Stream of Consciousness Sunday: NonWriting at NonCon

October 14, 2012 By 11 Comments

I’m at Callaway Gardens right now at the Aiming Low Non-Con. If you don’t know about it, well, you probably won’t like it should. I really want to keep this conference a secret so it stays this small and intimate forever and ever. I also want them to have it multiple times a year. But enough about that for now…

Since I’m busy sleeping thinking about writing and all the amazing things I want to do, we’re going to have promptless, free writing today.

So set those timers for five minutes and pour it out of your head!

Time starts NOW!

stream of consciousness sunday

The love that fills my heart right now is making it want to burst. I’ve been blessed with so many friendships.

There are friends that have been around since I was an infant and friends who are just coming into my life. They’re all equally as important to me.

I’m reminded at this conference that even though time and space separates so many of us, our words connect us. They connect us in ways that often, our local friends don’t even understand.

There are women I want to just grab and hug and tell them that everything’s going to be alright. And there are people I want to sit for hours and talk about how we feel about our writing and lots in life. There are women I didn’t know, but who are now, I find, sisters of mine in the world of baby loss.

We’re all joined in ways, no matter our race, religion, political preference, or whatever, that evoke emotions I wish I could put into words.

But alas, this writer is out of words. They’re in my head and in my heart, waiting to be poured out onto the internet.

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This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

  • Set a timer and write for 5 minutes.
  • Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
  • Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
  • Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post (in the sidebar). .
  • Link up your post below.
  • Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

Filed Under: SOC Sunday Tagged With: , , , , ,

Stream of Consciousness Sunday: Dropped Into My Life

September 16, 2012 By 16 Comments

Wow. I just want to take a minute to say THANK YOU! I’m honored that 25 of you linked up last week to tell the world about who YOU are. If you haven’t read them already, I highly recommending heading over and reading all the posts in the linky at the bottom of the post.

I’m blown away with the turnout and I’m proud of all who dug deep to share your inner selves with us!

This week, I was reminded that sometimes people drop into your lives for a reason. I think we all have that person and I want to allow you to tell us about them. I’m going to give you permission to add a picture or whatever this week since we’re honoring someone else!

Today’s (optional) prompt: Who has dropped into your life and made it better?

stream of consciousness sunday

It was the summer of 2001. I was put in charge of a team of middle school dancers at my alma mater. There was one girl who was quiet, shy, unsure of her moves, but who had the most amazing little spirit about her.

I only coached them for a year but ran into her a few years later. She was graduating from high school and heading to college. She had grown up. Wiser than her years, she has guided her life in the directions SHE chose.

Henry is smitten with her, and quite frankly, I am, too. Why? Because she does things like this:

And because she throws her dog birthday parties. And she takes crazy Christmas card pictures. She’s quirky and adorable and sometimes I want to put her in my pocket and take her home with me.

She marches to the beat of her own drum and has grown into a lovely young woman.

I’m not sure if she knows what a special mark she’s made in my heart… and probably in the hearts of many others.

But I want her to know that I think she was placed in my life for a reason.

Love you, Ashlee.

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This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

  • Set a timer and write for 5 minutes.
  • Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
  • Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
  • Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post (in the sidebar). .
  • Link up your post below.
  • Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

Filed Under: SOC Sunday Tagged With: ,

Thoughts From BlogHer

August 7, 2012 By 11 Comments

Aah, BlogHer. New York City. Five days of doing whatever I wanted, really.

I went in with very small goals.

  • Go for a jog in Central Park. CHECK!
  • Have a Frrrrozen Hot Chocolate at Serendipity 3. CHECK!
  • Hit a good number of sessions. CHECK!
  • Go to all the official parties, at least for a little while. BlogHer has worked extremely hard and the sponsors are so generous with their time and investment. It would be insulting not to go. Also, I don’t want to traipse all over town just to go to another party. Anyway… CHECK!
  • Rest when I feel like it and not allow myself to be overwhelmed. CHECK!
  • Buy this ring at Tiffany. CHECK!
Wednesday when I arrived in New York, Pammi and Jen met me, having traveled in from Connecticut to hang with me. They’re with the Band and it was too easy to meet up! We dined on the ice rink at Rockefeller Center which was so neat!

We hooked up with Sandy and Kim. We drank cake vodka. We drank out of Red BlogHer Cups. We went to the Trailer Park Lounge. We drank PBR.

I went to bed at a reasonable hour.

Thursday morning, I went for a jog in Central Park. My sweet Twitter friend Kelly agreed to go… bright and early! We had a great time. We ended up jogging about 8 minutes of our 40 minute trek. We logged a whopping 2.39 miles and also got lots of talking done! It was too hard to jog AND talk, so we walked most of the way.

It was glorious. A gorgeous bluebird sky framed the tall buildings and green trees of the park. The sunlight was streaming through the trees and glistening off the dew that was still fresh on the grass. There were hundreds of walkers, joggers, bikers, paper-readers… it was a little oasis of activity and quiet in the huge, loud city.

Thank you, Kelly, for helping me achieve my goal!

When I got back to the hotel, I found Crystal in my bed! She flew in overnight and got in after I left to jog. We went to meet Lauren for breakfast down in SoHo. We navigated the subway without incident. The rest of the morning was spent relaxing and hanging out in the lounge at the Hilton.

The afternoon included a trip to Serendipity 3 and Tiffany.

There was lots of hugging, squealing, walking, thinking, swag-gathering, and standing in line once the conference started on Friday. I was so thrilled to meet so many people I’d been wanting to see in person. I didn’t see them all, but in a group of 5000 people, that’s rather difficult.

Here I am with Crystal in the big pic, (starting bottom left) Adam, Jenna, Crystal, Crystal, Lauren, Tanis, Kim, Crystal, and Erin.

The sessions that Crystal and I went to were great. The expo halls were great.

The Martha Stewart and Katie Couric keynotes were absolutely amazing. Both women are so strong, witty, confident, and brilliant. I’m in awe of them. They both seem to be at points in their lives where they are embracing themselves, and all that goes along with being “them.” They’re comfortable in their skin and are authentic both physically and character-wise.

There were parties and glitter and lines for vibrators and yogurt. So much yogurt!

There were tears and laughter and brilliant advice all around.

All in all, BlogHer was a wonderful experience. I love the friends I have made through writing and social media. I mean, where else can you get a Sharpie tattoo by the brilliant Robin Plemmons (click that link, y’all) that says this:

 

I’ll write more about Voices of the Year and being able to read my VOTY post in front of a room of a few hundred people tomorrow.

And then, of course, the post about The Rockettes experience will come. I haven’t gotten my brain in order enough to put my emotions into words.

Stay tuned for those!


Filed Under: Thoughts Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

It’s Conference Time!

June 20, 2012 By 5 Comments

‘Tis that time of year for mommy vacations, er, blogging conferences.

type-a parent conference

Type A Conference

On Thursday, I will leave and pick up Crystal at the ATL airport and we’ll head up to Charlotte for the Type A Parent Conference. This will be the first time Crystal and I have met in person, even though we’ve worked on Band Back Together for gosh, about 2 years together.

I went to Type A last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was very anxious and nervous about meeting so many “big bloggers” and all kinds of silliness like that.

This year, I’m feeling pretty dang relaxed. I’m excited about seeing friends from last year and making new connections with people I know online.

There are a few of the sessions I’m REALLY pumped about. And of course the parties will be fun. But mostly, I’m looking forward to hanging out and being in the presence of so many amazing women (and a few amazing men who come).

BlogHer '12BlogHer 2012

A few short weeks after that, I’ll be headed to BlogHer in NYC. And I’m just beside myself excited about it. You’ll remember Jason made me get a ticket when I found out about being a Voice of the Year honoree.

I love New York so much, I’m going without any plan whatsoever. Either I’ll hook up with people and go out gallivanting or I’ll just do my own thing.

So here’s hoping I come home from both conferences with new ideas, new enthusiasm, new motivation and new friends!

If you’ll be at either, let me know!

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SOC Sunday: Panic

March 4, 2012 By 13 Comments

 

I’m not following Fadra’s prompt today. Not because I don’t like it, but because I wanted to write about Friday night and 5 minutes is plenty of time to get it all out (without putting myself right back into an anxiety attack).

#SOCsunday

Friday night I had an anxiety attack.

Jason and HL took off around 3 to head south to go fishing. I knew the weather was going to get rocky, but had no idea how bad it would be and how unbelievably it would effect me.

I watched reports of tornadoes in Tennessee, Alabama, Ohio. Reports of deaths and massive damage.

My heart rate increased.

I turned off the TV and only watched it on Twitter intermittently.

Nightfall happened. Tornadoes crept towards the Georgia border. Moving East.

Towards us. Directly towards us.

What will I do? 

I should get my stuff into the basement so I can sleep there.

But the only place to sleep in the basement is on the concrete floor between the hot water heater and electrical box. That’s not safe, is it? 

Call a friend and tell her if shit goes down, I’m in the basement so they can find me. Dead likely, because my optimism was blowing around outside in the wind. 

Panic. Vomity feeling. More panic. Now is when I wish I had some ativan or xanax in the house. The doctor asked me if I needed some last week. I should have said yes. 

Deep breaths.

An invitation to crash on a couch in a newly redesigned basement and a promise of wine. 

Are you serious, what’s your house number, are you sure, this is ridiculous. I’m ridiculous. I’m a grown up and I’m leaving my house to go sleep in another person’s basement because I’m scared shitless of an impending tornado. 

But I’m going to throw up if I don’t. I’m not going to sleep and surely I’m going to die when the tornado touches ONLY my house and all the bricks and wood and glass crush me into oblivion. 

Knock Knock

I’m here. I even brought my own pillow and flashlight.

ThankYouThankYouThankYouNowWhereIsThatWine

Luckily, the tornadoes avoided us. Unfortunately, a lot of people weren’t so lucky. Prayers to all who were impacted by the storms and a very special THANK YOU to my friend who took an insane, panicky girl in. The conversation was good, the wine was delicious and the gesture was priceless.

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This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

  • Set a timer and write for 5 minutes.
  • Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
  • Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
  • Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post. (on Fadra’s sidebar)
  • Link up your post on her post.
  • Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

 

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