I almost never remember this anniversary, but yesterday it just hit me. Adam and I were both home sick with different bugs, and I was poking around in my calendar. And I realized that today is the 16th, and that’s my blog birthday.
Tag: blogging
It’s the first day of fall! So obviously my brain is starting to focus on the upcoming holiday season.
During the summer I went to The Big Toy Book’s Sweet Suite event in Manhattan, which is an annual party to connect bloggers (basically “mommy bloggers”) with companies and their products. This year it was part of a series of events called Blogger Bash, but I only attended Sweet Suite.
I went as press for GeekMom, since we’re working on our holiday gift guides. And there will be a lot of cool stuff for the holidays this year, ya’ll.
I’m a week late, but here’s the group of outfits I wore in March. In March I learned that I desperately need new jeans, so that is currently being handled.
I also missed about a week’s worth of photos last month. It was a busy time; H’s second birthday (which was really wonderful), finishing up the four-month-long web design course I took, and working on some very cool new professional adventures for myself. Those adventures include a complete overhaul of this site, which is currently in the works. And I’m really thrilled about it; this blog’s last facelift was four years ago. And this won’t just be a facelift; this site will look 100% different. I’m really hoping to have the new site up by the end of April. Fingers crossed!
I took a blogging break for the second half of August to go on vacation (more on that later), host in-laws, get H ready for toddler school, deal with lots of paperwork, apply for stuff, try (and fail!) to organize the house. We got home Thursday night, and I still don’t have the wherewithal to go through trip photos, or recipe photos, or any kind of photos. But, it’s September 1st (well, for 5 more minutes, anyway). So I figured at the very least I should post a paragraph to burst that block that I often get when I’ve been away from blogging for a bit. After a while it’s hard to decide where to jump back in, so I like to go with short explanations.
So, my 48 hours in MotherReader’s 48 Hour Book Challenge were up as of 9pm last night. And here’s what I read this weekend, and for how long:
- Read all of my ARC of Brian Selznick’s Wonderstruck. It was absolutely gorgeous in every way, and it took 3 hours to read.
I will be participating in #48HBC this year. The idea is to read and review as many books as possible in a 48 hour timespan, and this is the 6th readathon MotherReader has organized. It gets bigger every year. And every year I see it’s happening when it’s too late to participate, but this year I am getting on board with it. I don’t know how much I’ll actually be able to read this weekend (especially since I left several ARCs at school!), but I want to set the goal for myself this summer and dedicate more uninterrupted time to the things I love.
Other BEA posts: BEA 2009, BEA 2011 Pt. 1, BEA: The Books!
I mentioned that last Tuesday I attended the Children’s Book Council event “Children’s Author Speed Dating” at BookExpo America. And I’ve guest blogged about the event over at author Tara Lazar’s blog. I’m really excited about this, not just because it’s my first guest blogger post. I’ve been following Tara’s road to publication for a couple of years now, and I can’t wait for her book MONSTORE (Aladdin/Simon & Schuster) to hit shelves in summer 2013. I hope to line up for one of her events at BEA pretty soon.
I haven’t written much about BYW, the ecourse I’ve been taking for the past month. But now the class has ended, and I’m about 3 days late posting my final homework assignment. But this cold and ear infection have had me on my back all week. This is actually my 3rd attempt today to sit down and post something; I get about 5 words in and have to put my head on the desk to stop the world from throwing me off of it. Fun, right? And I’m really trying to go back to work tomorrow. So I’m kind of forcing myself to plow through (4th attempt) and get back to normal. Do colds and ear infections work that way? Do they go away from sheer stubbornness? (5th attempt).
I went to the BlogHer conference in Manhattan this weekend. It was an amazing event for women bloggers, and I met some outstanding people. I stayed out passed 5am yesterday morning, I ate some terrible conference food (seriously, Hilton NY?). I was disappointed about not finding many book bloggers or craft bloggers at the conference. But I did enjoy the atmosphere and loved the people I met. But next year it’s in San Diego, and I don’t think I need to fly cross country for it. If it’s ever in NYC again I might go. Here are some highlights.
The opening breakfast with the founders of BlogHer.
I used the second of my mom’s Christmas gift card bonanza at Barnes & Noble to buy some magazines and One-Yard Wonders by Rebecca Yaker and Patricia Hoskins. I’m in love with it already. It’s been on my wishlist for a while, so when I saw it on display at the bookstore I snatched it up. So many great projects in here, including the fabric dollhouse from UK Lass in the US. Now I definitely need to make that.