Category Archives: Blog Stuff

my little BlogHer recap

Posted on by

BlogHer was amazing, as I expected. I know tons of people are going to write posts about it, far more eloquently than I can – although, let’s be fair, I’m at a bit of a disadvantage since I’m pounding this out on the airplane with the most epic hangover I’ve had in years. (Typing blog posts in MS Word to copy & paste later, can I get an amen?)

(Also: the last time I had to get on a plane while hungover-or-possibly-still-drunk-from-the-night-before was when my cousin Teresa passed away in 2004. And even though the circumstances around last night’s alcohol consumption were much more joyous this time [celebrating new friendships rather than mourning a horrible loss], flying with a hangover sucks exactly as much as I remember.)

(Also also: hi parentheses! Prepare to be overused. My brain is basically one giant non-sequitur today.)

So, yes. I met tons of bloggers that I adore. The few “rock star” bloggers that I got the nerve to talk to were all lovely and sweet and completely gracious. Some were a little shy and awkward (which, yeah ok, I sort of forget that we’re all basically nerds; I keep thinking that I’m the only one), and some were a lot warmer than I expected and gave me big hugs. I was surprised at how many people knew my name – or rather, my Twitter handle. (Another parenthetical aside: it was VERY weird to introduce myself as PooBou for 3 days. No one actually calls me that in real life, but after a while I just kind of got used to it.)

Then, of course, there are the bloggers who I talk online with a lot, and I was worried that our online connection wouldn’t translate to real life. And you know? It totally translated. From the second I met them in person, it felt like I was just hanging out with old friends who I’ve known for years. Like there’s already an established history, it was totally comfortable and easy. I loved that.

Heather & me

Maura & Krystle

Jen & Brittany

Greis & me

I didn’t attend as many sessions as I wanted. Some I intentionally skipped because they just didn’t apply to me, or because I needed a nap, or because I went wandering through downtown Chicago to go meet up with an old friend (who I’ve known literally since the day my parents brought me home from the hospital, and who I hadn’t seen in over a decade). (Hi, Dendy!) Then there were a few sessions that I really wanted to attend, but they were in tiny conference rooms that I couldn’t get into. People were lined up in the hallways trying to cram themselves in, and just couldn’t. (So, if any BlogHer people read this: bigger conference rooms for the Room of Your Own sessions next year, please!) The best part of the sessions by far was the Community Keynote speeches at the end of the first day. I’ll post a link when it’s online, but seriously, I was doing the full-on ugly cry during a few of them, and almost peeing myself laughing during the others. Anyone who says that bloggers aren’t really writers should watch those.

Of course, you can’t get 1,400 women together without some drama. There were rumors about some illicit affairs happening between bloggers (which I’m 99.9% sure were all b.s.), and there were some women there who got nicknamed “swag whores” because they were literally shoving people out of the way to grab all the free stuff they could. Fortunately for me, I didn’t witness any of that, I just heard about it from other people. I’m generally not a fan of drama, so I’m honestly relieved that I missed all of that and it didn’t put a damper on the experience for me.

Overall, it was great. The swag is nice, sure. I got some cool toys to bring home to Catie. (And some for myself – ahem *thank you room 704 ladies, mwah!* cough cough.) And I got to meet Tim Gunn and have my picture taken with him, which was awesome. (And I’m waiting for the Tide people to post the picture so I can nab it, but they haven’t yet. Argh!) I was in head-to-toe Old Navy, I felt totally unfashionable, but he was so kind and funny and wonderful that I didn’t even care. Plus I made him laugh, and I didn’t accidentally say the f-word in front of him or anything, so bonus points for me.

Tim Gunn sighting!

But the whole point of going to BlogHer for me was to learn more about great writing in this space, to meet the other bloggers that I love, to hang out, and to have fun. So really, the highlight of the weekend was just sitting around a hotel with some insanely talented, hilarious, smart and just effing fantastic people who I absolutely adore, and who I am so proud to call my friends.

So, thank you so much. To Greis, Krystle, Jen, Dawn, VDog, Mrs. Flinger, BJ, Maura, Meghan, Heather, and soooo many other people I can’t even name them all, who made this weekend so completely wonderful and fun. I love y’all, and can’t wait to see you next year!

for jojo

Posted on by

Or Sallyjo, or “no comment,” or whatever you’re calling yourself today.

I installed a handy little feature that gives me some pretty detailed info about the people who are visiting my site. And I’m sure that the people you work for at the H0spice of S0uthern Illin0is in Belleville probably wouldn’t be too pleased to know that you’re spending so much time reading my blog. But I have their phone number, and if you spew your shit on here again, I’m not afraid to use it. I might not know your real name, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be too difficult for their internal IT department to figure out who you are, since you’re on my site every day.

I’m just sayin’. Watch your ass.

all purple'd up

Posted on by

My blog’s gone purple for Maddie.




The Spohrs have asked that people wear purple to Maddie’s funeral service on Tuesday, as it was her favorite color (and also the color for the March of Dimes). In a show of support, a lot of Heather’s friends in the blogosphere are also turning our Internet presence purple – hence the changes to the blog, and also changing our Twitter avatars purple.

And even though we won’t be in California for the memorial service, we still intend to wear purple on Tuesday. We might even release a balloon for Maddie, if I can find a purple balloon somewhere.

Also, if you haven’t donated to the Spohrs yet, and needed a little extra motivation to do so, the beautiful and talented Yvonne at Joy Unexpected is doing a giveaway – for every $10 you give, you can enter for a chance to win a Nikon Coolpix camera. Or you can go to InstaMom, where she’s doing the same giveaway thing, but with a Nintendo DSi. Can’t hurt, right?

Hope everyone had a nice Easter. I’ll write more about ours tomorrow. In the meantime, hug your babies and eat some chocolate. Easter is the one day of the year that chocolate has no calories. (What, you didn’t know that? It’s totally true.)

live from a new web host

Posted on by

In case you missed the drama about my website last week, here’s the short version: my website went down for 3 days, and when it finally came back online, all of my data was gone. Every last entry since I started this blog 6 years ago? Gone. So I was a tiny bit distraught, as you might imagine.

While I was freaking out, I wrote about it on Twitter, and within a few minutes, I got a response from a web hosting company called PinchHost offering to help me. They’re a new company, and didn’t have much of a proven track record that I could find online, but I appreciated how fast they responded. Especially considering that the customer service at my old (then-current) web hosting company, Globat, was always somewhat lacking. It’s basically impossible to get anyone on the phone, they take an extremely long time to respond to email support tickets, and while yes, they do have support via live chat, the techs aren’t exactly helpful. Usually the only response I get is, “We’re so sorry for your inconvenience, and thank you for your patience.” Not exactly top-notch problem-solving.

But really, my main problem with Globat is the availability. They were fine when I first signed up a few years ago, but over the past year or so, my website crashed a lot, because I seemed to always be under Denial of Service attacks by spammers. So that’s my main beef with them – if you can’t keep my website running, I’ll go host it elsewhere.

Meanwhile, during that whole incident where I had no blog entries at all? I threw a temporary WordPress blog here that you might’ve seen if you happened to click over here. On it, I mentioned that my last manual backup of my website was from May 2008, hence my panic. (So all the entries about selling our house, moving to North Carolina, the holidays, Catie’s 2nd birthday? GONE.) Then the tech from PinchHost – the same guy who responded to me on Twitter – left me a comment telling me that he had gone through Google’s cache of my archives and found about 100 entries from May 2008 to now, and saved them to a zip file for me to download.

Which, DUDE. I wasn’t even a customer of his, and he did all that legwork for me? Yeah ok, they’re a new company, but with that type of customer service, I’ll take a chance on them. So I switched over yesterday, and it was basically seamless. I might be imagining it, but my website even seems to load faster now. Obviously, I am very happy with them so far.

Of course, the hard part now is cancelling my account with Globat. They’re notorious for having a crappy billing department, so I know I’m in for a fight. Example: over the past few years I’ve gotten over 100 emails from them telling me about new offers, and unless I clicked the link to opt out, they automatically charged my credit card for the upgrade, regardless of whether or not I wanted it. If I called afterward to say, “hey, you billed me for this, and I don’t want it, so give me my money back,” they’d try to hem & haw and squirm their way out of refunding me the money for a service I’m not using. So, yeah. I’ve gotta get my Don’t You Dare Try to Eff With Me, Buddy hat on and let them have it.

But the fact that I’m now basically done with them and have a cool new hosting company that actually responds to my problems promptly and seems to give a damn about my user experience? It kind of makes me feel like one of these dancers.

(If you haven’t seen that yet, you’re welcome. I’ve watched it about four times already and I smile like a moron at my computer and get all misty-eyed every time. What can I say, I’m a sucker for “The Sound of Music.”)

testing 1, 2, 3

Posted on by

This is a test to make sure that my blog is actually restored and working like it’s supposed to.

My archives appear to be screwy, but at least all of the data is there. The web host’s most recent backup was on March 22nd, so I’m only missing a couple of posts, which, you know, whatever. I’ll live.

Now, on to signing up with a new web hosting company.

techie'd out

Posted on by

Ready to be jealous of me?

iPhone & Kindle

That’s right: an iPhone and a Kindle. Both. I would never have dreamed of dropping that much money in one swoop, but it was Dave’s idea (he surprised me with the Kindle, then suggested we go get the iPhone), so who am I to object? They are both so cool, I can’t decide which I like better.

But seriously, I have to go see an eye doctor. The more I try to read these tiny little consoles, the more my right eye keeps going all wonky and blurry and then OH MY GOD, the headache. I love that the Kindle lets you make the text extra-large, or else I probably wouldn’t be able to use it for more than about ten minutes at a time. Trying to use Twitter on the iPhone, though, is killing me.

Other random stuff, in bullet form because I’m lazy:
* I finally got the pictures from Kris & Tony’s wedding uploaded.
my favorite pic of Kris & Tony

Leslie and me
(I know you read this site sometimes, so hi, Leslie! Love you!)

me & Kris
You can see the whole set here.

* We’re really enjoying having Mags here a few extra days. Her black eye is pretty impressive, but she’s otherwise feeling ok, so that’s good.
Mags, Dave & Catie
I think there’s a slight family resemblance there, no?

And for the record, my mother-in-law is a bad-ass, because I don’t think she’s taken so much as an ibuprofen for her concussion, and she still stood on her feet to make us a shepherd’s pie the day after her accident. She is one hardcore Brit.