my SITScation whrrl-wind story

Giving Whrrl (one of the conference’s sponsors) a whirl, here is my story.

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deflowered

I am no longer a virgin. Surprised?! Really?!

No, really. I can now say that I have attended a blogging conference. I can’t say that I lived to tell the tale because baby I did much more than live. I had fun. I met finally some people I am a HUGE fan of and they were just as excited to meet me. I learned a lot about this art and yes, to me, my blogging is a creative art. I discovered that what I do here is a very good thing because it is what I want to do. I came to see that there is so much more I can do with this blog of mine. All this happened to me at SITScation ‘09 in Las Vegas this weekend. Oh yes, I want to do this again…maybe Blissdom ‘10 (if only I could afford it)…definitely BlogHer ‘10! I’ll share more later so stay tuned…

I can also say that I have played at the blackjack table. I know how to play blackjack…sort of…kind of…well, I’m really good at losing on my iTouch app. When I have been to Vegas before I wanted to, out of a little curiosity, play some blackjack at the casino table but I was afraid, intimidated, shy. While spending a little time getting to know some of my fellow Sitstas, I discovered that I was not alone in this. The next thing you know I was walking along the strip with Cassie, Kerri, and our blackjack mentor, Amy.

I’d like to tell you that, whoo-hoo, I won big. I didn’t. But thanks to Amy and our very patient dealer, Jasmine, I did learn the etiquette of the blackjack table and can at least cross that off my list, wherever that list may be. I can also stress over the fact that the sweet, flirty, little old man from Detroit thought that I was Cassie’s, Kerri’s and Amy’s mother. WTH? Well, I could be Cassie’s mother since she is the same age as my daughter, Holly, but still…Perhaps the old man wearing the two wrist watches (one for Detroit time and one for Vegas time) wasn’t so sweet after all.

Nevertheless, it was a great weekend, a productive weekend, a fun weekend. But it sure is good to be back home!

seeking inspiration

Is it the summer doldrums? Is it the fact that I have so many juggling balls in the air that I can’t seem to focus? Is it the knowledge that so many people I see face to face are reading this blog of mine now? No matter the reason I am kind of stuck. I have a lot of ideas circulating above my head but I can’t seem to pull them down to my keyboard at the moment. Bear with me. They will come out…one way or another.

Until then, ask me a question. Ask me anything. Leave me a comment with your question and I promise that I will answer it.

Waiting…kind of awkwardly cringing…hoping that someone asks me a question…soon!

fortitude

Poured myself a glass of Fortitude, a very smooth, full-bodied glass of Fortitude. Perhaps an inspiring blog post will soon follow.

Or perhaps not.

We shall see won’t we?

after BlogHer ‘09, my blogging conference pledge

Although I think of myself as a veteran blogger I have to confess that I have never attended any blogging conference ever. Yes, I made plans to attend BlogHer ‘06, ‘07 and ‘08. I sulked just a little when I had to suck it up over the realization that with hubs out of work, my work hours drastically reduced, bad timing and no corporate sponsors beating down the Big Top door that I was not going to BlogHer 09 either. Because I wasn’t always in the know in social network land, I missed out on opportunities like BlissDom as well.  Still I lurked and reached out to those lucky ones attending living vicariously through their live tweets and blogs of the fun and lessons learned as well as their post-mortem thoughts and observations on the good, inspiring, funny, bad and OMG-that-is-fugly that is blogging conferences.

Having said all that can I just say that based on the tweeting and blogging during and after BlogHer 09 makes me genuinely afraid to attend any blogging conference out there. Of course I must disclose that I made good on my promise that I would attend a blogging conference soon and FINALLY, hopefully, meet face to face  bloggers who I have become acquainted with over the years and those whom I admire and am a huge fan of. I bought my ticket to SITScation 09 and booked my room and then this weekend I took a gulp, dug into my personal savings and bought me a BlogHer ‘10 ticket.

Yup! I’m going to not one but two blog conferences in the next year and at this moment I have to confess I am a little worried and a little scared. What the hell did I sign up for, I wonder? Are these conferences only about the crazy-assed,  claustrophobia-inducing parties where one must be willing to knock over anyone and anything just to get a bag of swag? Is it all about acquiring so much stuff (whether you have an actual use for it or not) that you have no clue how you’re going to get it home? Is it all about corporate sponsorships and how much crap you can sweet talk, bribe them to throw your way with the promise that you will only say nice things about them on your blog? Is it all really about a sense of entitlement that I deserve all of this and more offered at this blogging conference because I am a blogger dammit?

Is this how it is really?

One might think so searching through blogs and other media today that are discussing BlogHer 09.

Regardless, I’m still going, albeit with a little trepidation. Yes, I know these blogging conferences are what I choose to make out of them and I do agree with that generalization. Having said that I am making a statement of how I hope to behave at SITScation ‘09 and BlogHer 10. From my perspective the key to making these blogging conferences a positive, community-building and learning experience can be found in everything that I learned in kindergarten. With a nod of respect to Robert Fulghum here is my pledge  to you all.

All I really need to know about blogging conferences I learned in Kindergarten:

All I really need to know, how to act, what to do and how to be at a blogging conference I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom, it seems, can not be found at the top of the mountain of the blogging community, but there is in the sand pile at school.

These are the things I believe I should apply when I go.

• share everything
• play fair
• don’t hit (elbow) people
• put things back where you found them
• clean up your own mess
• don’t take things that aren’t yours
• say you’re sorry when you hurt someone
• wash your hands before you eat
• flush
• warm cookies and cold milk are good for you
• live a balanced life- learn some, and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some
• take a nap every afternoon
• when you go out watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together
• be aware of wonder. remember the little seed in the styrofoam cup? the roots go down and the plant goes up and no one really knows how or why. but we are all like that.
• goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the styrofoam cup- they all die. so do we.
• and then remember the Dick and Jane books and the first word you learned- the biggest word of all- LOOK

Everything you need to know about how to behave at a blogging conference is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into blogger terms and apply it to your your life, your work, government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think about what a better blogging conference and community it would be if we all, the entire blogging community, had cookies and milk in ther afternoon and then lay down with our blanket for a nap. Or if all blogger attendees had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how long you have been blogging or how many blogging conferences you may have attended or how many corporate sponsors beg to give you a free ride sponsorship to these blogging conferences, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

[Source: "ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN" by Robert Fulghum.  See his web site at http://www.robertfulghum.com/ ]

If you see me at SITScation ‘09 or BlogHer 10 or, if I am lucky, any other future blogging conferences that I might be so fortunate to attend, please say hello to me and by all means, feel free to remind me of my pledge here.

meningococcally thinking

Don’t be afraid! Really the masks are unneccesary as the Chief of Infectious Diseases at VMC assures us that Jodie and I are no longer contagious. We are just sick, really sick and recuperating. But it is obvious that life goes on…kids need to finish up their last few days of school, Zoë has a tour of Europe to prepare for, Abby has a missions trip to the Shonto Reservation to get ready for and Hazel has a first birthday in just two weeks!  With Jodie in San Jose at the hospital for the next 2 weeks and us at home trying to juggle her recuperation, my convalescence and the rest of our hectic lives, it is safe to say that at this moment that I am overwhelmed. I have so many blogging ideas running in my achy head but I just don’t have the energy to get them lout so I will be replaying old posts and entertaining guest posts. Any favorite old posts you want to see? Are you just aching to take over my Adventures in Juggling for a day and post your own thoughts? Leave me a comment or email me at nicurnmama (at) aol (dot) com.

I now know…

I’m still here.  Life, love, work and other mysteries just seem to be getting in the way of my blogging.  But one mystery for me has been solved. I now know what I want to be when I grow up.

I promise to catch y’all up on Hazel’s dailies, what Bob is doing to me, my random thoughts and life under the Big Top as soon as possible.

blogger rising

I am so honored to receive this award!

Over at The Rising Blogger, JHS, Esq. of Colloquium has recently taken the reigns as editor where she and her collaborative team are devoted to finding and spotlighting the best of the blogosphere in order to help bloggers find, enjoy, appreciate, and validate the work of other bloggers.

The Rising Blogger Post of the Day Award is bestowed upon original content that is insightful, inspiring, newsworthy, educational, informative, touching, creative, interesting, humorous or . . .

Like I said I am so surprised and honored to receive this award and to be featured. The news came at a great time for me last week when I was really questioning my baring perhaps a little too much of myself. The post selected, Breathing In and Out, was, more or less, a rant that spewed from my mind to my fingertips as I two-finger typed what I was feeling at the moment. I filtered nothing in that post. As the week progressed, I found myself re-thinking that post as well as a few more that followed. I want to be authentic to myself and to those who read this blog…and who might read it in the future. Still I don’t want to hang out too much of my garbage and baggage like my neighbor hangs out her underwear for the neighborhood to see. I reveal perhaps maybe only 5% of what goes on here under the Big Top. Of that 5% I try to share mostly good and funny things. But family life isn’t all perfect wonderful-ness like in the movie Pleasantville. So sometimes you get a glimpse of some of the garbage that can accumulate around this circus.

It’s a fine line we who chose to blog our lives sometimes walk. How true are we to ourselves, our family, our friends and our readers if we only share the warm, melted chocolate chip cookie goodness of our lives with our audience? Is that all they want to see or read about? As I teeter along that line I try to remain authentic by reminding myself what blogs do I read everyday without fail. Are they the Leave It to Beaver, Mayberry RFD type blogs or are they a little more real than that? My style of blogging, which I hope is mostly authentic, is a lot more real than wholesome, perfect life in 20 minutes with frequent commercial interruptions. For me, this award validates my choice to be a little more transparent. Life under the Big Top is a lot of joyful, hopelessly loud, chaotic fun and I certainly could never make up the stuff I do share. But life under the Big Top is sometimes messy too because it is so joyful, hopelessly loud chaotic fun. It’s a freakin’ circus! What else would anyone expect?

So with my acceptance of this award I am asked to pay it forward by nominating a post of another blog whom I feel is worthy of this honor. Keeping with the idea that we readers seek blogs where writers are real I want to nominate a post written by Nurse Sean. Sean is fairly young nurse in his career (compared to my over 18 years as a nurse). In the post A Dark Place, Sean shares his inner and outward struggle as he settles in his new role as a nurse in an intensive care setting. I identified with his dark place as a newer nurse trying to prove to the veteran nurses and docs alike that I had the skills and knowledge base to be there. As a veteran nurse, Sean’s post reminded me my own personal resolve not to be one of those crotchety old nurses who eat the fresh-faced-less-experienced-nurses-just-starting-out for breakfast. I used to be just like them only seeking to fit in, to learn more, to gain more experience and occasionally, be recognized for doing a good job…I still do in my RN-dotage. I imagine in literally any career, vocation or walk of life there are “young ones” like Sean who find themselves in a similar dark place where they are just trying to fit in and do their job well. I would hope that anyone who would read what Sean shares would be able to identify with him, even if they aren’t ICU nurses and perhaps gain a little more grace and acceptance for those around them. It is Nurse Sean’s post A Dark Place that I nominate for consideration for The Rising Blogger’s Post of the Day Award.

Do you have your own “post of the day” you would like to nominate? Would you like to be a part of The Rising Blogger team? Click here and definitely share.

okay I have a domain…now what?

Actually I am the proud owner of two domain names and yet I haven’t a clue what I m supposed to do with them. I want to take one (I’m not greedy) and make it the new home of this blog of mine so that I can be an ad-whore like everyone else and their mother. I manage nearly 300 hits a day so why not make a small pittance off the clickety-clicks from all of you. By the way, THANK YOU! At least I can sleep at night knowing that YOU are listening to me.

But seriously, I have these domain names and, well, I may have been doing this blogging thing for four years give or take now but I don’t know how, what or where when it comes to making this blog truly mine. I’m too busy changing hundreds of thousands of diapers and counting, catching babies, saving lives, and doing laundry in this juggling act of mine and well, I am absolutely clueless. So…wanna help a girl out?

In the meantime, I am working on some sponsorship ideas thanks to Carmen of Mom to the Screaming Masses by way of Liz of Mom101.

Goal: For a cool company to pay me to do that which I already do.

I have to agree that this is a pretty great idea. Let’s see what I can do with this:

• Looking out at my driveway I am thinking that Kia Motors needs to sponsor me. They definitely need to sponsor me since the last three out of four cars that we purchased and still own are all Kias. It looks like a freakin’ Kia Motors used car lot here under the Big Top.
• Starbucks should really sponsor me. Not only do I regularly consume their products but I have provided one of the best gosh-darned baristas ever here in the Central Valley and I happen to be the big sister of the other best gosh darn barista of San Diego!
• Pampers, Huggies, Luvs and, any cloth diaper service chain out there should be sponsoring me because I swear I have changed more diapers than anyone at least in the Northern California area.
• and while I am on it let me borrow from Carla and put it out there that yes, my family pediatrician should be sponsoring me too….the hospital in San Jose that was the stage where each of my circus clowns made their debut should be sponsoring me too.
• Nike needs to sponsor me because I have birthed out so many dang children with such narrow feet that only Nike athletic shoes seem to fit them well. Side note to manufacturers of children’s shoes everywhere: not every child has wide, flat feet. Stop acting like anyone under the age of 10 fits in to this cookie cutter mold you all work from. I only wear Nike athletic shoes when I am doing athletic type things too because I have narrow, high-arched feet too.
• Baby Gap should be sponsoring me because I DO have the most adorable red-headed peach fuzzy, blue-eyed baby grandchild ever who should be wearing more Baby Gap products.
• Cheer and Downy along with LG should sponsor me because everyone knows my sole purpose in life is to do laundry. If they won’t any other laundry-related company should because I will use your product, I promise. Face it, I am a whore for laundry. It’s my life.
• Canon should be sponsoring me too because I never go anywhere without my Canon Digital Rebel xti and also because I need more accessories and gadgets to go with that camera.
• Sephora should sponsor me and send lots and lots of samples. I just finished checking out the latest catalogue and all I can say is I want it all.
• Christian Louboutin should be sponsoring me and offering me a pair of these shoes. My girls swear I need to have them. I could think of a million other things I could (should) do with all that money….bills, savings, kids’ clothes, gas, college….so I think Christian Louboutin should gift me with the shoes. I promise to wear them EVERYWHERE…EVERYWHERE!
• Kotex should be sponsoring me. I have FOUR daughters age 12 and up…’nuff said!
• Harley Davidson should be sponsoring me too because it is your fault for all the crap going on around here under the Big Top lately. Like the sirens in Homer’s Odyssey you have my darling hubs under some damn spell where he doesn’t have to think of anything but the open road while riding his hog. Actually I think you should kick in a HUGE donation towards the first year’s tuition of darling daughter #2’s college of her choice…see why I need to get my own domain to host ads? Every penny counts!

Well that’s enough sponsors for now. I am sure after a good night’s sleep I could come up with even more…so may more I would never have to work outside the home ever again.

blogging the recession even if the experts tell me this isn’t a recession

Some economic experts calmly reassure us on infotainment shows that we are not in a recession…yet. They may know all things in the bond market and interest rates but it’s hard not to believe them when we are paying out more than $4/gallon of gas or when we watch yet another neighbor pack up and give up their American dream to foreclosure. People, like my husband, are out of work with no promise of steady income in the future. We’re doing okay right now but whose to say how long we will be okay…or how long it will take for me to go crazy with my darling husband home and underfoot catching up on his laptop solitaire and Law and Order marathons.

Today it seems very likely that there will be more folks sucker punched financially in my state as our Governator signed an executive order to cut state jobs and wages. Now, I can try to appreciate the dilemma he struggled with because the fact my state’s governing body was unable to get a working budget into place before the beginning of this fiscal year was no surprise. What would have been a surprise would be if they did turn in a budget to the Governor’s desk on time. Of course the Governor’s decision created the perfect opportunity for state legislature leaders to put out their political agenda in their defense. I guess I am supposed to be reassured to know that the legislators are grappling over how to close a $15.2 billion budget gap. I mean they are so sincere when they step up to the press microphones. Frankly I’d rather see them locked up in the State Capitol doing their flipping job. They should remain in Sac, roll up their sleeves and get the job done. Whether I voted for you or not, Greg Aghazarian and Dave Cogdill, you work for me. I contracted you to do your job which includes coming up with a working budget and doing it ON TIME. You have not done your job. In a place like my workplace you would be fired…seriously. Yes, I understand that you both are trying hard to deal with this huge monetary gap without raising my taxes and cutting important programs like the condoms for prisoners pilot program. But the fact remains that you and your colleagues still don’t have a working budget. I think the Governor is cutting the wages of the wrong state employees. It should be your wages that are reduced down to the National minimum wage, not those state employees who are just working for a living. Good people are facing the loss of their homes. Good people are wondering how they can feed their children. Good people are stressing about how they can afford veterinary care for their beloved, lifetime friend. Mr. Aghazarian and Mr. Cogdill, I can’t accept any explanation or excuses from you or your colleagues when I see people genuinely worried about what they will do and how long can they survive this. It’s time for you to stop explaining and defending and to just get your butts to the Capitol and get a budget done…NOW!

Over at Motherhood Uncensored is the beginning of Blog the Recession Month. Will it solve the California State Budget clusterf@%k? Will it bring the price of gasoline down to less than $3 a gallon? Will the stock market stop taking a dump? Will it settle the “adjustment” we have been living with in the real estate market? Will it end this not-really-a-recession recession? Perhaps not. But never underestimate the power of word…I would say the power of the mighty pen but it’s actually a keyboard which given the way the media has lately sat up and taken notice of women bloggers maybe we can bring about some positive change. At the very least it will feel good to get some of this stress, worry and general pissed off feelings off of our chest and maybe if we all jump on this bandwagon we might just discover that we aren’t alone in this not-really-a-recession recession.