I survived Blissdom. And I fell in love.

And it wasn't with Chris Mann. Although, he was there. And, yes, he is delicious. (what do I mean he was there? Um, he sat in front of me and gave me a private concert) (I don't care if there were 250 other women in the room. He was singing to me, dammit). 

And I didn't exactly fall in love with the twelve other bloggers with whom I spent 45 minutes while trapped in elevator #2 of the Hotel Preston, but I came darn close. Physically, I've never been so close to so many lovely ladies at one time. We swapped sweat and stories and frustrations and tweets and fears and panic and phobias and more sweat. And now we will forever share an emotional (and somewhat comical) memory, one that we will relive at our 2010 reunion: #elevator 13. For more about this hormonal journey, read Shannan's brief tale of survival at her blog (she shares a couple of telling pictures, as well).

Oh, and speaking of the hotel, you must read Ally-B-Speakin's post about this fabulous art-deco-style hotel, room-serviced beta fish and all.

In all seriousness, I fell in love over and over at Blissdom. There are some amazing bloggers running there mouths in the blogosphere. My favorites are the ones who don't do it for money, rather they do it for the love of writing, for the love of blogging, and for the love of loving themselves enough to be honest and transparent. These women are inspirational, and I hope that I can grow up and be just like them.

Until Monday . . .

This weekend I am attending Blissdom in Nashville, Tennessee. Blissdom is a two-day conference all about blogging.

I imagine that some of you will roll your eyes at this, but I couldn't be more excited. The only downside is that I will miss my sister's homecoming (though hubs, baby, and my parents will be at the airport to greet her!).

Believe it or not, I have established special relationships with many of my fellow bloggers via blogging. Additionally, I work with the conference host, and most of the ladies with whom I work will be in attendance. I talk to these ladies everyday (via skype), and they are all dear friends.

I won't return until Sunday, but I will be sure to post updates on Monday regarding the conference and my sister's trip.

Be thinking of me as I will be missing my family.

Until Monday . . .

Food for thought

(Another email forward)

Marriage changes passion.
Suddenly you're in bed with a relative.

How come we choose from just two people to run for president and over fifty for Miss America?

I signed up for an exercise class and was told to wear loose-fitting clothing. If I HAD any loose-fitting clothing, I wouldn't have signed up in the first place!

When I was young we used to go 'skinny dipping,' now I just 'chunky dunk.'

Wouldn't it be nice if whenever we messed up our life we could simply press 'Ctrl Alt Delete' and start all over?

Brain cells come and brain cells go, but FAT cells live forever.

Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.

Please DON'T!

Honey, I love you. And I know that you love me.
But please DO NOT send me one of these for Valentine's Day. I will surely puke all over you if you do.

This one's for you, Michael Phelps.

I miss this girl!

And yes, that's my sister in her Snuggie! And no, she doesn't knit. She's pretending.

Celebrating Tuesday

If you live in the Parker, Colorado area, please consider attending this precious celebration. And even if you don't live in Colorado, consider taking a bike or "wagie ride" anyway (if weather permits). Though I will be at Blissdom, I will be thinking of sweet Tuesday all weekend long. 

Steung Meanchey Dump

Please visit this link (the embed code was not working). Morgan and Team Cambodia visited "the dump" yesterday. I can only imagine how surreal it is to witness people and children living and working on a landfill. 

She said that it was the absolute worst thing she has ever seen in her life (she surprised me last night with a phone call). Families are so desperate that they send their children to dig through trash to find recyclables. It is the lowest of the low in terms of living and working conditions. 

In a month, the landfill will be removed (I'm not sure how you remove a landfill) because it has been bought out. In some ways, this is even worse for these people because they will be without anything at all. Asia's Hope is brainstorming ways that they can help these people.

Bless my sister's heart. Even though she spent much of the day throwing up in her mouth (literally), she is already thinking of ways that she can get back and help these people.

Today she will be working with the team to do lice checks on all of the kids. It is Morgan's hope to give them each a haircut before she leaves!

Thanks again for all of your prayers.

I will be watching this movie today.

My favorite Super Bowl commercial

Oh, and speaking of the Super Bowl - Santonio Holmes basically won the game. As far as I'm concerned, that deserves an O-H!

Morgan update

Can you please say a prayer for Morgan? She is suffering headaches, and it held her back yesterday when the team visited a state-run orphanage. Headaches are not unusual for her, and more than likely, the heat is causing them. 

Other than that, things continue to go well. Thanks for all of your prayers and support.

P.S. More pictures!

The spoiled under-thirty's

(Sent as an email forward; and it's important to mention that I'm one year away from 30, but I figure that's close enough)

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up - walking twenty-five miles to school every morning, uphill...barefoot...BOTH ways!!!

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today!

You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue!

There was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter, ---with a pen!

Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3s or Napsters! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and/or the end and screw it all up!

There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and 'eject' it and then flip the tape to play the songs on the other side! 

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called
they got a busy signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It
could be your school, your mom, your boss, your Bookie, a collections agent, you just didn't know. You had to pick it up and take your chances! 

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids.' Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen - forever!

And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing. You had to get off your rear and walk over to the TV to change the channel! 

There was no Cartoon Network, either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rats!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove - Imagine that!

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or before!

Regards,
The Over-Thirties