Bloggy Boot Camp And My Email Addiction. (Unrelated.)

At BBC Chicago with the adorbs Denise from According To Denise.

Nora has informed me that I can no longer attend "meetings." To her, a "meeting" entails "leaving the house." "Taking a daytime shower." "Wearing mascara and/or a non-hoodie." (Seems like a "meeting" or two is kind of a welcome change around here.)

This past weekend's meeting was actually the famed Bloggy Boot Camp (in Chicago!), held by the awesomesauce SITS Girls. (You know, the folks who've taken me on as a Community Lead/Forum Gal and who generally allow me to hang around their savvitude like a privileged kid sister? Them.)

Without going into too much technical detail regarding the whom/what/where/why of how badly anyone  involved in social media needs this company's ABCs (because, you know, it's worth getting your own ticket for BBC '13)...I will tell you that the Friday through Saturday evening conference gave me some new rules of how to balance stuff. Like writing deadlines, spending time doing the things you actually wanna blog about, and not losing eleventy million billable hours to Twitter. (And Pinterest. And Instagram. And and and.) It also inspired me to take a hard look my own bad habits, interwebs-wise.

For starters, as of today I'm only checking my email hourly. Like on the hour. Which, admittedly, still seems like a stupid-crazy amount of time being accessible.

I mean, I'm not a medic.

But baby steps, right? Wish me luck. (But only expect a reply on the hour.)

At this "meeting," I also met up with some fantastic online friends (and stellar bloggers) as well as folks over whom I basically fawn. (Aside: It doesn't take much to make me fawn. Exceptional writing skills, a genuinely cool personality and the ability to make a comfy living on the internet will usually do.)

It made me want to be better at all of this.

It made me want to redefine "this" to include all of the things that inspire [and/or pay] me, and exclude anything eyeball-numbing and heart-crushing. (And other negative hyphenated things.)

And it really made me want to look like the kind of person who regularly attends "meetings."

At least in terms of showering and makeup.

Christmas + Birthday= Featured Day.

Today I am the luckiest- and stokiest- to be featured at The SITS Girls! They're a fabulous community of over 7000 gals, all of whom have stellar blogs and thrive on supporting each other. And today it's me. And that is unreal awesome.

To the newest visitors: Hi! I'm Keely/Kiki/Mom (that last one is rather selective.) On any given day I'm a combo of writer, nanny, actress, mother, wife, sister, daughter, and overeager Feng Shui enthusiast. I am a superb napper. I cannot count without using my fingers. I know every bit of Hair Metal trivia ever...and can hold my own with a few other genres as well. I blog about all of these things with nary a through-line. Also, punctuation is rarely my friend.

These two are P.J. and Nora Jane (with some random girl at the otter tank.) They are, together and individually, the coolest things that have ever happened to me. He's an actor, sound designer, software guy and hero. She's the smallest mobile person ever and a personal source of hilarity and glee. They feature largely in this blog, as does the city of Chicago. And our Money Pit of a house. Also- Bean and Ender, the catz.

To get you started- three of my best [funniest/weirdly popular] posts:

The Tearjerker

How P.J. Annihilated An Unwanted Houseguest

...and Keely Yells At The Magazines

Thank you so much to SITS and all of the visiting gals! I'd love it if you followed the blog on Facebook... or Twitter...or, you know, here.

Here works, too.