This Mom Blogger Brought to You by...
For the most part, this blog is powered by coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. 
And I would be remiss to forget the toddler kisses. Every post is hammered out with the chime of "I sit with you, Mom!" in the background. Most paragraphs have "aczqfqqqq" in them at one point or another as little toddler feet get situated on my lap while I type.
I don't have daycare. I don't have a nanny. I run this muth' from home, in a semi-undressed state, with dishes in the sink and two little boys hanging from my limbs. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Okay, I would like a housekeeper and to have our babysitter come in a few times a week, but I'm working on that. Unfortunately, both like to be paid in cash rather than flowery prose, and I'm short on one and long on the other.
When you make the choice to stay at home rather than rake in the paychecks from an office outside of the home, you also make the choice to accept a handful of compromises. Not the least of which is a distinct lack of disposable income. So, if you are a stay-at-home mom with an internet connection, you figure out ways to make that work for you. Because, you know, we are made of time and bon-bons here.
A few months ago, I bought my pass to the annual BlogHer blogging 
conference with a credit card that I literally had to wipe the dust from before I used it. I knew that I'd also have to come up with money to pay for a flight from Gulfport, Mississippi to San Francisco, California, as well as pay for a handful of nights in a hotel room. I did not have the money to pay for any of this.
In short, I was doing a bit of "fake it til you make it." In fact, I've been faking that I could even go to BlogHer every single moment of the planning process for The People's Party. Kevin Costner and Ray Liotta swear that if you build it, they will come... so that works with blogging, too, right?
Arianne says that "to think is to create." Let's see how far we can take that theory...
I do not advocate using credit cards other than for emergencies, but I was tired of my desktop crashing and needed a computer. After this final crash, it was still in the geek shop going on almost a month. This was not working for this blogger here, as I was simultaneously trying to launch an online magazine and attend to the needs of sponsors and party guests on their way to BlogHer with eyes set on free drinks and fun music. I needed a reliable computer.
Sometimes it just takes being at the right place at the right time for the digital 1's and 0's to align into stars.
While looking for a replacement TV and trying to not look shocked that TVs cost a minimum of $300 now, I wandered into the laptop section of our local Best Buy. All I was trying to do was buy myself some time and distance from the TV sales clerk so I could slip out the door empty-handed. And then... I fell in love.
I've never used a laptop before. I knew that they contained some kind of magical device that would let you work online from the comfort of your couch or backyard or bathroom floor, but I had never experienced such geek bliss. I never knew what I was missing, people. Why didn't you tell me?
While wandering the laptop aisles, a glossy 17" screen and full size keyboard caught my eye. Encouraged by a surprisingly low price tag, I dared touch this magical piece of technology called "HP Pavilion." It was like... mmmmmagic.
The click of the keyboard! The width of the screen promising multiple windows open at the same time! The spajillions of gigabytes of hard drive! She must be mine!
And so she is. I sit here now, on my couch, with babies by my side, tickling little toes into my leg and smooshing soft kisses on my cheek, all the while typing away like there's no tomorrow and editing hasn't been invented, yet.
Arianne says "to think is to create." She also says, "Ask for what you need. Ask for help."
And so I did. Armed with my new laptop and productivity to put Martha Stewart to shame, I asked for help to get to BlogHer. You won't believe who answered the call...
HP.
With the help of HP, I am going to BlogHer with just enough sponsorship that I won't have to sell my liver in order to pay the credit card bill. Which is a good thing because I plan to put my liver through its paces at the parties this week.
The funny thing is, this is not the first time HP has reached out to me.
A few nights after Hurricane Katrina, after evacuating with only a few days' worth of clothes and a couple of photo albums, I sat down at a relative's computer and visited Snapfish, which had only recently joined up with HP. We had bought a digital camera only a few months before and I had made a habit of immediately uploading every photo we took of our new baby to Snapfish, you know, just in case.
As it turned out, Snapfish was the only insurance policy that would be paying out for quite a while.
I sat and marveled at photos of our home, at the things that had made up our lives and were now marinating at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. I sat and thanked all that was good and all that was foresight for the fact that I had used Snapfish to store our photos.
And then I wrote them a letter. And I told them just that.
What followed was a handful of months of correspondence between me, Snapfish, and their parent company, HP. In the days after Katrina, everyone wanted a face to put with the disaster, and I provided a face. I provided a story. I also provided an outlet for their desire to help.
Shortly after I shared my late-night story of gratitude with Snapfish, they extended an offer to all of their customers on the Gulf Coast, issuing enough credits to enable all of us to reprint every single photo we had stored with Snapfish.
HP gave us something to hold in our hands during a time when most of us had nothing to hold other than each other.
Now, almost three years later, they are helping me again. Thank you, HP.
So, I will be at BlogHer and I'll be there with a fancy new HP Pavilion laptop. You'll be able to spot me because I'll be toting that laptop in one of the few cool laptop totes I could find that would fit a 17" screen.
Just look at this awesome laptop tote I found from Janine King Designs 
on etsy! It is simply... me. And because I am a dolt and despite the fact that I know better, that snazzy designer was willing to do a rush job for me and deliver my tote before I left for BlogHer, even though she clearly spells out her delivery times in her policies.
Real people. This blog is powered by real people. Real people that pay attention to their customers and attend to their needs as much as they can.
There was a bit of a ruckus recently when someone somewhere complained that some of our blogs have just become link blogs with very little content. I disagree. I say that our blogs have broken out of our heads and our asses (where our heads reside most of the time) and acknowledge the people that keep these exercises in ego running. We can't always do it all by ourselves.
Sometimes we need to ask for help. And we are nothing but gracious when those calls are answered.
With that, allow me to take one more moment of your time and two more clicks of your mouse and introduce you to the two newest sponsors of The People's Party:
Most of you already know 5 Minutes for Mom, as it was the first stop in mom blogs for most of us starting out. They have a gorgeous new design and a handful of new sister sites, so if you haven't been there lately, do check it out.
A new service that you may not be familiar with, though, is Consumer Pop. A new marketing consultation and blogger concierge service, Consumer Pop helps you build, as well as understand, your brand, offering dynamic approaches to reaching out to your audience and satisfying their needs. They are new on the scene and would love to tell you more about what they can do for you so that you can do more for your audience!
...So that's it for me for a couple of days. On Tuesday and Wednesday, I'll have guest posts from two of our sponsors of The People's Party and I 
sincerely encourage you to stop by and get to know them. Learn what they are about, why they are going to BlogHer, and how they can work with you, regardless of whether or not you are going to BlogHer.
Then? Well, then I won't talk about BlogHer much other than perhaps a round-up of the weekend and what I may or may not have learned. Oh yeah, and very possibly some photographs of The Bloggess licking motherbumper.
At the very least, stop by on Thursday for a link to the live feed of The People's Party. I'll be sending shout-outs to you, in particular, so you won't want to miss it!
Now... reach out and connect. Ask yourself what you need and go make it happen. After all, to think is to create...
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