Chris Mann

Vote for Chris Mann TONIGHT! The Voice #MannFans

 

Watch The Voice Tonight Monday April 30th at 8pm est (7pm cst)

You can vote several ways after the show on Monday April 30th starting at 9:55pm est.  Don’t Vote Early or else it won’t count!

Here are instructions from Chris’s newsletter today on voting

Watch the twitter stream.  You will see #MannFans #Vote4ChrisMann #ChrisMann #TheOperaGuy #TheVoice #TeamXtina and @IamChrisMann is Chris’s Twitter handle. Follow Chris on Facebook at Chris Mann Music

Chris is an awesome singer and a nicer guy! I’ve had the privilege to get to know Chris through blogging events.   He has endeared himself to many bloggers and we are very proud to be #MannFans

 

Blissdom 2009

I first met Chris when he sang at the Blissdom conference in 2009.  Of course all of us loved his beautiful voice, but Chris was very personable with all of us “mom bloggers”. He was just as nice to older ones like me, as he was to the younger ladies.  He is so quick witted and if you have even a two minute conversation with him, you will be laughing.

Chris was out in the lobby talking to several of us before leaving the conference and he had his video camera going (of course we all had ours going too).

This was the first time I talked personally to him and I sounded like a fool. LOL

He took a picture with Ali Hooper and I. (Don’t you love my “bug eyes”) lol

Blogher 2009 – Chicago

Chris sang at BowlHer (an event that Collective Bias put on) at the Blogher conference.   What impressed me the most about Chris was that he remembered me! We had talked via twitter & Facebook, but when I went up to the table he had in an expo room he knew me. He had Mann Fan T-shirts (They said Mann Crush) and said he’d save one for me and bring it to the party that night. He said he was out, but had one left and would bring it for me. (Of course I never though he would…   (of course… more bug eyes)

But guess what….. He saw me and said, “Oh wait, I have something for you”. He went back in a back room and brought it out for me.  I mean really… nice guy huh?

At least I’m not bug eyed in this picture! lol

 

Blogher 2010 – New York City

Collective Bias had another event planned and we were bringing in Chris to sing for us.  Kim @CraftyMamaof4 was planning it all with @IamChrisMann as they had gotten to be good friends through these events we had been to.  The event was cancelled but Chris already had planned to travel to NYC and still decided to come to Blogher 2010

There were a group of about 15 of us that had a small party in @ZipporahS hotel room and Chris said he’d come up and visit with all of us.  It was Courtney @CourtneyRix birthday that day and he sang to her!  Katja Presnal video taped it.

At one point in the video Courtney says,  ”I might pass out”. It’s hard to hear, so thought I’d fill you in on what she says that cracks us all up.

Chris and I in New York City at the little party we had with Collective Bias.

Blissdom 2012

I wasn’t lucky enough to be able to go this time, but Chris performed again. This was after The Voice had begun for him, so I thought it was awesome that he took the time to come back to this conference.
This is the video that Kim Janocko took of him. Notice the awesome seat she had!

There were a lot of videos I would have loved to have used. Be sure to go to Chris Mann on YouTube and you can see all kinds of videos showcasing his talent.  Here is a great video interview with Chris and Lindsay the last two are Christina’s team.

Now please vote vote vote for Chris tonight to help him get to the top 4 in the competition!   Voting starts at 9:55 pm est Monday April 30th until Tuesday am at 10am est.

Organizing My Blog

Blogs Can Become Disorganized Too

I started out early (very early) this morning with a simple task of adding a Travel tab to my blog. I will be doing more traveling and have done a lot in the past and it made sense to highlight it.

I added the tab to the top (after having to refresh myself on how to do that).

But from there it morphed into going through all the categories and  weeding them out, moving things together and creating new categories.   I actually had to make myself stop because I have other work I have to get accomplished today. But I have plans to separate my travel tab into vacations, conferences, reviews and organizing. I’m also going to bring over some of my reviews that I’ve done on my Explore Ohio with Sandy blog.

When I started going through all the categories, I realized that many older blog posts were not placed into newer categories.    I have many older posts that also do not even have tags. When they were moved over from my blogspot blog, I was told that tags weren’t necessary. I’ve since learned different. I’ve spent time going through some of my older posts and tagging them, but I’ve never made it through all my posts (over 700 now).  Obviously this is a big job.

I do need to keep working at it and I do plan to do more organizing of my blog.

For those of you who don’t realize it, I want you to know that I have drop down boxes from my tabs at the top. Just scroll over the tabs and you will see the drop down boxes with the categories. It makes finding your way to a post much easier.

 

 

I still have a lot of work to do on my blog, but wanted you to realize it is always a work in progress – as with most things we do.

The Kindle

Get free Ebooks From Your Library!

Did you have any idea that you could get books for your Kindle at the library? I didn’t…. well, until last night.

I got Dave a Kindle Fire a few weeks ago.  I didn’t know anything about the Kindle Fire other than I had been seeing all these people talking about it.  I just figured it was the same as the regular Kindle and didn’t know what all the hype was about. I had no idea you could get onto the internet and get your email, play games, read books etc.

Kim from CraftyMamaof4 told me how much she loved the Kindle Fire after she got them for two of her kids.  I went to Best Buy a day or two later to look at one for Dave.  He doesn’t do much with Social Media, but he loves playing Angry Birds if he has a few minutes here or there and he does like to read (on vacations), and likes to use the internet to look things up. I wasn’t sure what he would think of it, he didn’t ask for it and was totally shocked when I brought it home to him.  He loves it!

I told him that throughout the year he comes home maybe once a month with flowers for me… just because, so why couldn’t I get him something… just because? This was his “flowers” for the year.

I’m really impressed with the Kindle Fire. It responds fast, picture is really clear, colors are good,  it is a nice size. I have an ipad 2 and love it, but had I not been given my ipad 2 this Christmas, I would probably buy myself one of these.  There is no camera on it, and it accesses Amazon apps rather than the Apple apps, it doesn’t have the memory the ipad does.. but it is a great alternative at a great price.

We went out with some friends last night and got talking about the Kindle Fire because our friend had one also and she told us that you could get free ebooks from The Columbus (Ohio) Library.   They are still building theirs lists and don’t have everything yet, but it is growing. They also encourage you to let them know what books you would like to have for your Kindle and they will try and get it.

Great way to save money and save storage space from having regular books all over.   It is also a really good way to encourage reading for kids. Reading a regular book doesn’t seem nearly so fun as reading one from a Kindle. (just sayin’).  I have to admit that I would love to be able to get the triplets each one of these.

I just wanted to share with all of you. I will admit that Dave hasn’t actually gone through the process and has not downloaded any ebooks yet himself. We just got on it this am and he hasn’t had time, but I know it works because my friend, who told us about it,  uses it all the time.  I have not been sponsored or asked by anyone to write this post and I paid full price for the Kindle Fire. The picture and thoughts are totally my own (as they always are)

 

Disney World

Who Doesn’t Love to Go To Disney World?

Just about one year ago today I was posting about Disney World on a trip with Murphy USA and Collective Bias.  This post was originally posted on my Chat with Sandy blog on 1/30/11. Enjoy the sites of Disney again.

I was asked to attend the Murphy USA National Manager Meeting in Orlando FL (Disney world Coronado Springs resort to be exact) this last week, you might have seen my last post.

They asked six blogger to go to their meeting so we could help educate and sign up their mangers with whrrl and discuss how social media could benefit their business.

We were all paired up with a manager from Murphy USA that we would be traveling with. We were asked to be sure to take lots of pictures and whrrl them along the way. I was paired up with a manager from my area and met her at the airport. Jennifer Davis was my manager.

I had no idea there were 40 Murphy USA gas stations in Ohio. I only know of 2, one in Newark in front of the Walmart and one in Whitehall.  (I’ve not been to that one)

We arrived in Orlando and were all staying at the Coronado Springs Resort. There is a convention center attached to it, so it was perfect. It was so beautiful.

We had a meet and greet with some of the managers before dinner the first night. I am not sure if it was the regional managers, but it wasn’t a huge group (and there were over 1000 managers there). I know the president Hank Heithaus was there and the new president Tom (from Scotland) was there. Hank is retiring and just announced it. This picture was at one of the general sessions where Hank (left) is basically saying goodbye and introducing Tom on the right.

Their theme was “We The People” because they were making sure their managers knew that it was all of them that made Murphy USA successful.

Jay Staggs who I had a picture of in my last post, was in charge of running the show.  They had a good time with it, bringing in Tammy and Tommy through out the conference along with “their parents” for comic relief.

They had a speaker Peter Wahl do a speech/painting… lol  He is a motivational speaker and he painted these 3 paintings during his talk. He would have a music video on the screen while he was painting (in like 2 min) these paintings. He used his fingers (Bruce Springsteen’s hair) and spattered paint… really incredible to watch.

Each of us bloggers had to work a 2 hour shift in the Murphy Whrrl booth in the expo hall on Tuesday. It was a lot of fun. Teaching the mangers how to sign up for Whrrl and helping to try to get them to understand how it could help their business. This was my manger Jennifer on the left.  She had been signed up for FB already and I think even signed up for whrrl.. or did it at the airport. But she was all for it and was great to travel down with. We ended up not getting to really see each other much once we were there. It was crazy for both of us.

We had managers signing up via their smart phones, via text on their phones, or by computer. They could also sign up for a Facebook or Twitter account.

Melissa Garcia from the Consumer Queen had several managers recognize her from her picture being on the pumps or her fun Murphy videos.  Ok.. Melissa on the left.  The Red Strike girl on the right.

John Kim from Whrrl was there to help the managers and he also helped me… as usual with my problematic phone.

The managers could win a $50 gas cards and chances to win this autographed  Slash guitar worth over $900 just for signing up and checking into Whrrl.

I took this picture of Casey from Murphy USA with the Slash guitar and then posted it to Whrrl.  The screen it came up on was just outside the booth in the expo hall.

We had time to go and check out the rest of the expo hall. It was really huge and there were a lot of fun things to do. Wii games were set up, prizes to win… hippies to see

Mars candy and Wrigley’s were there in a both together. Neither of them knew much at all about social media or how it could help their business.  Melissa and I talked to them about it and told them bloggers would love to work with them!

I mean.. really? Who doesn’t love M&M’s?  They had a new candy bar for us to try, actually 2.  There was the new 3 Musketeers Truffle Crisp and the Peanut Butter Snickers.

Here is my verdict.  Loved the 3 Musketeers.  I was actually surprised. Well… I mean I love # Musketeers anyway, but when I first broke it in half. It didn’t seem gooey and it almost seemed… well…boring inside. But… I took a bite and it was so light and it was like the chocolate was so creamy and just filled the whole taste. I loved it!  It gave you the feeling of Dove chocolate (not sure if I should say that or not… but that chocolate is about my favorite.. so it is a big compliment) creamy and light… oh… I WILL be buying more of these. Just not in high numbers since I have really been trying to not eat as many sweets.

I tried 1/2 of the Snickers bar. It was actually in 2 square pieces, so unlike a normal Snickers. I ate half on the plane on the way home and was saving the other half to take a picture of when we got home. But …. my dog found it first in my purse. Oh yeah.. nice.  It was good… the peanut butter wasn’t over powering. But do I think I would pick it over a traditional Snickers… no, probably not. I love the regular Snickers too much.

Here are the 2 reps that were in the booth. Nice guys, but they need to realize how social media can  help them!

Wrigley was giving out packs of their new gum – Prism.

There are 15 pieces of sugarless gum in the pack. This was electric watermelon. I will tell you what. The smell of watermelon is strong, you can smell it as soon as you take the wrapper off the box.  The green foil that wraps the piece of gum looked kind of cool too. Different you know? My mouth was watering before I put the piece of gum in. I thought it was really going to be a gum for kids…. sour and all. But it wasn’t. As strong as the smell was, the taste was nice. I mean it was totally watermelon, but not a sour one. It is good… and with just a hint of that gum mint to it after you chew it for a little bit. (does that make sense).  I know the kids will love it, but it is a refreshing favor for adults.

There were ICEE’s there. I love Icee’s! I have always liked the Coke best. They are coming out with Root Beer float and a blueberry one (oops forget the name of it). I tried the root beer. It is awesome! It really tastes like a float. The foaminess of the Icee is just the right consistency.  I do have a new favorite favor.  You will have to watch for them to be released. (Try the root beer!!)

Dr. Pepper was there… giving away guitars and pictures with a couple cute girls.  What did I like? They had diet Dr. Pepper. It is one of my favorites. Really nice people too… also learning about social media and how it could benefit them. (Yes…. I had 2 diet Dr. Peppers that afternoon.. although there were other drinks I could have picked from.)

Are you used to seeing gas pump handles?  I wasn’t.. I thought they were cool.

What about a full size gas semi?  I wanted to get in and see the cab… but I didn’t.

John Andrews from Collective Bias was there. This is who these people need to talk to about social Media.. he knows first hand how the power of bloggers and social media can benefit the Brands. (That is what Collective Bias is all about)

The announced to the whole group of managers that they were taking us all to Disney World on Monday evening. That was about 3:30 and we had about 45 minutes to get ready to be on the buses.

I got to have dinner with the Collective Bias team that was there, Jerra and John and also with Casey from Murphy USA and John Kim from Whrrl. Also Kerry and Kristine from Nomadic were there.

Us bloggers ran around together at Disney. Mel Lockcuff from MamaBuzz and Leigh Caldwell from Theme Park Mom

Along with Courtney Solstad from My DFW Mommy and Melissa Garcia from Consumer Queen Jerri Ann from Mom~e~Centric was on the trip but didn’t come to Disney.

Mel introduced us to Dole Whip.. it was good.

I also got a picture with Eeyore. what fun!  I don’t know… I guess there is still kid in all of us!

Jerra from Collective Bias looked so cute with Piglet.

We had a full day on Tuesday and they announced all the Murphy USA Circle of Winners. After that they again surprised everyone with a trip to Sea World. I felt terrible because it was pouring rain, and storming.  But they had rented out half of Sea World and 2 roller coaster (announcing there were 2 coaster got a bigger whoop out of everyone than telling them they were going to Sea World).
I didn’t go. Even if it was beautiful outside, my feet hurt so bad (I’m such a wimp) and I hadn’t had a chance to get work done that I need to get done on my computer. So I took the evening off and had a wonderful dinner with Mel and Leigh..and then went back to my room and relaxed.

Thanks so much Murphy USA, Collective Bias and Whrrl.. it was great fun!

Disclosure: My trip was sponsored by Murphy USA and Collective Bias.

Twitter Party Tutorial

 See & Hear About Twitter Parties, But Not Sure How?

Twitter parties can be really crazy and fast.  I think mine will be a good one to start with.  It won’t be as big as some of the others.  But I did want to give a little help for those of you who are new.  I have my tutorial and there are a couple links for other tutorials that might be of great help too.

There are many different avenues you can use to follow a twitter party. I am going to show you my favorite.  I use Tweetgrid.com

The reason being is that I can see several screens going on at once.

Step 1:  Go to Tweetgrid.com and look at your options.

The 1×1 and 1×2 are the number of columns across and down.  I like the 1×4.  Single columns – 4 across.. It is lower on the page and I have it highlighted.  But see what you are comfortable with.

There are helpful links at the top of the Tweetgrid page that can help you too.  Here is the 1×4 tweetgrid set up.  See… just 1 column down and 4 across.

You can delete the info in the “tweet” area at the top.  Then fill in #MonopolyStreet (or what ever your hashtag for your twitter party is – if you are looking at this for another twitter party) This way you don’t have to keep adding the hashtag for every tweet and that saves a lot of time.

Filling out the column headers

Column #1 – Delete the current info in that header (I think it is like @twitter) Put in your hashtag #MonopolyStreets   and hit “Search”   This will now show you every tweet that is being tweeted that has the #MonopolyStreet hashtag in it…so you can follow our party.

2nd column - You can add @OrganizerSandy in there.  You will be able to follow my tweets and it will also show you ppl who are tweeting me.

3rd column – Add @EAPlay there.  That is the Brand following for EA Games/Hasbro who will be joining us tonight.

4th column – This is where you will put your own twitter name @(and your name).  This way you can see if someone is talking directly to you.

After you have this filled out you have to log in (or you can log in before filling this out too) Look right above the columns and underneath where you tweet your message from.  You will see user … look over to “log in”.  Click that.

Hit “allow” and it will take you back to your tweetgrid page. You name will then be in the “user” space. You are ready to go.

I will be tweeting out several questions.  They will be labeled Q1, Q2 etc…  This is discussion.  This is not going to be a race to answer the question type of twitter party.  So relax….

I’d love it if you would RT the questions too.

I will be picking winners 2 at a time.  I will use Random.org to pick the winners.  It will be off the rsvp list.  I will check to make sure that person is actually attending the party. So even if you are overwhelmed…be sure to do some tweeting so that I know you are here.

You won’t be able to read every tweet – things move fast.  Just do your best, follow what you can and look for the questions to answer.

Twitter Tips

Eleven Important Twitter Tips

Twitter is something that some people love and use all the time, or something that people just don’t get.  I didn’t get it at first either. But soon realized the reach and potential it could give me.  

Working recently with Ted Rubin for cbSocially I have learned a lot of things that I didn’t know from Ted.  I did know that you need to engage and talk on Twitter and I strive to always be positive.  I do not like to use twitter to grip. There might be a time and a place it is appropriate, I’m not saying that – but I do not like to engage in “fighting” on twitter. Not cool.

Engaging with others is key!
Twitter is a two way street… it isn’t a one way street meant for you to just shout your message out and not pay attention to anyone else is writing.No         one wants someone shouting at them all the time. If you only tweet out YOUR stuff, that is what you are doing.  Talk to them. Respond!

Be Positive!
Be encouraging, inspiring and up beat.  Who wants to hear someone complain all the time?

Use Their Name 
Look for the person’s name in their profile. Use it when thanking them. Thanks Sandy for the RT!  It is much more personal.

Keep Your Tweets Shorter than 140!
If your tweets are less than 122 characters, it is easy to RT them. If the other person has to take the time to shorten a tweet, chances are
they won’t take the time to RT the message.

Don’t ever begin your tweet with the @ sign! 
If you do, then it doesn’t go into the main stream. It only goes into the stream of the person you are addressing.  Use a word or RT, or if nothing
else use a period before the @ sign. For instance  .@OrganizerSandy

Respond to Every Tweet Directed To You.  
Thank them for their RT’s.  Say Your Welcome if they are thanking you for following them. In real life you would respond, if someone
was speaking to you… So respond! (If the tweet is inappropriate I do not respond. If nasty I will unfollow or block that person)

 Do Not Use the RT Button on Twitter!
It will not show up in Your stream. Copy & paste if you are on Twitter. This way you get the added benefit of your tweet being seen again by your followers. More traffic, means higher klout scores. On Tweetdeck, HOotsuite or Seesmic make sure it is set “Old Style RT”
You want every tweet to help in your stats.

Using a Hashtag 
If you have a group that you follow that uses a # then be sure to use it. We are using the #cbias  for our community. Why? Because it is a way
to easily identify the tweets our community members tweet.  RT’ing each other is simple and builds relationships. Being able to find your
friends tweets is simple and will increase your chances of engagement.

Don’t Over Use Hashtags    
When someone sees a tweet with 3 or 4 hashtags in it, it is only a turn off. Limit hashtags to one or two at most.

Follow Back 
Follow back those that follow you.  I don’t follow the spammers, porn, foul mouthed or languages I don’t understand ; but I try to follow everyone
else. Your tweet goes into their stream and is seen by their followers.  Why wouldn’t you want to follow back as many people as you could? Plus
if someone is trying to grow their handles (like I’ve been doing with the cbSocially handles) then they will unfollow those who do not follow
them back.

DM & Validation services
I have become really frustrated with DM’s.  I rarely use that feature anymore and don’t even check it often.  It has become just full of spam and auto DM’s.  Auto DM’s are where people have read somewhere that it is a good idea to send out an automatic message to anyone that follows them.  They have also been told.. better yet link up your blog or your FB page because then everyone will follow you there too. In my personal opinion I think that is terrible advice.  I will not click on any link that is DM’d to me unless I actually know and trust the person. There is too much spam.  It has totally taken over my direct message box to the point I don’t use it anymore. Sad.   As for the validation services, they are a pain. I do not take the time to go in and click a link and put in a code in order to follow you.  Really? What are you really validating…. that you are a person and not spammer? To me it is almost another piece of spam. Again… fail in my personal opinion.  

If you are starting a new twitter handle, a good way to get conversation going is to thank your followers.  Use their name, make a comment about something on their twitter page or blog link.

The most important thing to remember  is to talk to others on twitter… don’t shout out your one way message. Put your message out there, but respond, be a real person. If no one actually talked to anyone on twitter and only put their “commercial” out there.. would you use it?  Would you watch TV is there were no shows, just commercials? I don’t think so.

I’m @OrganizerSandy on twitter. Would love to have you follow.

 

Seagate Go Flex External Hard Drive Review

Back Up – Back Up – Back Up!

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, it is really important to back up your information.  This is something that should be on your to do list routinely. It goes along with organizing your important information.

I’ve had a couple different external hard drives that I have tried over the years.  Guess what one I bought myself? I bought a Seagate. It was a 1T desk top model. I feel more secure with Seagate.  It wasn’t a sponsored thing, it was a…. research online, go to the store, check prices and storage options and pick out the 1T Seagate.

But I recently did get a Seagate Go Flex to try out!  Look at this thing… it is awesome! It is small and a fun color (would love a pink or lime green….. just sayin’ Seagate) and holds so much.

I have put it right next to my iphone so you can see the size.

This is a 500 GB hard drive!!!  I have backed up with this several times already. I currently have well over 20,000 pictures on my laptop and lots of videos! I just backed it up again today and I still have 243 GB of storage left.

What I love about this is how portable it is.  I can SO easily take this on my trips with me.  That is great for a couple of reasons.  The main one is because I like to back up my computer before I travel.  I often download pictures that I am taking on trips while I am on the trip and with this along I will be able to back up the new pictures and info before I travel home.

The other reason it is great is because if something would happen to my computer while I was away and I lost information on it, I would have all my info with me. Or even worse if my computer completely broke and there was something important I needed to do I would still have my info with me if I needed to borrow someone else’s computer.

This is thin and light weight too.

There is a lot of technical info I could look up and give you about it, but techie I am not. That is one of the reasons I like this.  I just plug it into my computer with the cord (by the way, that little bottom part by my hand detaches. There are different options that you can get for it… you can see those on the web site that I link to) and go to my time machine (I have a mac) and turn it on and it backs up. Simple .. simple

Here is a screen shot of the time machine when I started backing up today.

I will continue to back up with my desk top Seagate before I go on trips so I have a back up of this back up. But this is so nice to have with me. Just a piece of security.

I did receive this Go Flex from Seagate and MARS advertising. I was not asked to do a review or blog post and was not compensated financially.  I chose to do this post. I wanted to show it off and also encourage everyone to back up their computers.

I’ve Been Boo’d!

What a Cool Halloween Surprise!

The kids and I got home from running some errands this morning and I found this box had been delivered!

The kids were saying, “Open it.. I think someone has Boo’d us!”  They were practically jumping up and down with excitement!  I knew we had were had some Boo’s going on at Collective Bias called Don’t Be The Dark House-  but I had NO idea I would get one!!  (I was excited too… just sayin)

Look how cute!  Then there was a bit of a thank you from my “Boo-er” .   I’m pretty sure I know who it is from the last name on the return label…
Now to see what is!

Oh look… there are five boo bags!!!  Plenty for the kids!

When I actually told them to sit down and handed them each one you would have thought it was Christmas morning!  They were SO excited.  I just realized looking at this picture that 2 of them don’t even have their coats off yet from when we came in the door.

Then they went to it…

Mini Snickers and Snickers Peanut Butter, MilkyWay and 3 Musketeers bars!

There were also little decorations in each bag..

and some mini pumpkins.

I was going to leave the other two bags for my teenagers…. but the dogs were driving me crazy. They kept sniffing one of the bags left in the box…

Look what we found… the dogs got a Boo bag too!!!  lol  Love it!!

I had a hard time getting any good pictures of them.  Sadie (the one in this picture) is scared of my new camera.  When I first got it, it was programmed with the “beep” when I took a picture. She is scared of that tone due to a shock collar for an invisible fence we had when she was younger. Anytime she hears it she gets scared. Even though I immediately reprogrammed my camera without the beep… the damage has been done.  So I had to get a couple quick ones when she was almost more enticed by the food than her fears.

 I have to tell you this… in total honesty. I asked Alex to bring me out the candy so I could see exactly what was in there for this post. I heard Zach saying, be careful Alex. I said.. why do you have to be careful bringing me in the bowl of candy?
“Because… look what we did with it!!!” he said… I was shocked!! Absolutly no lie I had NO idea they had arranged it like this. Isn’t this cool?

Thank you much Lisa from East Texas Saver – I know for sure it is you after I just found your post!!!  You totally made our day!!!

My Blog is Back!

Evidently I Was Linked To A Site That Was Being Blocked

My site has been down since October 4th.  I guess some people could get into it, I was still receiving some comments etc.  My blog designer worked on it for over a week before I heard back from her. She said she couldn’t find anything. She went through all kinds of files and finally deleted WP and reinstalled and had to reinstall all my plugins.

Then I had to go through the process of submitting it to Google for reapproval.  I’ll tell you what, this is where my “untech” comes in and I get so frustrated.  I’m trying to find how to do this and I kept getting information pages, I was looking for a form. Then it came up that I didn’t have my sites verified. What? Are you kidding? I’ve done that!  Ding Dong me finally realized that I was signed into the wrong Gmail as I was checking all of this.

Finally figured out how to submit it and waited….but nothing.  I waited over 48 hours and then contacted Chris from where I work. He got in and looked at it and said, “Do you have a link to Standard Post Card .com”   I said, “No, I’ve never heard of that”.  But I went into my site ( I could still get in the back end of my blog the whole time) and decided to check a button I had in my sponsor spot. They had paid for a spot months ago.  But it was for PS Sprint.  First thought was… nope.. that isn’t it.  But I looked at the html code of the link and guess what! Yep…. it had that Standard ….  link in it!!  I was SO excited!  I deleted it Chris resubmitted to Google for me and I’m up about 12 hours later!!

I wanted to let you all know just in case any of you have issues, be sure to check your widgets and links.  I’m so thankful he was able to help me!

cbSocially

cbSocially and Collective Bias

I’ve had several people ask me for some more specifics on what my new job is about, or what I actually do.

Collective Bias has a corporate office in Bentonville, AR and will soon have one in NYC. Here’s a description taken from www.CollectiveBias.com to describe what they do.

“Collective Bias facilitates the creation of real shopper media by connecting groups of social media influencers to the brands and retailers they use in their daily lives. Our Social Fabric™ community drives conversations on a wide variety of social media platforms in order to build consumer engagement and brand loyalty that ultimately lead to sales conversion.”   

The community of over 1,100 bloggers is called Social Fabric .  It is in Social Fabric that we maintain all of our communication with the bloggers.  Shops that are needed are posted, the blogger is able to pick and choose what shops or activities are applicable for them.  We don’t send products to the bloggers for review, which is very typically what you see in most communities. CB sends the bloggers out to shop for the actual products, so the entire purchasing process can be noted by the blogger.  Did they have trouble finding something? Was it on sale? Did they see something they preferred better etc..

So what do I do?  Well, CB has been growing so fast and doing so well that they brought in Ted Rubin as the Chief Social Marketing Officer.  Ted  and John Andrews founded what is now called cb.Socially which is a new division of CB.  cb.Socially is the engagement and outreach component that will use Twitter, Facebook and other venues to develop or amplify the Brands.

I am the Social Marketing Manager for cb.Socially.  I currently am running the 16 twitter accounts we have, cbSocially FB page and helping with CB’s FB page.

It may not sound like much, but I’ve been putting in an average of 12 hour days (6 days a week) to keep up. Working on growing the twitter accounts each day, collecting and modifying the tweets – running a group within Social Fabric with over 200 bloggers and a number of other duties that are required (won’t bore you with them all) is timely.

I’m loving it though!!!  Being able to watch the growth and knowing that what I am doing is helping the Brands, helping our bloggers (because we ask them for tweets on their blogs) and helping CB is awesome.  I’ve been wanting to work for CB for over 2 years and I’m thrilled to now be working my dream job!

Yes….I’m just like you!  I want to “do it all” but I have to realize that with many things in life – something has to give.   My blogs are going to be what is the “give” for me right now, so hang in there with me!

Life takes many paths and curves. Who would have thought I would have a full time social media job three years ago when I began blogging?  Isn’t it cool?

Here is a list of the twitter accounts I’m running. These twitter accounts have from 2,600 to over 14,000 followers on them. I’d love for you to follow them and chat with me!!

@cbsocially
@cblifestyle
@cbglamour
@cbpets
@cbgardening
@cbGoGreen
@cb_Tech
@cb_family
@cbDIY
@cbTraveling
@cbHealthy
@cb_Food
@cb_Deals
@cbEntertaining
@couchcritics
@OrganizerSandy 

Cheap Sally Party & Collective Bias

Best Party at Blogher 2011 This Year!

That is simple!!  The #CheapSallyParty! It was slated to be the best party – that can be a bit scary! Expectations are high! But guess what?  There was no question. Hands down, this was the best party – and not by our accounts…. but by almost everyone who attended!  Collective Bias sent me to Blogher (loved it! I’ve never been to San Diego in CA before.. now I know why people love it so much!) this year as their photographer for several events. I was primarily behind the camera lens this trip, but had plenty of pictures with me in them too.

The atmosphere was amazing! We had the entire Stingree Nightclub to ourselves.  Three floors of awesomeness!

There were food stations, plenty of drink stations and no problems finding a place to sit, talk and relax.

The rooftop was the highlight of the party! We couldn’t have had better weather if we had ordered and paid for it!

The Brands had exposure in the cabanas that gave them plenty of attention, but they weren’t in your face. This was Collective Bia’s cabana – our community of bloggers is called Social Fabric.

Aren’t our Collective Bias pillows awesome! Love them!

It was a nice place for bloggers to come and know they would find Social Fabric members.  Here is Kim @craftymamaof4 and Michele @scrappinmichele

Udi’s Gluten Free Food gave us a loaf of their bread in our swag bags. They also gave us some granola. Later that night I sat in my room and worked… I was starved. I opened up the loaf of bread, fully expecting some terrible tasting stuff (I don’t eat gluten free… can you tell?) I was completely shocked to discover it was moist, tasty and I really liked it. I didn’t have anything to put on it, like butter or jelly… and didn’t miss it. I ate some more the next morning along with the granola (dry) and enjoyed that too.  Totally recommend this.

I loved this space.  KMart is coming out with a new line of Gordon Ramsay kitchen accessories this fall.

Doesn’t this look cool? I’d love to try out some of those pans… they look nice.

I also loved that they gave away all the items they were displaying there to a local food pantry that helps the homeless. Really … so much cooler than giving it away to the bloggers (we get so much at these conferences)

The Bloggers were able to go and visit and talk sitting on comfy couches, pick up awesome swag at the cabanas as well as in their swag bags on their way out.

Cheap Sally announced an awesome giveaway! I mean … really awesome!! The Cheap Sally Bring Home The Bacon Contest!!

They are having a contest and the winner will get a contract for a year – to write one blog post a week on the Cheap Sally blog for $100,000 for the year! Can you say OMG!!

This is Brian Markley (a Top Chef and owns two restaurants in San Diego) beginning the announcement for Cheap Sally Bring Home the Bacon Contest.

We had several of our bloggers interview Brian at the beginning of the party.  Melissa had him laughing!

Ok.. I wanted a picture too.

Melissa and Daniel (ConsumerQueen and ConsumerKing) are so sweet. I always love seeing Melissa and enjoy when Daniel gets to come to the conferences too.

One of the things I LOVE about any blogging conference is when we can meet people in real life that we are used to just talking to online.

One of my favorite people to meet in real life was Lily @MiliaryFamof8. I discovered that Lily is extremely shy and wasn’t real happy that I was taking her picture. But she is SO giving, has such a loving and giving spirit and looked absolutely hot! Her hubby bought her outfit for her to wear and she was very uncomfortable. She had not been to other blogging conferences and has a comfort behind the computer.. not in front of it (not unusual at all for many bloggers).  But she got to meet many people from Social Fabric… how could you not love her?

Check out her shoes! Aren’t they great!!

Here are Amy’s shoes… love them too.

Amy Callahan from Collective Bias looked great. This is her and Lauren before the party.

Again at the end of the party with Kate Berg

Sears Style had a booth and the ambassadors that went shopping (that post will be coming soon). They were manning the booth and handing out some awesome swag too! Don’t they look great?

And more.. I’m excited about the age defining cream (I can use all the help I can get you know!)

Liz from Smarties is the bomb! Can you imagine being a 5th generation candy maker and looking like this? I think I’d be a two ton tessy if it were me!

She made a swag for her booth using the candy necklaces! lol

We also discovered that you can put Smarties into a Martini and it was dubbed the Smartini! Can I tell you that when your drink is gone… eating the martini soaked Smarties… was the highlight!

There was also Smartie appetizers all over!  (yum)

The evening  was beautiful…

Loved taking pictures of everyone! Mel from MamaBzz met Ted Rubin

Ken Barnett and his wife were there. Ken is the CEO of MARS Advertising.

Debba from Girlfriendology with some of the UPS Store crew

Lifetime Moms was one of the sponsors

I don’t know who this is, but they were sitting in the Lifetime Moms area… and I love this peach dress! I felt like she looked so beautiful in it. I had to ask for her picture.

That was one of the things the bloggers loved. They felt they could relax, visit and have a space to visit with the Brands that was not pressured… not crazy crowded.

Amy Lowe looked so cute. She has been helping me so much writing tweets for cbSocially!

I was excited to meet Shelby @GlitterfulFelt  She and Steve did daily videos when we worked on the Lean Cuisine campaign. I felt like I already knew her because I saw her on video. She was so cute with her (fake) tattoo with Steve’s name on it!

These two wonderful ladies are from Canada.  It was fun to have someone be excited about having a picture taken with me!  Melissa @TimeOutMom on the left and Margarita @DownShiftingPOS (another professional organizer!!) on the right.

Kim, Monica and I posing inside the Social Fabric Cabana. Look at our cool Collective Bias QR code badges (Jay is the bomb!)

Courtney, Kim and I out front before the party began.

Everyone left with plenty of swag (including these great flip flops from ViX Swimwear…these are no cheap little ol’ flip flops ladies!!)

They got a bag as they left which also had more goodies in it (other than what they picked up at the cabanas.) Like Peets Coffee! Yum…. good coffee!  I also found out they sell it at my local grocery store.. so it’s all good!

I had a wonderful time, even though I was running around taking pictures of everyone (that was fun!) and what was nicer was knowing that everyone else had a great time too.

Thank you to all the sponsors and Dawn and Elizabeth from Party BluPrints (thank you for your book in the swag bags!)  along with everyone from Collective Bias who put in so many hours and so much time to make this party happen.

 

Collective Bias sponsored my trip to Blogher11.

I was not asked to write this post. I did that on my own because it was so stinkin’ awesome!

Corporate Offices of Collective Bias

I Got To Visit and See Their Ribbon Cutting

 

This blog post of mine has recently been stolen by another blog. I have changed it up a bit to hopefully not get the duplicate content dings by Google.  Be sure you use Google Alerts!

I flew Bentonville, AR to the corporate offices of Collective Bias right after I came back from the Evo conference in Utah last month.

I got to meet many of the people I had only talked to on the phone or skype and got to actually see the office and how things are set up.

I realized just now that I didn’t get a picture of the nice front of the brick building.  Here is the glass door…

But I did get a picture of Amy Callahan washing windows – getting ready for the ribbon cutting…. now that is devotion to her business isn’t it?

When you first walk in… you walk into a little “living room” – that totally has the CB feel to it.

Aren’t these pillows great? Love them!

Great place to have a break, have a discussion or a group meeting

The rest of the office is also open with desks on either side and a conference table in the center.

This picture is coming in from the back door of the office and looking to the left of the large white board wall

Another view

You never know what antics might take place to get their creative minds marketing minds going!

The Nerf wars! Chris Whittle

Against John Andrews!

Aliens? Creative minds you know….

 

 

 

 

And here is the some of the awesomesauce of Collective Bias:

Brad Lawless

Mailena Vo

Chris Whittle

Lauren Rodkin

Matt Garcia

Jay Thorton

Monica Johnson

Amy Callahan and her mom (her mom was visiting for the ribbon ceremony)

John Andrews – I caught John in the middle of speaking at the ribbon cutting

Kate Berg

 

Ted Rubin

Bailey – one of the interns

And John’s daughter Mary Catherine -up and coming Collective Bias employee!! (no not her glasses)

Here are several others that I didn’t capture pictures of… but here is the ribbon cutting ceremony that I was lucky enough to be at.

 

It was cool the Mayor of Bentonville Bella Vista was there joining in too.

I certainly appreciate and thank Collective Bias – I am thrilled to be a part of this awesome group!

(This post was revised on Aug 15, 2011)

 

 

 

Evo Conference 2011

I Love Utah!!

I went for the second year to Park City Utah for the Evo Conference. I love it there!! I am SO going to bring Dave next year, and we are talking about bringing the kids.

We stayed at the Canyons Resort and it was the bomb!

The Collective Bias group got a suite again, and I think there were like 8 of us in there. Three bedrooms, living room, kitchen and huge dinner table. So fun!

The conference itself was great! I love the workshops that Jyl Pattee has worked in so that we get hands on attention.

The sponsor suites were really nice… and we had plenty of time to get to them all.
Jenny from Kodak  – yes those are Cake Pops!

There were some that were so pretty and calm.

Bert and Ernie were in the Sesame Street Suite

We also got to Just Dance!

I went up to a photography workshop on the lift by myself… and just couldn’t stop taking pictures.

I wish you could tell how steep this was going down! If it was going fast I would have freaked! I was in the chair by myself and realized it was just too beautiful to be scary.

We were able to go zip lining

on the “roller coaster” that goes down the mountain – this was on our way up. Look at the deer to the left. I didn’t even see that until I looked at my pictures later.

We also went on the Alpine Slide, carrying our slides to the starting point.

Getting all ready to go (Kim Janocko – Crafty Mama of 4)

And flying down. This pic was taken as I was going up the chair lift, so I have no idea who is going down. But it looks like the dad is having fun!

Bush’s Bake Beans put on this night for us including a wonderful dinner and all these fun activities.

Our last night was also up the mountain. There was a storm going up…. wind and a chairlift going over the mountains is a scary thing! lol Monica was scared enough going on the chairlift – let alone as windy as it was. We were trying to distract her.

But seeing the aftermath is worth it..a double rainbow

Doesn’t it look like the rainbow is going into the “pot of gold” cloud?

Here is the most of us from Collective Bias!

I wanted to be able to tell Dave I saw a Moose…this was the best I could do.

Loved Evo!  Loved Utah.. can’t wait to go back!

Here are the list of sponsors of Evo.

I was sponsored by Collective Bias for this conference.  Thank you Collective Bias and cb.Socially!

Cheap Sally Party at Blogher 2011

Best Party at Blogher 11!

Blogher is known for it’s Brand parties. As a blogger we get invited to dozens of them and trying to decide which ones to go to can be difficult. You want a chance to talk to the Brand’s, you want to see friends and meet new friends and have a nice time.  Some say it is for the swag.  Personally, I wish there wasn’t swag – or at least not so much. It gets a bit crazy and I think many do go just for the swag.

Collective Bias, Cheap Sally and PartyBluPrints are hosting the party.  Dawn and Elizabeth from PartyBluPrints are freakin amazing at putting on parties – so I can’t wait. Take a look at the video the Dawn & Elizabeth made!!

We are going to be having it on the roof of the Stingagree Restaurant in San Diego, CA. There is a pool and cabanas… oh it will be nice.

Brian Marlarkey from Top Chef will be there and I’ve heard there is a possibility that Gordon Ramsay might be too.

I’ll be busy taking pictures, but I also plan to have an awesome night!

Thanks to all the Sponsors

Thank you Collective Bias for sponsoring me for Blogher 2011!

 

Shoe Envy

Shoe Envy at Type A Parent Conference 2011

You may have never seen one of my shoe envy posts on this blog before. I used to post  them on my Chat with Sandy blog. But since I’ve been concentrating on just this blog as my main blog, I thought I’d delight you all!

Here’s the deal.  I’m 5’10″ tall… and don’t need to wear heels. I suppose I could, but I am tall enough without them. But I am envious of those gorgeous shoes that I see at all these conferences.  Do I have a shoe or foot fetish… uh no! That is just gross.

It started over a year ago when I was looking and commenting to my friend about all the cool high heels ladies were wearing and saying that I was jealous. That I wished I could wear them.   I was teasing that I should take pictures of them and have a shoe envy post. She thought it was great… and so my shoe envy posts after conferences were born.

 

Here it goes…. which ones are your favorite ones? Where you there? Do you see your shoes?

Ok… I don’t normally name who my shoe envy shoes belong to. (Often because I don’t always know them.. I just ask if I can take a picture of their shoes if they are cool)
But I have to tell you. These are Rachel Ferrucci’s shoes.  I saw hers and said I need to get a picture. She said, “Sandy, I had someone else ask me to take a picture of my shoes here and I told them no.. that Sandy has to get them for her shoe envy post!”  Isn’t that a riot! Love it!

This wild rug really adds to them ..do you think? (not)

 

 

But look…. duplicate shoes! Those feet belong to two different people… if you were wondering! LOL

Here they are!! Isn’t that kind of like having on the same dress at a function? So fun.

Some are just so unusual I have to get a picture.

But look at these.. love them

I was in the elevator when I saw these shoes! I wish she had left them on because they were ….wooo…really high!  She pulled them off and said.. you have to see the full shoe! I got them in Vegas! Can you tell?  lol

 

Now to top off my shoe envy.. I have to show you Ted’s Happy Socks.  Am I envious of his socks … nope. But when you see someone sitting at a table… with his blue vest on…and you can’t miss that he has striped socks on to match… you have to tell him you want a picture!  Yes, I was out with a group and Ted Rubin.. I didn’t high jack a stranger and ask him to take a picture of his socks.

But now I’ve started something new with Ted.  He shows me what socks he has on… for more Happy Sock shots.

You know… isn’t it the little things in life?  Someone appreciating something you are wearing or doing? I have not yet had a person say no when I have asked them if I can take a picture of their cool high heels.  It’s a compliment. Obviously I’ve noticed what they picked out to wear… and I like it.  No… I envy it…. so wish I could wear them! (The high heels… not Ted’s socks…)

 

 

 

 

 

Type A Parent Conference 2011

Social Media Conference

I’ve been to this conference three times now. Think I enjoy it?

I drove to Cincinnati and picked up my friend… Debba of @girlfriendology. That made the nine hour drive go so much quicker. I think I passed her driver test! lol

We also shared a room, with Kim @Craftymamaof4.  What a riot we had….

I always enjoy Type A conference.  It is in Ashville, NC and it is a fun, funky town.

Here are some of the sites.

I thought they were neat.  You might notice a couple of these pictures on some twitter pages…  (cbgardening and cbglamour) .. yes they are mine. I just loved how this one turned out. It was the reflection in a store window. I didn’t even think the picture would turn out.

This was one funky statue.

Type A Parent, formally Type A Mom – my take on that…. is you don’t have to be a Mom or a Parent to attend. I don’t normally think about it so much… all the “mom blogger” talk. I’m not offended by that title, I don’t get up in arms, I just don’t really care one way or the other. I do what I do… call me what you will.  But Debba deals with it, because she doesn’t have any children. She gets classified as a mom blogger. I’m sure there are many others in the same boat.  She doesn’t make a big deal of it, but it just made me think more about it.

Ok.. onto more pictures! I have lots of them.

We had a Collective Bias dinner with several of the CB members who were there.  If you were there and didn’t realize it, we weren’t neglecting or keeping anyone from dinner. There was a discussion in the Social Fabric community, everyone in SF was invited.

 

 

 

The party that I thought was the most fun at Type A conference was the Smurf party!!

They had the place decked out and looking so nice.

All the tables had smurf on them.

Ubisoft sponsored this party and there was some new dance games coming out… so of course… there had to be a dance contest!

There were teams… that took it very seriously…

and others that signed up when they got there. Here is the Collective Bias Team

Of course I thought they should have won… but alas..

But the finals came down to just a few.. The three up front were in the dance off.. the rest were just joining in for fun.

Chris on the left ended up being blocked by the Ubisoft guy who was also joining in and dancing (at least this is my version of what happened) Because she was totally “on”.  I think we were all a bit shocked when she didn’t actually win. But it was all in fun.

We decided to go out to dinner. Kim was craving lobster mac & cheese. The place we tried to go, had a really long wait. So we ended up at this really fun little restaurant.

Ted joined up with us after his workout.(My new boss)

Mayfel’s was a quirky cute little place to eat. Loved it.

They had the most awesome sweet potato fries that I’ve ever tasted!

And to top it off… there was a peanut butter frosting on this devil food cake that was to die for!

We all had a great time…. and were very full. I will be sure to stop by this place again if I go back.

More sessions…. more fun… more friends. It’s all good.

Watch tomorrow for my “Shoe Envy” post from Type A Parent Conference.

 

 

 

 

 

Work from Home

New Jobs Can Disrupt Your Organized Life

I recently started a new job with Collective Bias. They are a shopper Marketing Company out of Bentonville, AR. They opened a new division run by Ted Rubin called cb.Socially. (The above is a picture of Ted and I when we were at the Type A Parent conference in North Carolina)  They brought me on as the Social Marketing Manager of the new division. The cb.Socially role is to use Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+ and other engagement applications on behave of the client. Our first client WebTrends has already established their own Twitter, FB etc.. and run those. But we are amplifying their efforts.
I have been working 10-12 hour days on my new job the last couple of weeks trying to get things up and running. Needless to say I have been neglecting this blog, I’m neglecting my house I’m in that “unorganized” feeling of starting up something new. You know how that goes? When your whole schedule changes and you don’t feel like you have time to get a grip on the new “system” of how things should flow?

I know it will come, but until then I need to extend my apologies. I will have some more posts of things I am doing and places I have been going. So it won’t necessarily be all organizing. I hope that is ok with you all. It will be a little bit more of my life.

I’ve been to a couple great places in the last month and will be heading out to CA in a couple of weeks for the Blogher 11 conference, so I’d like to share those things with you. My blog will adjust as my new roles in life adjust.

If anyone wants to submit a guest post… I’m all for it!

I’m having a blast though! Loving every minute.

Org Junkie

Organizing Junkie’s Book Review & Giveaway!  *closed*

Clutter Rehab by Laura Wittmann

I love Laura! I’m an Organizing Junkie was the first organizing blog I ever saw when I first started looking at blogs. Her writing is fun, easy to understand and basic. But she gets things done. She is a highly respected organizer and I think the top organizing blog (at least that I know of) out there.

She wrote a book. Yee Haw! Guess what? Her book is fun, easy to understand and basic!

She gives you “101 tips and tricks” to help you organize your home and manage your time.

Here is a page from the table of contents.

Some of them are over a page, but generally speaking they are fast and easy tips. You might have several on a page.  Considering I am working on clearing out all the winter clothes and completely going through the kids rooms right now … donation is a big word.  I like her idea of having a “donation station”.

Some of her tips are so simple, yet many people just don’t think of them.

 

You can find this Clutter REHAB on Amazon and it is only $10.36!  Great deal.

 

I would recommend this book for anyone wanting to decrease some of your clutter… just by using some smart and easy ideas.  It would also make an awesome gift for a newly married couple, a messy teenager going off to college, your “messy” friend… but, there are so many neat little tips in the book, that you don’t have to even be a disorganized person, or a messy person, or have a house full of clutter to gain valuable insight and ideas from this book.

Being short little chapters geared towards one tip each, makes it a very easy read. Something you can pick up, read a few ideas and put it back down to get the kids off to school. More than likely you will pick it up and keep reading because it’s so fun to find new ideas to make your life easier.

Buy it Here!

Clutter Rehab: 101 Tips and Tricks to Become an Organization Junkie and Love It!

Try and Win a Copy Here!

Required For Entry: Go to Clutter Rehab: 101 Tips and Tricks to Become an Organization Junkie and Love It! and click on the “Click To Look Inside” at the top of the picture of the book and tell me what you see in the preview of the book that interest you! Leave a comment below telling me how you think this book could help you.

**Be sure to come back here and leave me your answer in your comment. Your e-mail has to either in your comment or on your profile.

FOR EXTRA CHANCES TO WIN:

**Each of these HAS to have a separate comment to win. The winner is picked using Random.org. It just goes the number of comments….not by what you say.

1) Visit Laura’s blog I’m an Organizing Junkie and  look for something that interest you. Leave the link in the comments below of which blog post you visited. (1 entry)

2) Subscribe to my Organize with Sandy blog (1 entry)

3) Follow me on Twitter @OrganizerSandy (Leave me your twitter name) 1 entry

4) Stumble one of my posts for 5 extra chances to win. (tell me which post – please don’t stumble this post, as giveaway posts shouldn’t be stumbled.) 5 entries – be sure to leave 5 comments below for this one.

5) Tweet this out up to 3 times a day. You can use the tweet button at the top to make it easy. ( Pls leave your url link) 1 chance for each tweet.

Please keep in mind I approve my comments. So you won’t see them right away. Never fear!

This contest will run until 11:59pm est on Tuesday, June 28, 2011 *CLOSED*

Any comment that comes in after the above time will be deleted. This is open to US mailing addresses only. Must be 18+ to win. One person per mailing address only. Winner will be chosen by Random.org

You will have 48 hours to reply to my e-mail if you are picked as the winner, or else I will go on to the next winning number.

Cake Boss

What an Experience Meeting Buddy Valastro

I was lucky enough to be asked as a blogger to attend a fun day at the Giant Eagle Market District Store in Columbus, Ohio back in March.

We watched an amateur cake decorating contest that Buddy judged and then we got to see him do his stuff in front of over 300 people in the main section of the Market District Store.

Donna Pahel from the Market District Store out of Pittsburgh was wonderful and is giving us our copy of Buddy’s book in this pic.

I also got to see one of the Columbus Crew Soccer players (although I didn’t catch his name).  They picked him to come up with Buddy as one of the 3 Dads to decorate a cupcake.

We had a great time!  Kim from Crafty Mama of 4 and Beth from The Plus Size Mommy were also there along with Wendy from Celiacs in the House as bloggers.

Since I’ve done just a little bit with some cake decorating lately, I wanted to share this.  This took place in March, but I thought you’d still enjoy reading about it.

See my complete story on my Explore Ohio Blog. I have the complete story and many more pictures on that post.

I was invited to meet Buddy in a small group for the cake decorating contest, which took place before the main exhibit for Giant Eagle Market District. I was given a signed book and a swag bag from Giant Eagle Market District for taking the time to come. My opinions and pictures are my own.

Gleek Retreat 2011

Holland, Michigan is one cute little town!

I loved the location for our retreat this year! Holland is on the west coast of Michigan, right on the water. It is actually a college town. A private Christian college called Hope College is there.

There is a fireplace always going and their brick walks are heated! Can you imagine? (So nice in the winter right?)

It was a six hour drive for me, but the weather and traffic cooperated and I got there on Friday about 5:30pm.  I met with Courtney Velasquez and we went out to dinner at a place called CityVu Bistro with a few other Collective Bias members. Some old, some new.. some yet to be. lol

From left: Sylvia Hubbard, Elena Wollborg, Elizabeth Edwards, Deb Steenhagen

Look at this spinach dip!

Courtney, Elizabeth and I.  Thank you very much for a wonderful dinner CityVu, Courtney and Collective Bias.

It was a small group of us for the Gleek Retreat which was so nice. I think we were around 40 or so from what I heard. We all met in one room and we all heard the same speakers. The positive thing about that was that you didn’t feel like you missed anything.

Lisa Lehmann started things off. It is so neat to hear about the person behind the business.  She did a fabulous job.

We had some network time to get to know some other the other bloggers.

We also heard from an author of over 20 Romance novels; Sylvia Hubbard.  I don’t know why I didn’t get a picture of her speaking (ugh)… but she is up in my picture of when we ate at CityVu.

Brittany Gibbons and Heather Spohr gave us all the ins and outs of how to start and run a group blog.

Katie Kimball from Kitchen Stewardship talked to us about writing E-books. This was really useful to me. I have been planning on doing a couple, and she gave me some great info!

We were finished up pretty early. I’m guessing around 3pm.  We had time to walk around the town… and go in a bunch of the cute little stores.

There has to be a cute coffee shop in a cute town right?

You also can’t forget the fudge shop. I guess they also have awesome milk shakes.  There was SO much I wanted to buy there, but I was good (for me) and only got a caramel covered pretzel stick.

I loved this cute little shop – it had some really creative hand made items in it.  The owner had made these cake pops.. and they were awesome!  I almost bought the book by Bakerella… and I wish I had. I am going to get it, either in a book store or online. These were just too cute. When I do get the book, I’ll make some and share it on my blog.

There were five of us walking around.Shanda, Jodi Michelle, Stacey and Courtney. Jodi and Stacey both live close by, so they knew the stores well….. especially Jodi! Heck, they know her by name when she walks in!

After our run around town, we got ready to go on the Holland Princess dinner cruise.  It was only a short bus ride there, in the rain….

Thank goodness there was a closed section downstairs.  We all got two drink tickets… hee haw!

We were served a lovely dinner (well…. not really very good. The chicken was cold, cheese not melted and noodles dry and it was salsa instead of tomato sauce… but the roll was good! I didn’t eat the dinner, but I did eat my roll and Courtney’s roll.)

But my drink was good!

Courtney, Shanda and I went on top of the boat after the rain and it was so nice and cool and the view was great. Shanda was saying how she didn’t have a good profile picture…. so we decided to try and get one. Here are several I took.

 

and here is one more

The lighting was being a pain. But we had fun. I took a whole lot more than those… lol

Guess where Courtney and Shanda pretended to be?

Here are a few other fun pics from that night.  (I was trying to hide my band-aide on the side of my nose. But I just photoshopped it!)

I love walking around with Shanda!  If you have met me, you know I’m 5’10″ tall.  Shanda is obviously taller than I am and I love that! lol

I think this picture of Courtney and Shanda is so cute!

There was karaoke on the boat… and Heather and Meredith from Life’s Crazy Joke were such a hoot! You can’t fully appreciate it if you weren’t there. But ….there were plenty of video cameras going, so it is possible the rest of the world might get to experience the fun of these two at some point down the road.

Sunday morning started at 9am. I was already checked out of the hotel and ready to go. There were three speakers today, Cynthia from Nap Warden,  spoke on blog design. She showed some great examples of what to do and what not to do with your blogs. Ok… so this isn’t the best picture. I mean, it isn’t a bad picture, I just wish I would have gotten a smile!

 

I also realized I didn’t get Kris from Little Tech Girl talking! What the heck?  All I can figure was that I was too nervous about talking myself. Sorry Kris! She was full of awesomeness as she always is. I wish I could just “steal her tech brain” for about 24 hours and I think of all the stuff I could get done on my site etc during that time.

Up next…. me and Andrea from Simple Organized Living.  I went first and discussed organizing your blogging life. I discussed making a blogging binder and I gave two of them away.  I’ll be getting them ready before long so that you will be able to download the printables or get an entire notebook already prepared.

After looking at these pictures of me, I realize more than ever that a face lift, neck lift and eye lift are well in order! Getting old really sucks! ugh.

Andrea took the stage as our last presenter. She discussed how to organize your life and family as a blogger.  She said she could talk about five hours on time management, but would talk only as long as Julie wanted her to.  lol

Julie from Dutch Being Me organized the retreat this year.  Lots of work. wow

It was nice to have a few sponsors there. The “Bissel” guys were there and had carpet cleaner with them (I got some for my sad carpets that need to be replaced… but that we will try to clean and have last a little longer since we have 7 of us and 2 dogs here..{breath})  and also some coupons to rent a free steam cleaner!

Christina from Therapon was also there. She was giving free facials. I needed one, but didn’t get one because I didn’t want to put my make up back on, plus I was sporting such a fashionable band-aide on my nose (the basal cell thing ya know).

Mabels Labels provided the bags and also their cute bag tags. (love those)

Last years organizers were there… Jodi and Stacey

Courtney also suggested that we get a 2010 Gleek retreat reunion picture!

Thanks ladies for a fun weekend and thanks Holland MI for such a cute town!

 

 

 

 

 

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