Posted on

What do you get when you mix 25 bloggers and one swanky southern restaurant?

You get the funnest (yes, funnest) dinner EVER.

(You didn’t think we were done talking about Blissdom yet, did you?)

Our good buddy AmyInOhio (Public Service Announcement: if you haven’t yet read her account of the Elevator 13, you do not want to miss it) arranged a big dinner with a gang of Ohio bloggers at the New Orleans Manor (that’s what it looked like before we rearranged the tables. You’re welcome, restaurant staff).

So after we made the most of our drink tickets at the cocktail party (BTW the bartender told me that a Blisstini is just a cosmo with sugar on the rim, so we can order them up any time we want!) we headed out to the lobby to meet the group for dinner.

And who did we see in the lobby, but the Blissdom keynote speaker, Jen Lancaster! And since I have a little bit of a girl crush on her (go to Amazon and buy all her books now. All of them, I tell you! Especially “Such a Pretty Fat.” Trust me on this.), Jenny and I rushed over to see if we could get a picture with her, which she happily obliged… until Jenny completely freaked her out.

“Emily totally wants to lick you right now,” Jenny said giddily.

“There will be no licking,” Jen said sternly.

“….” I couldn’t say anything because I was on experiencing emotions ranging from elation (from being in the presence of one of my favorite authors) to mortification (because of my cousin’s lack of social graces). The result? Me looking scared to death. (Jen, if by some odd chance your google alert leads you to this blog, know that I would never, ever lick you. Or anyone else for that matter. And also, I am pretty sure that we could be BFF, because if someone asked me who my favorite authors were, I would totally say you, Jennifer Weiner, Emily Giffin and Christopher Moore. The exact same answer that you gave at Blissdom. So if we ever cross paths again, we should totally hang out. I promise to leave Jenny in the elevator.)

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. The best dinner ever. Right. So after my moment of happiness/horror, Jenny and I ran out to the bus that the New Orleans Manor had sent for us. That’s right, they sent a bus! Can you say “no designated driver?” I can!

As you can imagine, we took the New Orleans Manor by storm. We immediately made ourselves at home, rearranging the tables and breaking the sound barrier. Chef Claude knew how to handle a room full of 25 women, however. This was not his first rodeo. He was part maître d’, part Comedy Central, and part Barry White. He provided great service and great entertainment, and made sure to hug each and every one of us on the way out the door!

The food was amazing, but the company was even better.

The only way we could have improved upon our dinner was to do it speed-dating style and rotate seats every five minutes, because I did not get to spend enough time with each of these fabulous women!

Seriously, this was one of the most fun nights I can remember. I had such a great time, and I wish we could do it again tomorrow. These are women you want to know, people. I highly recommend reading their blogs, following them on Twitter, and pretty much stalking them. For real.

They are, in no particular order (wait, that’s not true, it is kind of the order they were sitting in)…
Amy from AmyInOhio (@amyinohio)
Shannan from Mommy Bits (@shannanb and @mommybits)
Andrea from Mommy Snacks (@mommysnacks)
Cortney and Tricia from Once a Month Mom (@oamcortney and @onceamonthmom)
Heather from Queen of Shake Shake (@queenofshake)
Heather from Domestic Extraordinaire (@dextraordinaire)
Christina from A Mommy Story (@amommystory)
Marcy from Stretching a Buck (@stretchingabuck)
Carrie from Money Saving Methods (@moneymethods)
Shari from Diary of a Crazed Mommy (@shash)
Jennifer from Playgroups are No Place for Children (@playgroupie)
Kelly from Mrs. CPA (@mrscpa)
Kate from A Simple Walk
Erin from $5 Dinners (@5dollardinners)
Toni from The Happy Housewife (@HappyHousewife)
Victoria from VDog and Little Man (@vdog)
Dawn from KaiserAlex (@kaiseralex)
Julia from Hooked on Houses (@hookedonhouses)
Amy from Living Locurto
Angie from The Arthur Clan

It was a lot of hotness for one room. Are you jealous?

Post to Twitter

Posted on

Auto Tech 101

On Sunday, Sam and I went to the grocery store. On the way there, I could hear something on the car creaking. After the little run-in I’d had with the street sign, I was super-paranoid about anything being wrong with our remaining car. When I got to the grocery, though, I was relieved to discover that the source of the noise was that the trunk was a little open.

Except it wouldn’t close. I slammed it about 900 times before giving up hope.

I called my favorite mechanic, Bobby Rapson, to see if he had any suggestions for me. He said I should try to pull the lever on the inside of the car again and make sure it’s open all the way, and then try to close the trunk. I went on with my shopping, and when I got back to my car, I went to the driver’s side, started to pull the trunk release lever again, and immediately discovered the problem.

There was a juice box lodged underneath.

Welcome to my life.

Post to Twitter

Posted on

It’s a blizzard!

Ok it’s probably not really a blizzard, but it might as well be! Here in southwestern Ohio, we’ve been hit hard with winter weather in the next couple of days.

Yesterday morning, it didn’t seem too awful outside, and I knew today was going to be worse, so I decided to brave it and head into work. I have about a 40 minute commute… 40 minutes on narrow, curvy country roads that are not #1 priority for the county’s snow clearing teams. “Not priority” as in they might get to them by spring. So even though we didn’t have tons of snow, the roads I was on were pretty covered. I was doing just fine, though, until I started going down a little hill, and I totally lost control of the car.

I slammed on the brakes and did exactly the opposite of everything I should have done in that situation, and hit one of these head on:

Fortunately for me, the sign was enough to stop my car from going any further. Unfortunately for the sign, my car snapped it right in half.

I was able to get out of the ditch I landed in before any other cars came down over the hill. But I didn’t think twice about turning right around and heading home. No way was I going to work – that was enough excitement for me! I wasn’t hurt at all and my car was only damaged slightly (at least as far as I can tell. Futher evaluation by my favorite mechanic, Bobby Rapson, will be necessary), but it scared me to death! I was really shaky the rest of the way home. In the midst of my nervousness, though, I did lament the fact that I didn’t have a camera with me so I could post a picture of the sign I took out! You might be a blogger if…

But actually, our excitement for the day wasn’t quite over – when I got home, the garage door wouldn’t close. It would go down about 2 inches and go right back up. So after trying every fix I could find on Google (and everything some very kind Twitters suggested!), we called the repair man – the same one we had to have put new springs on our door a couple months ago – and he came out and put a brand new opener on. To the tune of $550.

So between the garage door and the car, we had a very expensive day.

Overnight last night, we got about eight hours of freezing rain to add to the mix, and this morning none of us are going anywhere. Andy and Kate had snow days, of course, and unbelievably I did too (which is unprecedented, I believe). So, we’ve already feasted on chocolate donuts, and pretty soon Kate and I are going out to build a snowman. I can’t wait to take Sammy out in the snow for a few minutes as well!

How are the rest of you Ohioans faring this morning? Anyone have a good story to tell?

Stay warm and safe!

Post to Twitter