A word about Mom 2.0 Summit

The first time I went to BlogHer, I was awestruck. I was already actively interneting, but I was overcome by the women, the strategies, the cleverness, the community. I felt like I'd found my people. They were smarty pants. They were hard-charging. They were quick, funny, savvy. They were wearing amazing shoes. They were a little bit drunk a lot of the time. They were really my people.

Lots of experience and gigs and sites and conferences later, I landed at the Mom 2.0 Summit last weekend. (Be warned: The pictures are blurry, but I swear my memory is clear. A teense champagne-gauzy, but definitely clear.)

It was, in a word, phenomenal.

 

Oh, wait. The word is glamorous.

Showing her rendition of "everything is bigger and better in Texas" overlayed with 60s sweetness, Foodmomiac and I glammed it up at the Mad Men party.

I mean inspiring.

This artwork stopped me as I breezed through the lobby every day. It spoke to me. And it made me think of the nakedness of writing, of the whole-body connection to words and experiences and other writers who reach up through the soil toward clarity and healing and purging and...well, sometimes just to be funny. [I Shall Bend Toward You, Lisa Qualls, Koelsch Gallery]

Sitting in on a session about redefining success for writers, weeping over one of the most touching pieces on motherhood I've ever heard by the very talented Katherine Center, finally meeting in person the amazing Gretchen Rubin after working with her for months and months, and laughing, strategizing, and just being among so many accomplished women, inspired me to take real, live notes (yes, with a pen), sketch redesigns for my blog, and dream bigger.

Oh, how it was hilarious.

We laughed so hard at the Barilla Share the Table dinner, courtesy the Kirtsy gals.

Also? Delicious.

The truth is, one word is not enough. I need two.

It was, once again, my people.

We got bagged at the CheeseburgHer party.

Bad Kitty and CityMama snap a shot of us for the Clever Girls Collective's Clever Spotting contest. Then we all talked about iPeriod app awesomeness. Next year, I think I'm going to bring stuff to crochet.

I know, I know. You're used to seeing Susan in delightful outfits and the prettiest flats of all time. Here, she's...ummm...well, with one of the four men who was in attendance, being delightful and pretty with a giant bottle of white. Please do read her fabulous post on Mom 2.0 that has much, much better photos than this one.

And now, more than I've ever felt before, it was mine.

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Why yes, a Jonas brother does appear in this one

It's about time I wrote about our trip to Disney. As a part of a press event I attended for work, Disney graciously brought Lil E, my parents and me to their parks for four days of what also happens to be the epitome of parenting -- both exhilaration and exhaustion.

The mere idea of Disney intimidated me, to be honest, and I thought it would be best to hold off a year before introducing my boy to it all. After all, his Disney education has been limited to a few movies and whatever his friends whisper to him when the show lights go up. But this was an opportunity we had to seize. We put on our credentials, cozied up to the fun and informative Disney rep who guided us through the parks every single day, took our place in the lines and went for it.

The gods of amusement parks were definitely laughing at us.

[So much more after the itty bitty little jump]

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"It's not like I'm really *missing* work, Bobs."

Should someone...ohhh, I don't know....Google "shoe whore" (hi, guys!) or "dimples" (oops! wrong word) "booties" (hello, Mom!) or similar (hey there, everyone else!) and come across little old Sassafrass and take note of the frequency of posting around here, that particular person might think all I do is flit about the city, hunting for big grrrl panties and impracti-heels I dare not pay a near-20% interest rate to where whilst I pay off my credit card balance.

Not so. I'm busy writing about critical health issues like celebs in mom jeans and and looking pretty at the gymmy internal debate over whether to fork over (with a bamboo utensil, of course) my paychecks at Whole Foods.

Are you wondering how in the world these topics fall under "Healthy Living"? Or how the hell I got a gig opining about boobs and periods all day long? I can only shrug in response to both of those excellent inquiries and ask you to just go with it along with me.

Rather than try to explain how I took the crazy turn from a schizophrenic life of writing for fourteen sites at a time to lavishing all of my words on one page, I will just point in the direction of my posts, if only to prove that I do tap furiously upon my keyboard for hours and hours at a time. Really. Truly.

I boost the style of my dining room significantly by wearing killer shoes to work every day, but I promise I do work.

Stay abreast (yes, I said that on purpose) of my version of feeling good in body, mind, spirit (and jog bra) by reading about:

• Jessica Simpson's boobs belonging to her future husband and Christina Hendricks being bored about talking about her body and rocking some serious (shhh! don't discuss!) curves in a corset on a magazine cover.
  

• Austism, vaccines and no love for Jenny McCarthy.

• Another no-duh reason to quit smoking.
  

• Why sitting too much is freakishly dangerous (get up! dance around! buy shoes!).

• Yep, Snooki.

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