The other day was not a good one.

It started with the upstairs shower leaking into our kitchen; a deep pool of water on the counter kicked off the day. After that I found a container of watermelon that had been left out all night *shudder*; then we received a giant bill from my son’s cardiologist and rounded out the day with sewage coming up the drain of our basement utility sink.

Oh, joy.

After all of that, let me tell you what I didn’t want to do: MAKE DINNER.

What I wanted to do was run away from my house of horrors and go get a drink! And that’s exactly what I did.

Lucky for me, there is an Applebee’s within walking distance of my house. I called a few people, told them to meet me there, and by the time the three of them arrived appetizers had already been delivered to the table!

Lots of appetizers. And, we ate every bit of them.

To compensate for the indulgence of tortilla chips, I ordered the Skinny Bee Margarita (YUM).

Though there weren’t a lot of vegan options on the menu, the waitress was more than accommodating and the manager brought me a list of foods that were meat and dairy free. There were also handy lists for food allergies.

I ended up with this spicy and delicious Sizzling Asian Shrimp and Broccoli (minus the shrimp).

You may also notice there is a beer there. It was spicy. I had to! Plus, the margarita was part of the appetizer.

Some people don’t have to worry about eating meat though. Color me jealous. I’m not going to lie. I stole some of those fries.

Then everyone else ordered this for dessert. This is a picture from Applebee‘s website, because I didn’t have time to take a picture before they started tearing into it.

By the time I got my phone out to snap a picture, it looked like this. Notice how they left one bite of cookie on the plate:

All in all, we had a few drinks, a lot of food and a ton of fun. I love living in a neighborhood where there is a restaurant that I can take my family to or meet a few girlfriends for happy hour. It was the perfect way to end my day on a high note.

Applebee’s knows the value of meeting friends at the end of a stressful day. After all, they like to say: “Life is Better Shared.” They also know sometimes friends can’t meet face-to-face, and they want you to be a part of their online circle of friends. Find them on Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube or Tumblr!

Applebee‘s and BlogHer want you to end your day on a high note too, because they’re giving one lucky reader a $150 Applebee‘s gift card! To be entered for a chance to win, just leave a comment on this post and answer the question, “When’s the last time you had a girl’s night out?

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In the ninth grade, I was in a public speaking class made up of students from every grade in my high school. This meant that as a terrified freshman, I had to get up and talk in front of a room full of people, including seniors. It was awful.

It was also one of the best things that ever happened to me.

The public speaking teacher made us tape ourselves and going back through those tapes is like listening to a butterfly emerge from a cocoon; a cocoon that said, “Like” a lot. A whole lot.

I never had a problem when I taped myself singing Barbra Streisand’s “Memories” in our half bathroom as a 5 year old, but put me in front of an audience at 14 and there was no chance of me belting out a tune, because I could barely talk. My speeches and stories ended up a jumbled mess of nervousness that were half Cindy Brady on a quiz show and half Miss Teen USA, circa 2007. Such as.

But, blogging has changed something in me, and my job most certainly has. I “talk” to tens-of-thousands of people every day now and I’ve learned that if you are truly authentic, it’s not so scary. Though, I’m not going to lie, speaking in front of roughly 4,000 people last summer was enough to give me nervous poops. See? Authentic.

In a few weeks, I’ll be in NYC to speak at BlogHer’s annual conference again; first as a Pathfinder (a HUGE honor) and then as a moderator/panelist on how beginners can leverage Facebook and Twitter to increase traffic and engagement on your blog. Did you hear that? That was my mom saying, “You lost me at traffic.”

In the planning of the all-day Pathfinder workshop and the social media panel, I find that I’m not nervous in the least. Instead, I am excited; practically bursting at the seams to talk, share, listen and learn. I will be among the best and brightest bloggers in the world and I will stand before them as my authentic self. Well, unless I run into Katie Couric or Martha Stewart in the green room, in which case I’ll freak out and sweat a lot. Fair warning, ladies. Especially you, Katie.

It feels good to not worry about public speaking anymore and it feels great to know that I have the confidence to say so.

It’s, like, going to be totally great!

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A few weeks ago, I came face to face with a woman who I thought would hate me. Her name is Katherine.

We were both nominated for what I can only describe as the blogging equivalent of the Oscars. I won’t get in to how much of an honor it is to be chosen for Voices of the Year, because if you’re not a blogger then you won’t understand. My mom is scratching her head right now. I don’t have to go into details, because that isn’t what matters. Just know it’s a big deal.

So, Katherine and I were both nominated and we tied for People’s Choice. I don’t know how the decision was made that I would end up reading my winning post in front of a huge audience, while she was simply mentioned as a finalist, but that’s what happened.

Photo from www.walkingwithscissors.com

I felt a lot of guilt over that tie.

I was worried that Katherine would think there was favoritism involved or that I didn’t deserve to be on the stage. Clearly, her post resonated with the community as well and I’m sure she wondered why she didn’t get to share it.

But, when I saw Katherine, I was greeted with a warm hug and a “Congratulations!”. It wasn’t disingenuous, it wasn’t contrived and at the reception following my reading she grabbed my shoulders and shook me a little when she said, “There is no doubt that your post was meant to be read. You did great!”

She is a class act. She handled the entire situation with grace and didn’t judge me or cry favoritism. She was accepting, understanding and I will forever call her my friend.

I can’t say that I would have been as kind as Katherine. I would like to hope so. I think I would be gracious, but I really don’t know.

Maybe I would have been catty. Maybe I would have appraised the situation with virulence and talked behind Katherine’s back and said she didn’t deserve it. Maybe I would have said that my post was better than hers.

I am nothing if not flawed.

There is a huge lesson to be learned here; which is that bitterness and jealousy is good for no one. If the tables had been turned and I was in Katherine’s situation and hadn’t handled it the way she did, I would have missed out on a friendship with a strong woman, brilliant writer and really good person.

And, instead of tying for the win, I would have completely lost out.

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I haven’t had much time to tell you about the BlogHer ’11 Conference, because my job is to read what everyone else is saying about the BlogHer ’11 Conference and, whoa Nellie, do people say a lot. At least 99% of the reactions have been positive, so I have that going for me.  It’s hard enough to read thousands of comments, but if they were negative, I would likely be reading them from the corner, in the fetal position while sucking my thumb.

Since I am swimming in a sea of post-conference reports and tweets, I know that I’m not going to get around to writing a glowing post about my wonderful weekend. Therefore, I have decided to use visuals to describe how stellar my trip was.

This is what I found on my bed in San Diego after a hard day of work at the conference, which was also the night before I would be speaking in front of thousands of people. Nervous poop much? Thank goodness the convention center was big enough that I had entire bathrooms to myself. I digress. Those are rose petals left by my roommates. And, see that pillow on the right? That was personalized for me by one of them too.

This is what I found on my unmade bed, when I returned to Ohio. This is my dog’s “baby”. It is covered in dirt, fur and hardened dog slobber.

And that, boys and girls, sums up my conference experience quite well.

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