This post needs to start with a few disclaimers:

1.  I like parties.  My husband often says that I “don’t know when the party should end.”  This is a true statement and is why I usually have black circles under my eyes.

2.  I work for BlogHer as Social Media Manager.  The opinions I am about to share are opinions I have held since last summer, when I attended BlogHer’10 in NYC, before I worked for them.  This is also a true statement.  You can ask my friends, because they listen to me when I want to vent about said opinions and I shared these a long time ago.

3.  No one asked me to write this.  I should have written it in August, but didn’t want to insult anyone.  I am hoping, by writing it now, others will learn from my naiveté.

4.  If you’re not a blogger, you can stop reading now.  Unless, in your industry, you’re a frequent conference attendee.

(To my computerless mother, for whom I will have to print this blog post:  BlogHer is the largest community of women who blog with more than 55 million unique visitors a month. That means, BlogHer is a pretty big deal and they know their stuff.  Get it?  I didn’t think so.)

In less than five months, I will be attending my third BlogHer conference in San Diego.  A couple of days ago, I got the first of what will be many invitations for events and product giveaways from companies who are, in no way, affiliated with BlogHer.

When I went to my first BlogHer conference in Chicago, in 2009, there were suites throughout the hotel where I was sent to get free stuff.  I won’t lie, it was pretty nice.  I got a cute, buttery-soft t-shirt, a free pair of jeans (I loved them so much, I went to the store and bought more) and an awfully nice backpack.  At the time, I didn’t realize that the companies involved were not sponsoring the conference.

Conference sponsors at BlogHer are valuable to the attendees who buy a ticket at at the Blogger Rate of $298 (for the record, there was early-bird pricing of $198 through the end of February).  This Blogger Rate ticket is subsidized by the companies who are there to share their brand and products.  If it wasn’t for them, there would also be no Expo Hall where you can meet companies on your own time and there would be no food (and I, for one, really like food).

If you do not want your ticket to be subsidized (for instance, if you take issue with the policies or products of a sponsor), you are free to pay the Self-Sponsored Blogger Rate of $598.  I know, exactly, one person who has bought a ticket at that price.

Everyone I know bought early-bird tickets at $198, or $99 a day.  That price gets them fed, lets them choose from more tracks than any other blog conference, admits them to all cocktail parties and to the Expo Hall.  All of those things are part of the conference because of official sponsors.

This is why BlogHer made the decision to have non-sponsored events barred from the conference in NYC.  You can not question this move.  If it weren’t for legitimate sponsors, most people could not afford to attend and it isn’t fair to the companies who subsidize our tickets to have our attention focused elsewhere.  Mom, are you with me?

Non-sponsors curtailed this in NYC by inviting bloggers to off-site parties.  Attendees were sent all over Manhattan for everything from soap to manicures.  I chose not to attend these events, not because I’m high-and-mighty, but because I wanted to spend the time with fellow bloggers.  I take that back; I attended one, and that was only because someone else wrangled an invitation for me.  I spent over an hour being schmoozed, watching a presentation AND NOT TALKING TO MY FRIENDS.  All for a bottle of lotion.

Don’t get me wrong, I would not begrudge someone the life-experience of being taken via limousine to a private party held by a company they really believe in.  If a brand is giving away free vacuum cleaners, or those aforementioned jeans, then I say, “Go for it!” Also, get me some!  Just consider the time you’re investing before you do it.

If you had asked me in Chicago if I wanted to pay for a cab and spend a couple of hours away from invaluable socializing and conversations with intelligent and insightful women so that I could get a free backpack, I would have said no.  And, for real, it’s a super nice backpack.

If you know anything about blogging, you have heard of ROI (Return on Investment).  Personally, I get the best ROI by engaging with people who inspire me. For me, BlogHer is about igniting creativity, about sharing ideas, about connecting with friends and making new ones.

And, you can’t do any of that if you’re across town getting schmoozed with free lotion.

* This post was updated on June 12, 2013 to reflect my current position with BlogHer and the reach of the BlogHer Publishing Network

Follow

Email

I started blogging roughly three-and-a-half years ago.  I didn’t plan on having it take me anywhere.  I didn’t know that I would end up loving it so much that it would become my passion, or that blogging would lead me to conferences and Twitter, which would lead to my new job.

My whole life has come full circle, right here for the world to see.

Okay, so maybe the world doesn’t read my blog, but I’m pretty sure my Aunt Shirley does.  Sometimes.  In fact, the 30 or so hits I used to get each week have grown into thousands.  I don’t know where you people came from, but I’m glad you did.

I love it here.  It is my home.  And, much to my husband’s chagrin, I like to redecorate. 

Out of all of the celebrities I have met through blogging, like her…

Top Chef’s Padma Lakshmi.  Couldn’t the pretty have been shared a little?  Not fair.

…and this fella…

The center of our solar system, also known as the Jimmy Dean sun.

…there are none whom I consider to be more inspiring than this lady here.

a)  Don’t look at my hair  b)  I told you not to look!  c)  Nice glow in the dark necklace, Momo

That woman next to me is Ree Drummond, also known as The Pioneer Woman.  Also, I am in no way comparing Ree to the Jimmy Dean sun.  Though she can make a room brighter just by walking in.  Just sayin’.

Ree is one of the most popular, female bloggers in the world.  She is an amazing photographer, mother and author (of a cookbook, a romance story and a children’s book…how well rounded can someone be?).  To top it off, she’s about as down to earth as a person can get.  I want to be Ree when I grow up.

Now, I don’t take a lot of advice about what to do with my blog.  I follow the advertising guidelines of my publishing network (Hi, BlogHerads!), but that’s about it.  This is my hangout for crying out loud.  Stay off my lawn!

But, when the intelligent and successful Ree Drummond tells you that you should “change things up”, you should listen.  She wasn’t talking to me, specifically, but rather to her audience in her “Ten Important Things I’ve Learned About Blogging” section.

A couple of years ago I did change things up when I requested a custom blog design from Courtney of Judith Shakes Design.  She took a mish-mash of my ideas and made this page exactly the way I wanted.  It was a dramatic and brilliant alteration for which I am not responsible.  Dang it.

Now the time has come, once again, to “change things up”.  I’m eventually leaving this platform and going where there is more to offer.  I’m getting a new custom theme, custom icons, a new twitter background, new page templates, miscellaneous graphics, all of my posts transferred and SO much more.

Courtney at Judith Shakes Design is doing ALL of it.

Courtney is about eighty shades of smart and I am not.  I want professional results, so I’m letting a professional handle it.  I’m taking Ree’s advice and running with it, but I’m letting someone else do all of the exercise.  Wait…I am smart!

I didn’t plan on this blog taking me anywhere, but it did, and I don’t want the same scenery for my entire journey.  I’ll create the experience, but Courtney will be my travel guide so I don’t get lost along the way.

And, if YOU book space on the Judith Shakes Design calendar for a design project of at least $300, Courtney will give you $50 off with the code – MOMO4EVER.

You.  Are.  Welcome.

If you’re a blogger, come and join me.  Let’s go places we never thought possible.  Life is too short to just stand still.

Follow

Email

1. If you spend 13 days in five different cities (and six different beds), you will grow very weary of checking for bedbugs.

2. Manhattan in August is hot, dirty and smells a lot like pee.

3. The Eastern Shore of Virginia in August is hot, sandy and smells a lot like fish.

4. But, that smell is totally worth it when your brother-in-law takes your husband and kids fishing and they come home with fresh crab and flounder for dinner.

5. Busch Gardens Williamsburg is ridiculously expensive. Nine bucks for four mozzarella sticks and a cup of strawberries for the kids’ snack, on top of $55.00 admission tickets and $18.00 parking IS. JUST. WRONG.

6. If you buy a hotel room through Priceline, apparently the staff doesn’t have to guarantee you a room at their hotel…but rather, any room at any hotel. This means you might end up booking at a Hyatt and end up at a Quality Inn.

7. And, you might take your Ambien in the parking lot of the Hyatt just before you (think you’re going to) check-in, only to be told you have to drive 10 miles, through the completely foreign city of Pittsburgh, all while arguing with the staff and watching people who arrived AFTER you get a room because they’re paying full price.

8. You will never use Priceline or stay at a Hyatt again.

9. Then you will use your blog for evil paybacks. Mwah ha ha!!

10. The speed limit in West Virginia through the Allegheny Mountains is 70mph. This is also referred to as the “place where Momo gets itchy armpits and yells at her husband a lot”.

11. After non-stop travel to points in West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and almost Maryland…Ohio will never seem so good.

12. Because that is where your bed is.

13. And you don’t have to check for any bugs.

Follow

Email

A few nights ago, I had a dream that I hopped on a plane back to New York. I had my kids in tow and after our arrival in the city, we ended up in a cavernous ballroom with an ornamental ceiling and chandeliers above our heads. The room was empty, with one exception.

On the floor was a long piece of paper, plain white, roughly the width of a roll of wrapping paper. It extended about 10 feet and at the foot of it was a set of brushes and a painter’s palette. Someone, a faceless someone, told us to begin painting.

At first, my kids and I stared at one another and shrugged our shoulders because we had no idea what to put on our blank canvas. When we finally began to paint, we crafted our art separately from one another. A swoosh here, a dab there, we mixed colors and techniques, blending into each other effortlessly, yet creating our own unique pieces.

We were there for quite a while and though we had worked as three individuals, we stood to find that, together, we had painted a beautiful picture. A picture that looked just like the one I’m standing next to here…

This is the artwork that was inspired by my post for the BlogHer Voices of the Year Art Gala and Auction. My friend, Melisa, snapped the above picture before I got dressed up for the evening (because, right now my friend Jill is all, “She wore jeans?”) and just seconds prior to me crying so hard that my nose turned bright red.

I cried because the photo-art was, by complete chance assignment, by my friend Mishi. I cried because my post title was “Into the Light” and she beautifully captured its essence. I cried because she incorporated things that make me feel joy, things that feed my spirit, and things that mean something to me (you can see the fact that I love the sun and trees by looking at my header, which was created by the talented Courtney from Judith Shakes Designs).

I love that creativity can inspire others to be creative. I love that, together, Mishi, Courtney and I have fed off of each other. The reason that I began blogging is because I was searching for an outlet to unleash my own creativity.

The fact that it has led to fueling my dreams is simply a bonus.

Follow

Email