Binkies and Briefcases

We have been snowed in for the past two weekend in a row. Everyone was going a little stir-crazy, but thankfully by Sunday afternoon the roads were clear enough that we could get out of the house. We are lucky enough to live about 40 minutes from The National Christmas Center in Paradise, PA, which claims to be the only strictly Christmas Museum in the world. (I have no idea if that is true.) So we decided to take the kids. Eddie and I had been there before on a date night a few years ago, but this was the first time for the kiddos. Nick and Abby both really loved it! Nick loved the trains and Abby loved the dolls and they both loved meeting Santa. Penny tolerated everything as best she could from her stroller.

If you ever get a chance to check it out, I highly recommend it. They have everything from a beautiful train garden, to a visit with Santa, to a 5 and 10 cent store, to a life-sized nativity walk where you get to see historical replicas of the kinds of house and streets where Jesus would have really lived. Their website really doesn’t do it any justice at all. It’s a very cool place. Think of everything you would want a Christmas museum to be. It’s just like that. 

We appreciated that it is a self-guided tour, so if the kids weren’t particularly interested in something we could skip it. Conversely, if they loved something (like the trains), we could go through that exhibit three times (like the trains). 

I’ll stop talking now so you can see the pretty pictures.

Once upon a time, there was a frazzled mom sitting in front of a computer screen. She was home all day pulling her hair out, trying to raise a toddler with special needs and an infant who would not sleep. Oh, and she was pregnant. Again. Her husband’s job had him traveling for months at a time, so she spent a lot of lonely nights on the computer, seeking connection to the outside world via mommy blogs. She would have given anything to be able to meet those women inside the computer in real life. To laugh with them, share with them, ask them questions about how they took a hobby like writing and turned it into a career. She thought of starting a conference, but her blog was small and her connections were limited.

But her little blog grew. So did her children. And her connections to other bloggers grew too. Everything kept growing until one day she had a few thousand followers and several friends with much bigger networks than her own. They worked together and wrote a few books. Those books instantly shot up the charts and became best-sellers on Amazon and iTunes, because when women channel their creative energy and work together towards a common goal, amazing things happen. Some of her friends even landed on the NYT best-sellers list with their own books. By themselves. No big publishing houses needed.

That’s when she knew.

The conference she had wanted to plan for so long? They could really do this thing.

And they could do it well.

Because for the past several years, those “mommy bloggers” had been working together to support each other and they had reached further than they had ever dreamed. 

The emails from other women started coming.

“How can we do what you are doing?”

That group of friends had picked up secrets that they wanted to share. They wanted to be able to bless other people with the success they had seen.

A conference seemed like the perfect way to do it.

As I’m sure you have already figured out, the lady in the beginning of this story was me.

And this conference is real.

We’re calling it BlogU, which is short for The Blog University, and tickets go on sale in January.

We wanted to bring you a new kind of conference. Since building our tribe has felt like such a strong sisterhood, we decided to hold our conference at a women’s college. This also helps us keep costs down and it means that, if you are willing to stay with us in a renovated 19th century building that serves as a dorm on the campus of a gorgeous private university, your room and food costs are INCLUDED in your ticket price. That’s pretty much unheard of.

Also? We’re having a cupcake bar. And a cocktail party. And speakers like NYT best-selling author Karen from Baby Sideburns, and Bunmi from Honest Toddler, and Ilana from Mommy Shorts. (Her blog was a freakin’ Jeopardy question, for crying out loud!) And all of it is included in your ticket price.

It’s kind of a big deal.

June 6-8, 2014 in Baltimore at Notre Dame of Maryland University. Be there.

Check out the BlogU website.

I CANNOT WAIT to share this time with you in June!!!