How to save your soles at BlogHer (or any other conference)

Somewhere, there is a formula that calculates the number of blogging conferences I’ve been to times the number of shoes I’ve crammed into the volume of my trusty suitcase plus the number of blisters and bashed baby toes I’ve bandaged divided by two well-tended but roughed-up feet. Luckily, I am a writer and don’t have to do all that math. But I do have to take care of my tootsies, especially when I am speaking on a panel, meeting up with my very favorite bloggy ladies or dashing off to an event.

As a shameless shoe whore and lady who would really like to keep slipping on the platform peep toes when I emerge from my desk area in the dining room, I’ve compiled my very best field-tested tips here for keeping your feet in happy, healthy, working condition  while at a conference. And since BlogHer ’13 is in my city very soon, here are a few more insider-insole tips from one of your windy city hostesses!

1. Save one side of your suitcase for shoes. I dedicate one whole section of my roller suitcase to shoes in part because I bring way too many pairs wherever I travel, but also because I think it helps to see them all together. And when you see them all tucked in next to each other, the visual will aid you in editing. It’s all right there — four pairs of animal print shoes? three kinds of flats? all wedges? — making it more obvious what you can pull out and what should stay. Keeping shoes separated from your clothing will also keep your dresses from getting dirty and open up some tiny in-between pockets to stick in hair accessories or other small things that don’t fit elsewhere.

Read the rest of my tootsies-tending tips here.

It's that time: BlogHer '13, kittens!

A flurry of texts about which maxi dresses we're packing, 400 emails confirming party transportation, finger-crossing that last-minute business cards will arrive and seven reservation-cancellation-reconfirmations for the hotel marks, as it does every year, the beginning of BlogHer. 

This year, it's in my city and I am swelled up to see in my Facebook feed how many bloggers I adore are already in my hometown. I'm just a few miles from the action and can't wait to get right to them.

My BlogHer events started earlier this week (I'll post more about my catwalking with Danielle, Meredith, Beth, Jim and many other fabulous bloggers soon!) and I am thrilled to be meeting with clients and writers, organizations and brands I really believe in. Stop by the AARP booth at the Expo hall, where I will be talking to women about the freedom of getting finances, health and legal paperwork in working order!

And then there are the friends who are speaking their souls at Voices of the Year Community Keynote, hosted by Queen Latifah -- QUEEN LATIFAH!. I will be there weeping, laughing and cheering on Kelly, Meagan, Whit, Heather and many other talents. 

The happy sobs will continue as I take in the women I know who are doing extraordinary things - building exciting businesses, hosting phenomenal events, giving advice on-air and taking this little old blogging thing to places we never would have dreamed possible the last time this conference was in Chicago. These are the people who make me want to do better, reach out more and be amazing. 

If you are there, I hope you will throw down your eight swag bags when you see me and give me a full-body hug (and then introduce yourself). I will be the one in super-high heels, simultaneously laugh-crying and completely in awe.

It's hard being the older one

We FaceTime until my brother and sister-in-law can get their crap together enough to pile a potty-trainer (more than a toddler, not yet a preschooler) and a newborn and all of the thousands of pounds of gear they require into two rolly suitcases and a dozen or so tote bags and get here to see us. (Gaw. Come. On.)

We spend time pressed up into the phone camera, pretending the baby is awake and recognizes our voices, that we are holding him into our chests, guarding the infant from being snatched away by an anxious grandma. 

But it isn't easy. First, this new child shares a sleeping affliction with his older brother, one that confounds me as the mother of the son I have in my lap during all these FaceTime sessions. He sleeps. A lot. In fact, I've only seen him with one eye open at a time and he's nearly a month old. 

And also, he doesn't do a lot. I've asked big brother J if the baby is talking yet.

"Nope, not yet," J answered definitively.

"Well, is he at least walking yet?" I asked, feigning all the seriousness a three-year old needs to hear to stop ignoring everything but the top half of plastic pirate ship on the ottoman in front of him.

"Nope," he answered again. "He's still a baby."

"Still a baby," I repeated, lacing my fake seriousness with fake disappointment.

Without a beat more passing, J's head whipped to the right so his face was centimeters away from my brother's. The screen on our side was filled with their profiles.

"WIGHT, DADDY?!" His seriousness was real. I mean, weal.

"Yup," my brother answered, lips pursed to one side. He's a pro at this seriousness act. A real potty-trainer thespian. "Stiiiilll a baby."

J whipped his head back at me, a tiny actor with full Method face.

"Yup," nodding, nodding, nodding, lips pursed. "Still a baby."

A few days later, the lens was aimed right at Jacob, whose preppy polo shirt was hiked up over his barely protruding baby belly while he held a pacificer lazily in his little rosebud lips. 

"He might open his eyes," my brother whispered. E and I oohed and ahhed and waited. 

"Look at his little elf ears!" I said.

"Oh! And his hair! And tummy! And tiny fingers!" E chimed in. Our observations weren't revelatory, just background music while we waited to see Jacob's peepers.

One eye opened. Then shut immediately. We laughed and oohed some more. I was just about to launch into a list of questions I only need to pose because I am too far away from the youngest member of my family and I feel hyper-aware of how important each day is in these early months. 

But I didn't ever get to those questions. As soon as the air escaped from my open mouth, Big J bounded in.

"PUT THE CAMERA ON ME NOW! PUT THE CAMERA ON ME, DADDY!"

He made something up on the spot to say or do or dance out, as three-year olds are adept at doing when the lights finally circle around them after hours or even 30 seconds off-stage.

We laughed. We all got it. I had a baby brother. My brother had to bear with me. E had a one-kid show until Big J showed up a few years ago. Now it is the second-smallest's time to steal the spotlight back. 

There's no love lost for my first nephew, plenty of room for new cousins, another boy, one more J-named babe in this family. There might not be tons of room on the tiny FaceTime screen. But we'll figure that all out soon enough. Which hopefully is some time before the wee one opens both eyes at once.