Consumer Queen Needs our help!

Oklahoma Flooding – Consumer Queen’s house flooded

We see something like this…and we CAN help.

I just read this post that Monica – Mommy Brain Reports wrote about her (and my) dear friend Melissa – Consumer Queen . I couldn’t believe it. You can read her post from earlier today as she is just learning the news. This is what us bloggers do. If something it out of our control….writing helps us deal with it.
This all happened today. She had over 2 feet of water in her house. Everything is ruined. She called the insurance company to find out that nothing is going to be covered. This is the house that they just moved into a couple of months ago. Her mother needed help and they needed to move them in with them. So they had to find a bigger house. Her husband @ConsumerKing has Ankylosing Spondylitis which is a degenerative disease that causes much pain and can be debilitaing. He isn’t able to work and because of this she has to work full time in order to get medical insurance for the family. He just had a hip replacement a couple of months ago and has to walk with a cane. That is him out in the water. He just recused a woman and her daughter from the flood waters. Unbelivable!

They are Safe

Thank goodness they are all safe. That is the most important thing. Monica told me that she got a call while she was at work with her kids screaming and crying that the water was rushing into the house from everywhere. Her boss drove her home to find the firemen getting her family and animals out. They are staying with her mother in law….but realizing everything is gone…and no money to replace it. Devastating!!! The house will have to be gutted. Everything replaced. Can’t even imagine.

Donations

We can help. Even if you could donate $5 or $10…it will add up. Monica started this campaign and I can assure you that it is completely up and up. I know them both personally and it is no scam. Promise!!

This is Melissa and I at SXSW this year.
Thanks for anything you can do to help her!

Pepsi Refresh Project

Pepsi is having a contest called Pepsi Refresh Project –  for those who are attending SXSW (South by Southwest).  Since I just found out I am going to get to go to SXSW I entered the contest.  It would be so cool to see this come to fruition.  My friend Debbie is the one who works at a food pantry.  She has told me how important it is to give cash instead of cans for food drives. She is also in the process of developing a web site called “Set Another Place.org”. It should up and running by the end of the month. It will focus on raising money for your local food pantries.

She has referred me to a site called Cash Feeds More that the guy has a funny rap to help you understand why.

You can enter to win on Consumer Queen if you are going to SXSW.  The Consumer Queen will pick one winner from her site of what she feels is the best idea. She will then represent that person at SXSW and campaign for them to win the Pepsi Refresh Project. Whoot Whoot…cheer me on!!

Here is my entry video.

Check out your friends in the Blogosphere!

I saw a challenge on Consumer Queen’s site and I thought it was a great idea.  She mentioned how busy we get and we many days do not get to check out each others’ blogs.  She took the time,  working full time and running a successful blog to go around the blogosphere and see what 10 other bloggers were doing and I was thrilled she included me in her list.

I am going to do the same and here are the 10 bloggers and what they were up to today. These are friends I have met online and many in real life at conferences, in no certain order.  By “today” I am meaning Monday November 16th, even though it is now 11pm as I write this post.

1) Mommy Brain Reports - Monica has put out her Gift Guide Today…lots of items in different categories.

2) Crafty Mama of 4 - Kim also has her Gift Guide listed today. (Must be the day…I’ve never done one, but thinking I should and will have to get advice from these ladies!!)

3) Plus Size Mommy - Beth has 3 post for today. One for Dove and 2 giveaways, one for Ice Age DVD and the other for Peggy Lutz Plus Size Clothing

4) Blessed Treehouse - Ali has a cute video of her son Henry playing with a golf club and baby Harper jabbering.

5) Skimbaco - Katja has her Land’s End gift guide posted today.

6) Giftfully Simple – Courtney has the cutest picture up telling about My Twinn doll that is designed to look like your little girl. OMG my 8 year old step daughter would love that.

7) The Copper Brick Road - Rebecca has a deal listed on Toilet Paper. (well..we all need that, why not get a great deal?)

8) Everyday Baby Steps - Mary has listed some great deals on TJMaxx Plus Size clothing.

9) Blueberry Lane Photography – Toni has posted the cutest picture of two toddlers…OMG ALL her pictures are fantastic, you can’t just look at one on her blog…you will spend some time on this one.

10) GoodNCrazy – Carissa – A neat post on the definition of Grace.  (cool)

There you have it. This was fun. I get to talk to many of these ladies on twitter, but I don’t always know what is going on with their blogs…..so try it!   Be sure to go over to the Consumer Queen and sign up and then go blogging and see what your friends have been up to.

BlogHer

(I saw this on a couple of blogs and loved the idea…so I did steal the idea of taking a picture of all the business cards. I know I was excited to see mine in someone else’s pile….so look for yours and leave me a comment if you see it!!)

I have so many thank yous to everyone at BlogHer. Thanks yous for putting it on , thank yous for coming up to me and saying you recognized me (those were the coolest!), thank yous for being the first person to introduce yourself in line at the hotel (@mom101), for asking me to sit down and eat lunch with you and your daughter that first day (@Mamacita) my roommate who gave up her free room to help me out since I had 2 people back out on me. (@Military_Mom) A big thank you for helping me feel comfortable in an uncomfortable place and for being nothing but nice to me (@craftymamaof4). I have big thank yous for these two Walmart 11 Moms for treating me as an equal although in the blogging world we are no where close (@mommybrain and  @consumerqueen). Thank you to all the sponsors for all the fun swag they gave us and sponsoring all the parties and food and drinks. I feel I learned so much although I wasn’t able to make it to hardly any sessions. (that is crazy isn’t it?)
Thank you to the Label Daddy team for asking me to eat breakfast with them at the Newbie Breakfast.
Thank you to Annalisa from GM for discussing the GM cars and organizational features for a possible review with me.

Thank you to John Andrews from Collective Bias and who started Walmart Eleven Moms for talking to me. I had never been able to meet you and was thrilled to realize how down to earth and nice you really were!
I will be anxious to see the video I made about how wonderful my husband is…although I stumbled through it. Your team was awesome to talk to at BowlHer.
It was a pleasure to meet Ted Rubin.
Denise from Brother was great to talk to and I look forward to working with you in the future.

I was thrilled to meet so many people that I see and talk to online IRL (in real life…I thought I would translate for a few like me who were slow to figure that one out)

To the Sponsors that I have pictures for…and this is such a small portion of you. But Thank you for all you did. Thank you for talking to us about your Brands and how we can help each other in this economy. Thank you for coming out to BlogHer and making it so much fun.
I especially want to thank my sponsors for helping to get me to BlogHer.
The Sock Sacks are a great way to organize your socks in the washer/dryer. LOL Kids and adults both will put their dirty socks in their own sock sack. Then you simply put your sock sack into the washer then the dryer…bring them out and NO SORTING! No more lost socks in the wash/dry cycles. I love them! Thanks Sock Sacks for helping me to be able to go.
The pouchee purse organizer is my other sponsor (well…that would be me, but I sponsored myself! LOL ) I did not make this purse organizer (I wish I did) but I do sell them because I am sold on how wonderful they are at keeping your purse organized.

My daughter was thrilled with this new Moxie Girlz Doll that we received at BowlHer as part of our Swag. They aren’t coming out until September. My daughter had a blast using the markers and painting the motorcycle and I think her shoes? She was showing me her wonderful art work and was so proud.

The kids ended up with so many fun things….book lights from PBS Kids, also a autographed picture from Nina from The Good Night Show on Sprout, a cute pin from Disney  (plus Disney had wonderful Mickey Mouse ice cream bars that saved me on one of my “I missed lunch” days), Disney also showed us a laptop computer made for kids that has a safe internet environment (Hint..hint…I would love to do a review and giveaway of one of those for you Disney!! ) and bears from Build a Bear, a Mr. Potato Head  from Playschool, coloring books and so much more.
Jump Start was there. It was nice to talk to them as I am going to be doing a review and giveaway for them of one of their programs that my triplets are having a great time using.

Nikon put on a wonderful party and I was thrilled to go.
Pepsico also had drinks for us everywhere!
Tropicana had wonderful and cold juice for us to drink that was lower in calories!
This was the Quaker Oatmeal Smoothie bike! (yummy they were good)
So did you know that Pepsico had more than just Pepsi? I didn’t….they have Tropicana, Quaker Oatmeal, Frito-lay, Gatorade Brands. See what you can learn at BlogHer? LOL

Michelin Tires was there with the Michelin Man!

The Swiffer company had a dress up area (as you can see!) at the SocialLuxe party and it was a riot to watch.
Tide gave us a really cool bounce 4 month dryer bars. I haven’t put it in my dryer to try it yet…but can’t wait. I won’t have to have all those used dryer sheets that want to fall out of the dryer onto the floor floating around any more.
They also had Tim Gunn visit their booth. I didn’t have time to get in line to take a picture with him, so I snapped this one on my way through. I think its funny that it looks like the word bubble is coming out of his mouth. Thanks Tide.
There are many more …I mean many more sponsors…and this post would be way too long to list them all. I just want to give them all a very big Thank you!

Blogher 09 – The Nikon Party (my favorite)

I have to admit being invited to the Nikon party was the highlight of the trip for me. I didn’t get a direct invite from Nikon (I wish) but I did get an invite from Mommy Brain Reports  (Monica) and that was just as thrilling. She was one of the VIP invited and extended her guest invite to me! (Thanks to Beth from The Plus Size Mommy)
This is Sugar Jones from Sugar in the Raw on the left and Monica in the center. We were in line here for the limo’s to take us to the party at the Flatwater Restaurant  in Chicago.
That is Monica to my right. (She was a wonderful date! LOL).
I hate to say that I do not remember everyone’s names so I apologize and if anyone sees these pictures and can fill in names for me…it would be greatly appreciated! Everyone was really nice though.
Sugar is the 2nd one in, then Danielle from Danielle Smith TV , Arianne from To Think is To Create, and Lori from A Cowboy’s Wife.  I felt very special to be in the same limo with these wonderful bloggers!

Monica had a scheduled interview with Carson Kressley (from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and How to Look Good Naked) when we first got there. Beth from Plus Size Mommy also got to interview him..so they did it together. I was happy to snap pictures during it.

It was also special to get a picture with him myself.

The Flatwater Restaurant was wonderful! We took an elevator down to the restaurant and there was an outdoor patio with bar and seating. That is Can Can from Mom Most Traveled getting a massage.
Chair massages, hair and makeup stations and a red carpet to walk and get pictures with Carson was the highlight for many. Sugar is looking beautiful!! (not that she isn’t in the first place)

Oh…here go my “bug eyes” again…LOL

I had a great time talking and getting to know Monica and Melissa from Consumer Queen.  They are both just soooo sweet! Both of them are Walmart 11 Moms  and could have acted like they were “too good to hang out” with little ol’ me. But did they? No…they were wonderful to me and treated me with total respect. They are sooooo cool!! (#jeff)

Here we all are again along with Kim from Crafty Mama of 4. She has been nothing but nice to me from online to Blissdom to Blogher.

Here is a photo of me with Vdog from Vdog and Little Man…she was one of the famous Elevator 13 drama with me!!

Yes….good friends, old and new…wonderful treatment… wonderful food and drinks…fun celebrity….beautiful restaurant….fantastic sponsor…Nikon…what could be better?