Halloween, 1993

I’m the one in the fabulous vintage dress, leopard hat and real fur stole – all of which I bought at a yard sale. PROOF I was thrifting WAY before it was cool. My costume is “movie star”. My elementary school BFF is Tiger Lily, my little sister is Alice in Wonderland and my brother is the fire fighter and also dying of embarrassment I just posted this picture of him on the internet.

I bet you have a picture just like this in a photo album somewhere too.

Amy from BabyBabyLemon and I are hosting a linky on Friday for all your vintage Halloween cuteness – costumes, pumpkin carving, hayrides, whatevs. Call your mom tomorrow and see if she’ll scan in some photos you KNOW she’s got in that album on the bottom shelf. (Confidential to my mom: Can you see if there are any more Halloween costume pics in those albums on the bottom shelf? Love you!) Bonus points for the first person in a cardboard box-turned robot costume.

See you Friday!

p.s. If you want to participate but don’t have a blog, I’d be happy to post your photo here. Just email it to bebehblog@gmail.com.

So apparently the accent vlog meme started amongst a bunch of bloggers going to The Blathering (which sounds awesome BTW – it’s just friends hanging out and getting coffee and drinking cocktails, minus the sponsors and the drama of a conference). I found other people’s vlogs super interesting and enjoyed hearing them speak words from their faces, so here’s my contribution.

Please to enjoy my awkwardness for the next eleven minutes*:

bebehblog’s accent vlog from Suzanne Davis on Vimeo.

To play along:

Say the following words:
Aunt, route, wash, oil, theatre, iron, salmon, caramel, fire, water, sure, data, ruin, crayon, toilet, New Orleans, pecan, both, again, probably, spitting image, Alabama, lawyer, coupon, mayonnaise, syrup, pajamas, caught

And answer these questions:
What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that curls into a ball when you touch it?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you use to change the TV channel?

*I know, that is RIDICULOUSLY long but I didn’t realized it until I was done and I didn’t feel like doing it for a FIFTH time. I will not be at ALL insulted if you skip this altogether.

Working titles for this post at various points during the weekend include:

I Knew It, Everyone Hates Me

Holy Shit I Won An iPad

Poor Choices In Footwear

Sparklecorn Really Is As Amazing As You’ve Heard

PLEASE LET ME HOLD YOUR BABY

I Knew It, Everyone Loves Me

I’m Never Drinking Again

A Surprising Number of Word Origins Involve Genitalia

Where Are The Damn Cheeseburgers?

I Missed My Kids

and

No One Was Mean To Me

The worst part of the whole weekend was getting there a full day later than most of my friends (they attended a special extra conference day on Thursday) so I missed out on some of the parties swag fun. But the travel gods smiled on me – at least on the way THERE – and I was checked in, freshened up, and hanging with my roommate Molly less than 30 minutes after we landed. WINNING.

Approximately 30 seconds after that, I won an iPad. Yeah, no kidding. There was a booth for RetailMeNot (which I used and love and recommended BEFORE they rocked my socks with the iPad) down at the exhibitor hall and they had one of those money blower tank things – like on Ellen, where you stuff cash in your bra – except you had to stuff Monopoly money through a slot into a little box. I was doing not a very good job and figured I’d be lucky to get $5 and a water bottle when the guy working the booth outside the tank made kind of a funny face and then my 30 seconds was over and when I stepped out he said “I think someone just won an iPad.” ME. ME IS THE ONE WHO WON AN IPAD.

(True fact: I have an iPad. The fate of this one is still up in the air. Go ahead and start sucking up, family members. Christmas is coming.)

Thursday night was a party sponsored by Clever Girls, one of the networks I belong to. I enjoyed the free champagne. I enjoyed it SO MUCH in fact, that I agreed to be in a contest that involved dancing to Smurf This Way (as in Walk This Way changed to be more smurf-friendly). I was smurfing terrible, but my team was awesome.

Me, Jill, Blair, Mae

On Friday I had scheduled myself pretty thin and ended up sort of alone for most of the morning. Ok, so not ALONE – it’s hard to be alone when you’re surrounded by 3,600 bloggers. But besides sitting with Suz in a session and hanging with Amy whenever I got a chance I spent a lot of time anxiously asking if anyone was sitting here and attempting to charm people who instantly forgot my name. I’m proud I put myself out there a little bit, but it took so much energy and courage I felt like I’d been hit by a bus by dinner. Although getting to meet Elmo (the real, no kidding Sesame Street Elmo with a hand up his butt, not some guy in an Elmo suit) and chatting with Morgan were high moments. Morgan wins at being able to talk to someone she barely knows for a full hour without once visibly rolling her eyes at my… uh… enthusiasm.

Sesame Street Session on being more fun on your BLAAAAAHG

My kid is carrying this photo around going "WOOOOOW". I swear to you he doesn't even know who Elmo IS but he can tell I'm special.

P.S. That is totally by baby-snatcher face. I TOLD you I wasn’t cool.

Friday night I went to some parties and drank a little too much and got a hideous (fake) tattoo that said “Bad Girl” and made a fool of myself in a pedicab by not recognizing a famous blogger and then I threw myself at two MORE famous bloggers who were incredibly kind and gracious despite my slightly tipsy state. I also met Maile, the creator of my gorgeous camera bag, during the ONLY MOMENT of the weekend when I wasn’t carrying it. I almost fell over dead and shouted at her about how I LOVED MY BAG and DID SHE SEE THE PICTURE OF MY BABY IN IT? IT WAS ON TWITTER! I TWEETED IT! DID SHE SEE IT?? DID SHE? REMEMBER????

And then, Sparklecorn.

I don't even LIKE sparkly vampires

That's the CAKE. It was 4 feet tall.

I ran up on stage to show off my skillz.You know the phrase "dance as if no one is watching"? THAT.

Me and my ridiculous eyeshadow when I accosted Amalah, my all time favorite blogger. She had a baby approximately 5 minutes ago and was too gorgeous and gracious for words.

And like Amy (who took all these pictures) said, this one sort of sums up the whole night:

That’s Kim, from Dirty Diaper Laundry. She was really fun. And very tolerant of me.

Despite a very very late night (especially considering the time difference) I made it to my 7 am workout with Bob Harper. My thighs are STILL burning. After his session and the Q&A during breakfast it was easy to see why he was picked as a trainer for the Biggest Loser. “Charming” isn’t nearly strong enough of a word – it was more like he glamored all of us into thinking “Wow, I DO want oatmeal for breakfast! And I want to run a 5k! And make better choices!”

Motivating us. With his HOTNESS.

The rest of Saturday was much more chill than Friday. I got my make-up done in the Daisy Cottage Cheese suite and she covered my dark circles with some sort of MAGIC that made everyone tell me I looked great. Then I got a massage and a coupon for a free automatic toilet bowl cleaner thing, both of which made me feel very relaxed. (Because obviously I spend a lot of time stressed about my dirty bowls)(I’m not even joking). I attended a session on being a professional blogger and pretended I was, indeed, a professional blogger. I don’t think I fooled anyone.

Then I went to the Queen Bee Handmade Market, which gets its own post later.

But the best part was dinner, arranged by Eileen, who planned ahead and made reservations for us at The Marble Room where we all got a chance to SIT DOWN and TALK and just really enjoy getting to know a few new people and finally connect with some long-time virtual friends.

The restaurant used to be a brothel. I heard the bathroom was decorated with naked ladies.

Bottom left: Diana and my lovely roommate Molly

By Saturday night it was all I could do to drag myself back home, put on a clean dress and make an appearance at the parties so I could a) see the people I hadn’t yet run into and b) say goodbye to all the women I’m going to miss the crap out of. Then I stuffed my extra suitcase with swag and collapsed into bed so I could get up for the Longest Travel Day Ever In The World. Stupid flight delays.

I think the biggest thing I learned at BlogHer is that no matter what you expect it to be, you will be wrong. In my high-anxiety moments I pictured myself alone in a corner, being totally snubbed by everyone I like online. In my most optimistic moments, I imagined I would be instantly and completely loved by every single person I saw and I would have sponsors throwing free things at me and my amazing blog. I think in the end I made a good impression on a lot of people, made a fool of myself in front of some people, and annoyed a few people. I met half a dozen Super Internet Famous Big Time Bloggers and they were all extremely nice. I met a few people I am shocked I wasn’t ALREADY internet friends with and a lot more I am hoping to bond with during the next 12 months.

Because I am for sure going back in 2012. Leg hugs for everyone. Even Darth Vader.

Just a TEENY TINY percentage of the women I met and hugged and miss now

This was my WordPress dashboard yesterday:

See that little number up there next to “posts”? The one that says 999? That makes THIS, the post you are reading RIGHT NOW, my 1000th post here on Bebehblog. Or maybe bebehblog. Or Bebeh Blog. One thousand posts in and I still can’t decide how I want to print my own name. Or how exactly to pronounce it, for that matter. Hey, free tip, if you start your own blog, spend more than .352 seconds coming up with a good name.

You should listen to me, I’m obviously an expert. I mean, I’ve written a THOUSAND THINGS on the interwebs.

I also passed my 3 year bloggiversary last week. July 24th marks three full years of me documenting pregnancies, births and babies in far too much detail. I posted twice my first day,  here and here, and got an earth-shattering 1 comments. If, for some reason, you find yourself trapped on a dessert island with no way to contact the outside world but somehow still with access to my blog, you can read every single post ever in my archives, right over there on the left hand side. It would be an excellent way to drive yourself insane even faster than just the starvation and isolation alone.

If I was a better blogger, the kind of big time internet famous I secretly dreamed of being when I posted that first day, I would have done some epic giveaway to mark 3 years of blogging. And then something even MORE epic for the 1000th post. I’m also coming up on 10,000 comments (well, sort of) and that probably deserves the MOST EPIC GIVEAWAY OF ALL (You get a pony! And you get a pony! And you get a pony!!). But alas, even after three years I haven’t had a single company hammer down my door to give me (and you) free stuff. It might have something to do with the fact that out of 1000 posts, approximately 976 mention my boobs. I am nothing if not a true professional.

So instead, you get the same thing you always get here: ramblings and bad jokes and pictures of my kids – although in reality, most people come here because they’re looking for circus birthday ideas or the baby tutu tutorial. Let’s pretend YOU came here for pictures of the kids doing fun summer things:

Watermelon Face

We call this look "wrapped around my little finger"

I'll take my ginger To Go

It's COLD!

He's actually fighting to get back IN the pool, despite the chattering teeth. He's turned into such a water baby.

Just the toes

One chubby peanut, nomming on a sandy pretzel

This is the life

This game is called splashy splash. Go ahead and try to guess the rules. (Also, pretty good for a point & shoot camera, right?)

Boating

My baby boy is now one of the guys

I hope three more years from now I’m celebrating my 2000th post.Although I don’t expect anyone to still be reading, I appreciate you today and always.

xoxo

My most recent BlogHer Book Club review for What Happened To Goodbye is up today over on the book club site. This month was a nice summery young adult/teen fiction that would make a good beach read.

What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen isn’t so much about goodbyes as about choices. Mclean Sweet’s life is all about choices — who to live with after her parents get divorced, what to call herself, whether or not to forgive her mother for the betrayal that tore her family apart, and what to do about the fascinating boy next door who seems intent on being more than friends. How do we choose who we are and can you reallychoose to be someone you’re not?

Read more on BlogHer Book Club…

I totally forgot to tell you my friend (and future roommie) Molly asked me to be part of her guest series this week on some of our favorite Pinterest finds. So go check that out, and definitely look at what her other guest posters this week pinned too – there were some GREAT finds!

And before yet ANOTHER week goes by without my mentioning it, I have to tell you that the (now not so) new blog design is courtesy of the AMAZING Marjorie at Color by Letter Design. I mentioned on Twitter I was terrified to make the jump to Thesis (a blog design template all the cool kids use but that requires some technical skills) and she said “We should talk. I’ll email you” and then BAM! She had a concept and a color scheme and did a fantastic job (at an extremely reasonable price) and now I’ve got my grown up blog all set up. I THINK we’ve gotten all the kinks worked out now too, but if you click something and it takes you down the rabbit hole or are looking for something and can’t find it anywhere let me know and I’ll see if she can help.

p.s. I know I mentioned it once before, but Sarah from One Starry Night designed my social media buttons and I just love them so much I wanted to tell you again. She is also extremely affordable and does great custom work, so drop her a line!