’m lucky to have the life that I have; it’s a damn good one. And, I lost 15 pounds in the last three months.→ continue reading
So I’m a procrastinator anyway, and I had allotted all day yesterday to crank out a paper that is due today. That’s how I do it. I got a system. Long story short, about 45 minutes after sitting down at a local coffee establishment to get cracking, my two-year-old MacBook freezes, and when I restart, I get the blinking file icon of death. I know what this means. I know that I’m fucked. I also know that I haven’t backed up in a while. SO GO BACK UP, KIDS.
Move all furniture out of rooms to be finished, preferably to your cramped basement. All couches must go on the front porch for purposes of authenticity.
Remove all carpet and carpet pad, staples, and nails. Sweep up legions of dead human cells. Die a little.
Attempt to set up bedroom and makeshift living room in basement. Briefly consider expanding wood panels to make basement sexier.
Tape up plastic sheets that will inevitably be torn down by a puppy and peed on.
Make even task swap with husband: he does all drum sanding and you do all shop vacuuming and reality television watching.
Feel bad about trade so offer to plug all the holes and dents with wood putty. Lament all the dirty jokes you can’t think of because of the sweaty, stinky mask you’re wearing.
Attempt to wrangle one not-completely-housetrained pup and one afraid-of-fireworks-so-refuses-to-go-outside old man pup in a rapidly-shrinking basement. Step in pee.
Break some shit.
Watch Real Housewives and read journal articles while husband returns, yet again, to Lowe’s. Briefly consider showering. Explain fake boobie ubiquity on Real Housewives to husband.
When you go to a conference like BlogHer, bloggers usually have cards they exchange with their blog URL, e-mail, Twitter name, etc. Last year I got minicards from Moo, which I liked, but I didn’t have a logo or anything, I just used images from Moo. I really didn’t think too much about what I put on them.
I decided to get new cards for BlogHer because I’ve been writing at different places since I got my last ones. My ladyfriend and fellow Food Blog Mafia blogger Iron Stef is an awesome graphic designer. She created the logos for FBM and the Church of Burger, which you can see to your right in my sidebar. Stef created card designs for me, incorporating all the relevant information AND used an icon of my fist tattoo. Check these out: → continue reading
So, remember when meeting someone you met online was, like, kind of sketchy and possibly dangerous? And there was a distinct possibility that the person you were meeting would either be a teenaged LARPer or Chris Hansen?
"Your new hair makes you look like David Bowie."--one 6th grader to another, renewing my faith in the cheeldren. http://www.twitter.com/kbestoliver30 mins ago
