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Jul 10, 2013

BlogHer ’13: What To Know If You’re New

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Note: I wrote this post originally for BlogHer ’08, but didn’t see the sense in re-typing all of it again, since much of the advice holds true. Enjoy this recycled post with a few edits to make it more relevant to this year.
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Can you feel the tension and anxiety building in the blog world? Thousands of (mostly) female bloggers are a couple of weeks away from traveling to Chicago for BlogHer 13. The tweets about what do I wear? and will anyone talk to me? are already in full swing as some newcomers start to panic and wonder if they’ll be mocked if they don’t have an iPad with them or don’t say the right things.

Relax. Seriously…relax.

This will be my eighth BlogHer conference, so I do claim the right to call myself a bit of an expert on this topic. I’m ready to see old friends, meet new friends, browse the Expo and make connections with brands, pick up some new skills in sessions, and party until I drop. However, I was a member of the nervous newbie club once, too, so I know how some of you are feeling. Confession: I still get a little nervous each year. So allow yet one more person to give you a little advice on surviving your first BlogHer.

Hit the parties

There are a lot of parties planned this year. More parties than one person can possibly attend without being a Doctor Who companion, and the official parties are open to anyone attending BlogHer. Go to the parties, especially the Thursday night parties! This is your first chance to mingle and socialize in a low-stress environment.

Even if you have a hard time making the first move to introduce yourself to another person, I promise that someone will ask you who you are and will want to get to know you.

Next thing you know, you’re surrounded by your blog gang. (BlogHer ’11)

Prepare for short attention spans

At the same time, expect most people at these parties to behave as if they have some kind of attention-deficit disorder. (Some of us actually do…ahem.) It’s only natural – for those who have been to BlogHer before, they’ll be bumping into lots of people they haven’t seen since last year. And others will suddenly turn and see one of their blog friends standing right in front of them for the first time.

So don’t be surprised if you’re talking with a group and someone disappears or squeals and runs away. It’s not you – she was probably overcome with happiness to see another friend. It’ll happen all night, and as one person disappears, others will appear to join in on the conversation. It may even be you doing the ADD-wander-off.

It’s easy to get distracted with all of this going on. (BlogHer ’11)

Expect happy surprises

Don’t be surprised if others come running to you, too. At my first BlogHer, I felt so lost when I was checking into the hotel. There were women everywhere – many were clustered in groups, and I was far too shy to approach one of these groups to find out if they were bloggers I knew.

I remember walking past everyone, dragging my suitcase behind me, anxious and feeling like I wanted to hide in my room for the next three days, when I heard, “Is that Christina? Hey, woman!” It was Izzy, and she was the first shout out of many I got that night. I was also invited to dinner with Mayberry Mom that night, too, which further helped to calm my nerves.

Getting hug-tackled in a photo booth is pretty cool, too. (BlogHer ’10)

Hand out your card

If you don’t suffer from debilitating shyness, be sure to introduce yourself to as many people as possible. Have business cards if you can. They don’t have to be anything fancy: name, blog name, URL, Twitter name, and e-mail address are plenty.

You might think you don’t matter enough to have a business card, but you’re wrong. That card will help people remember you, and will help them find your blog after we all leave Chicago. Without cards, I never would have remembered the blog names of everyone I met at BlogHer, many of whom I now read regularly.

Unless you’re Bob Harper. I don’t need a card to remember him. (BlogHer ’11)

Be unstructured

Once the conference begins, you’ll meet even more people at the sessions you attend. These sessions are wonderful, with lots of information for beginners as well as advanced bloggers. But you may occasionally find you need a break, or find a period of time that doesn’t have any sessions you want to attend. That’s totally OK. There’s no rule that you must attend every session – hanging out in the hallways chatting with others is often just as valuable as the sessions themselves.

Poolside was a great hangout – just don’t get the laptops too close to the water. (BlogHer ’06)

Expect to be photographed

There are cameras everywhere. You’re probably bringing one, too. Remember that everything said or done at BlogHer is on the record, so be prepared to end up on Flickr or Instagram. This especially goes for those who like to drink, but can’t hold their liquor. (However, if you do want drunken antics to show up on the internet, drink away!)

Best seat at the CheeseburgHer party (BlogHer ’09)

Branch out

You’re going to find bloggers in your niche, but you’ll also encounter bloggers on nearly any topic. Take some time to get to know women outside of your niche, too. Surely you have interests beyond being a mom, right? Mom bloggers are lovely, but there are some awesome DIY bloggers, too. And pet bloggers. And fashion bloggers. And food bloggers. And shopping bloggers. If you can’t find someone who blogs about one of your secondary interests, maybe you need to start a new blog, eh?

Fashion show at BlogHer '12Next up for me? Fashion blog. And yes, totally kidding. (BlogHer ’12)

Step out of your comfort zone

There will be a moment when you’re encouraged to do something a little… silly. Zany. Wacky. It could be in the Expo hall, it could be at a party, it could be in the elevator. Yes, this is a professional conference, but this is also a chance to have a good time. (Most conferences build in some kind of fun.)

Trust me – take the chance and do at least one silly thing. You might come to appreciate a new talent for yourself. Or you may just laugh at the memories created.

Why yes, that is a stylish McDonald’s bag on my head! It’s all the fashion! (BlogHer ’10)

Remember to rest!

This one is important. You’re going to be staying up late and getting up early each day. Some of you will be drinking a lot, too. Pace yourself, or you’ll collapse before it’s all over.

…or if you find yourself in a dance-off. (BlogHer ’10)

…or, don’t do any of this!

The beauty of BlogHer is that a diverse group of women will all be coming together to share and learn. Diverse = we don’t all do things the same way, and that’s just fine. My advice is just like every other advice post out there: the advice of one person. Maybe you feel more confident when you stick strictly to your color-coded and well-planned Google calendar schedule, or maybe your motto is sleep when it’s over and don’t waste a minute of the action. Both are valid. Go with what works best for you.

But don’t go into it feeling you’re not important, not big enough, not wearing enough makeup or not the right dress size, or anything else that makes you think you’re less worthy of being there than others. Because you’re just as important and valuable as every other attendee and shouldn’t let any nagging fears keep you from having a successful conference experience.

So what I’m trying to say is don’t stress out about coming to BlogHer, because you’re going to have a good time. It’s a crazy, chaotic few days, where you’ll meet new friends, rub elbows with blog “stars” and maybe even find that someone admires you, too.

Just a few of the women I admire. (BlogHer ’11 – photo by Rita Arens)

Dress in a way that makes you feel comfortable, and don’t worry so much about your hair and makeup. After all, it can’t be as bad as my hair disaster from ’06.

And if you need someone to give you that initial boost of confidence and support, come find me. I may be a little socially awkward and I really do have ADD, but I love meeting new people and I’m always available for a hug. At my first BlogHer several friends held my hand and made me feel comfortable, and I’m happy to return the favor for others.

You may not find all of this advice useful, but it’s what I’ve learned from the past seven BlogHer conferences I’ve attended. Hope to see you all there this year!

No, really, embrace the McDonald’s bag hat. Trust me on this one. (BlogHer ’08)

Edited to add: You may notice there are no photos from BlogHer ’07 in this post. I was there, but most of the photos looked liked this:

Babies welcome. (BlogHer ’07)

Filed Under: BlogHer13 ·


Jul 8, 2013

A Wet Fourth of July

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How was your Fourth of July? Ours had its ups and downs, but mostly had a lot of water.

Mira was so excited for this year’s holiday because she was going to be in a parade for the first time. Her gymnastics class has a float in the Hilliard parade every year, and since she’s been taking classes for over a year now she talked me into letting her buy the special parade leotard and join in. As we drove to the parade set-up site, the clouds loomed overhead and I hoped the rain would hold off.

Once we were there, Mira’s excitement turned to nerves. Suddenly she decided she only wanted to do it if she could ride on the trailer and not walk behind it doing cartwheels. She’s still a beginner, so I understand her concern with doing cartwheels. Half of the time she ends up on the ground when doing a cartwheel. The trailer was for five and under to ride on, but her coach said she could ride if there was enough room, since she just turned six.

Mira ready for the 4th of July parade

I’d have rather she walked, and told her that next year she was either walking it or she wasn’t doing the parade at all. Parents were walking beside the trailer, handing out flyers about the gymnastics school to families in the crowd. I worked more than Mira did for this parade.

Aaron was asked to help a local comic book store for the parade, too, walking along as one of the costumed superheroes with their float. Since that would leave no one to watch Cordy, he brought her along for the store’s trailer, dressed in her pirate princess costume. She planned to ride on the trailer a little, and then help pass out comic books to the crowd some, too, while Aaron greeted the crowd as Superman.

Ronald McDonald and SupermanTwo local kid favorites – Ronald McDonald and Superman

The parade started late, and just as we were beginning to move, we felt the first drops of rain. By the time we made it out onto the street, it was a steady drizzle. The coach tossed some umbrellas and ponchos in the trailer for the kids to use, so I helped Mira suit up into a poncho.

Mira was not happy about the rain, and all of my reminders about “smile and wave” went out of her mind. She sat there frowning like a grump unless I specifically looked at her and told her to smile and wave. Then she would perform for awhile, before half-heartedly waving while looking down to the ground, eventually just holding her hand up with no movement. Repeat times one hundred.

Mira in a ponchoI was telling her to smile and wave here.

It didn’t help that as the parade was progressing, she saw candy on the street. Some of the groups ahead of us were tossing candy to the crowd, and now Mira thought being in a parade was just awful since she couldn’t get any candy. As I was walking, I picked up a couple of lollipops and tootsie rolls that hadn’t been smushed by trucks ahead of us, promising she could have them after the parade.

That incentive didn’t work well, though, since her gaze suddenly was locked on the street for the remainder of the parade, trying to spot more candy. She’d yell for me to pick something up, and I had to keep telling her it was crushed and to focus on the people standing in the rain to see the parade instead. (95% of the candy I saw was either opened or crushed.)

Of course, right near the end of the parade? It stopped raining. Figures.

It wasn’t until we all met up again and were getting in the car that I noticed Cordy was starting to act edgy and upset by the crowd. I also noticed a thin blue outline around Cordy’s mouth. “Cordy, what did you eat during the parade?”

Cordy immediately got nervous and started stammering a few starts to an answer before deciding on, “I was eating blueberries.” She lied. On one hand, it’s uncommon for kids with autism to lie, so yay for progress! On the other hand, blueberries don’t make your mouth look electric blue and I had a bad feeling about what she ate.

“Try again,” I told her. “What did you eat?”

“It was a lollipop, but it was totally free of artificial dyes, I promise!” Again, not true. No one had expensive natural dye lollipops in the parade. She even considered saying that Aaron allowed her to eat it, but stopped mid-sentence when she knew I’d just verify that with him.

Turns out, it was a blue Dum-Dum pop, which she is well aware is off-limits. She said she found it on the trailer, but it’s more likely she picked it up off the ground when she was walking beside the trailer, then got back onto the trailer to hide and eat it where Aaron wouldn’t see her.

I’m still angry about that lollipop, because her behavior was completely off the rest of the day. (And the next two days, too – we received a call from her summer camp about unusual behaviors on Friday, and they’ve never called us before.) It’s nearly out of her system now, but I didn’t need this unpleasant reminder as to why we keep artificial dyes off-limits.

After the parade, we visited my family for a cookout, then came back home to relax a little before our local fireworks. I was secretly hoping they’d cancel the fireworks so I could send two very tired little girls to bed early.

Quick napQuick nap on the way home, cuddling her Seat Pet.

There was a brief period of dry weather, so it was expected that the fireworks would still happen. Then more rain started to approach the area, so they moved the fireworks start time up by 40 minutes.

It still wasn’t early enough for Cordy. Her internal clock, made even stronger by a ramped up day on blue dye, shut her down before 9pm.

Cordy asleep on the 4thI tried to get a photo of Cordy asleep, but Mira had to jump in to gloat that she was still awake.

We went outside just as the fireworks started. (The one nice thing about our neighborhood is that the fireworks are launched not far from us, and we can see them clearly from our driveway.) And just as they started, it began to rain. Again. So much for moving them up to avoid the rain.

fireworks 2013

Aaron, Mira and I huddled under umbrellas and watched the local fireworks from our driveway. While the rain dampened the block parties that usually happen that night, it sadly didn’t keep the mosquitoes away. By the time we came back inside, I had a lovely collection of itchy bumps on my ankles and the backs of my knees.

As soon as the fireworks were over? It stopped raining.

Hope your holiday wasn’t as wet as ours!

Filed Under: holidays ·


Jul 1, 2013

Cleaner Air Inside The Car With FRAM (Giveaway!)

By ·

When I was picking the kids up from their first day of summer camp (for real this time!), we were stopped at a light on the way home and Mira noticed a huge dust cloud go across the road as the cross-traffic went by. “Mommy, why is there so much dust?” she asked.

“Because it’s summer in Columbus, sweetie,” I replied.

I wasn’t kidding. We have four major seasons in Columbus, with several minor variations within each major season:

1. OMG, Leaves Everywhere!
2. Gray and Cold
3. Gray and Wet
4. Construction

The Construction season is a little bit of a misnomer. We have construction in Columbus year-round, but during this season when the weather gets hot and sunny, our orange barrels reproduce like bunnies and traffic slows to a crawl when three lanes are reduced to one.

The result? Dust clouds mixing in with exhaust from cars and trucks crawling along at the mercy of the orange barrels. It doesn’t exactly make you want to roll the windows down.

But is the air in my car any better? I recently learned that air inside the car’s cabin can be up to six times dirtier than the air outside. Seriously? And then I looked a little closer at my interior. There’s always a fine layer of dust that I’m forever trying to get rid of. If it was coming from the outside, I wasn’t doing us any favors by keeping the windows closed and letting the dust in, but not giving it a way out.

I had the chance to try replacing our cabin filter with a new FRAM Fresh Breeze® filter a few weeks ago. To begin with, I didn’t even know my car HAD a cabin filter! I thought the air filter that they recommend changing with every few oil changes was the same thing. Nope! FRAM Fresh Breeze cabin air filters filter 98% of dust, dirt, and allergens and are the only cabin air filter that uses ARM&HAMMER® baking soda to remove odors from the air entering your vehicle through the ventilation system.

When I received the filter, I wondered how hard it would be to install. I don’t change my car’s oil – putting air in the tires and using the vacuum at the car wash is about as complicated as it gets for me. However, the FRAM® website makes it easy to figure out with step-by-step instructions, and video installation instructions for many vehicles.

For my SUV, this involved unhooking the glove box (not as hard as I thought it would be), and then reaching past it to unclip the filter assembly and pull it out.

Cabin filterThe rectangle in there is the cabin filter.

When I pulled out the filter that had been in there since the car rolled off the assembly line in 2006, I suddenly wondered why this wasn’t covered in routine maintenance:

Old filterOld filter next to new one. Notice the old one is black and full of icky stuff.

Disgusting.

The hardest part of the entire process was having to touch that nasty old filter. The new filter popped into place in the frame, and within a few minutes the filter was back in the car, the glove box closed again, and all was ready to go.

So, how well does it work? I’m happy to report that the air within the car is fresh and I don’t notice as many of the odors coming from outside. But how do I really know it’s working? I’m not seeing that layer of dust come back on the dashboard as quickly. I haven’t needed to wipe the dust from the console in over a week.

Going back to the visual of the dust cloud in front of us on Monday – less dust, dirt and allergens coming in means I feel much better about the air that my kids and I are breathing in the car on our daily trips through the traffic and construction. I’m completely sold on changing the cabin air filter regularly now, and wish I had known sooner that this sort of thing existed in my car and needed to be changed.

FRAM Fresh Breeze cabin air filters can be purchased online at Amazon, or at your local Meijer, O’Reilly Auto Parts, or Walmart. FRAM is currently offering a $3 mail-in rebate on their filters – find the rebate form on their website. To learn more, follow FRAM Fresh Breeze on Twitter and Facebook.

Giveaway!

Now that you’ve read why I love FRAM filters, how about a $100 VISA card to get you started on buying new cabin air filters for yourself? (And plenty of other goodies for yourself, too!) I’m giving this awesome prize to one lucky reader, but you have to enter to win.

How to enter, you ask? Easy! Leave a comment below with the answer to this question:

What are your favorite simple tricks to keeping the air in your home and car healthy, clean, and fresh?

Good luck!

Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post

b) Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post

c) Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post

d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 7/1/2013 – 7/31/2013

Be sure to visit the FRAM brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ reviews and find more chances to win!

Filed Under: healthy living, sponsored · Tagged: ,


Jun 28, 2013

Mom’s Words of Wisdom for Healthy Living #momwisdom

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Thanks to Nestlé® Pure Life® Purified Water for sponsoring today’s discussion.

Do you ever think back to those sage words of advice your mom may have given you when you were younger and you now realize she was right? OK, mine still delivers her advice on a weekly basis, but much of it is the same that it was when I was younger, with some additional parenting advice thrown in there, too.

My mom is one of those people who believes natural is best. She grew up on a farm where they raised their own animals and veggies for food. What they didn’t raise, they bought locally. They had dairy cows for milk, pigs for meat, and chickens for eggs and meat. Meals were prepared in a house without running water. If she wanted a drink, she used the pump in the yard to get herself some water. If she wanted a treat, she’d go walk into the fields near the edge of the woods and look for any berries that had ripened, bringing back extras for her family to share.

My mom with her dog LassieAnd fishing. She did her own fishing, too, on her own with just the family dog.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: healthy living, Sponsored-AF · Tagged: ,


Jun 27, 2013

Looking Ahead

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Cordy had her first meeting with a behavioral therapist  last week. Her psychologist had recommended setting up a meeting, but it had slipped my mind until last Wednesday when the therapist called and asked if we could meet that Friday. At our house. (Yes, I frantically cleaned.)

The meeting went well, I think. The behavioral therapist wanted to get a general assessment of Cordy’s personality, as well as what she’s struggling with and where she needs help. Since it was at our house, I expected that Cordy, having been tired already from summer camp that day, would probably let her guard down and just be herself.

Cordy is a smart kid. She’s aware that she’s different from other kids and when Cordy is at school or summer camp, she tries her best to hold in a lot of her quirks. Her teachers see very little stim behavior in the classroom, with only a little more of it on the playground. She rarely snaps at anyone at school. But at home, she knows she’s in a safe space and usually lets off steam as soon as she gets home. She’ll often flap, pace, make up a story to herself, or isolate herself with a book or computer time. If we ask anything of her, she’ll sometimes overreact and snap at us.

Meeting the therapist, however, she kept up the in-public facade for most of the hour. She was sweet and charming, answering the therapist’s questions and asking several questions of her own. There was no stimming, other than a little bit of wrestling with the dog at one point.

But the disconnect was still there. Cordy had a book in her hand nearly the entire time, and if she lost interest for even a moment, her face was quickly hidden behind the turning pages. She became loud and almost shriek-y when talking about the things she fears (bees, bugs, roller coasters, Kaos in Skylanders, the dark), although she wouldn’t discuss the real social anxieties that make it hard for her to function at times.

And she became upset with me when I told the therapist about where she needed to improve in her life skills, listing age-appropriate self-care tasks and basic safety precautions that we’d like her to do on her own but have seen little success. Cordy tried to shush me, saying I was “giving away all of [her] secrets.” She’ll gladly talk superficial fears and tasks that she has trouble with, but when we try to talk about real anxieties and areas of deficit, she becomes hyper-sensitive and doesn’t want anything said. My daughter, the perfectionist. The therapist said that’s a very common trait of gifted and twice-exceptional children – they hold themselves to nearly impossible standards and can’t stand for anyone to think they’re not perfect.

She likes to win.And most kids just accept an end of the school-year award and stand on the stage. Cordy is ready to give an acceptance speech for being The Best. We should probably add modesty to our list to work on.

It was surprisingly difficult to talk so much about Cordy’s issues. I usually try to balance everything out with a positive quality for every problem area, like “Well, she doesn’t really have any close friends…but she’s so sweet to other kids and can tell great jokes!” Not to mention, Cordy was sitting right there in the room with us – what if she was internalizing everything I said? Sure, she was mostly absorbed in a book when I was talking and likely heard little of the conversation, but I was carefully considering every word choice in the moment so Cordy wouldn’t think I didn’t like her for her faults. I danced around each topic, pointing to “areas to strengthen” and “ways to help her be more successful” instead of “problem areas” or “bad behavior.”

And I wasn’t sure where to draw the line in sharing so many of my daughter’s weaknesses – did I sound like the hypercritical parent who considers her child “broken” over a bunch of faults (oh, I hope not!) or did I dismiss her problems too much and make it appear that she really doesn’t need any help and I’m making a big issue out of nothing? I named several problem areas (that I didn’t call problem areas), big and small, specifically to have them said out loud to a professional, so that we might then find solutions to overcome these issues.

The therapist listened intently and took a lot of notes during our discussion. She plans to consult with the psychologist to determine where to begin, and then we’ll start working on learning new adaptive skills in two weeks. I’m hoping this will be a new period of great progress and growth for Cordy. I only want for her to be better prepared for the world around her and help her better cope with her peers and the outside world before she reaches (oh…it’s hard to even think about this) puberty.

Because we all remember middle school (some of us would rather not), and I think few would say that the majority of 11-13 year old kids are tolerant and accepting of peers who are different and don’t quite fit in. I’d like to be proven wrong on that statement, but I have my own emotional scars from middle school and I’d also rather prepare my daughter for what’s ahead.

I don’t expect or want her to conform to the behavior of her peers, although I do want her to better understand “typical” social behavior if only to know what is OK from her peers and what is rude or harassing behavior that she should not tolerate. And a little part of me wants her to learn the social game, if only a little, so that she might find enjoyment in friendships.

We’ll see how this goes, but I’m hoping for good results.

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Filed Under: Autism, Cordy · Tagged: