As Mike mentioned, I had a trip scheduled this past weekend to speak at the Mom 2.0 Summit. I didn’t want to leave when Jackie! was having her surgery in Los Angeles. And yes, as Mike said, I cried a lot, thanks for telling everyone and ruining my street cred, Mike. But I was convinced to keep my commitment, not only because of Mike but because I’d already told Jackie! I’d drink a hurricane for her.

I’d never been to New Orleans, and I instantly fell in love with the music culture.

IMG_9676

_MG_9733

IMG_9683

You guys, seriously? I should be a professional washboard player. Washboarder? Whatever. I am GOOD at it. Mike needs to get me one for my birthday.

New Orleans is also a really beautiful city that I wish I’d had more time to explore.

_MG_9714

_MG_9727

The conference was at the Ritz Carlton, which meant I got to stay in a room there. I was GIDDY with excitement about that. The Ritz lived up to my expectations. The service was phenomenal, the rooms were amazing and comfy, and I was treated to an AMAZING mani/pedi in the Ritz Spa by BodyLogicMD.

Saturday morning was my panel with Jenny and Brittany. It was titled “Breaking Out of the Box: How Creating Versatile Content Empowers Your Voice and Reach.” The three of us were like, “uh, what?” Because that sounded really official and smart.

Being the super-professional people we are, the three of us met about 30 minutes before our panel started to figure out what we were going to say. Brittany and Jenny were off and running with amazing ideas. For those of you who don’t know, they are both humorists. And then there’s me. I knew they were going to be effortlessly funny during the panel. So while they figured out the structure of our panel, I tried to think of a joke I could open with.

“Hey, Jenny. Hand Grenades or Hurricanes?”

“Um. The disasters or the drinks?”

“Exactly! I’m going to ask the room if they like hand grenades or hurricanes, and they’ll think I mean the drinks, and then I’ll be all, ‘trick question! They both kill.’ It will be so funny!”

Brittany and Jenny: blank stares, while Brittany shook her head at me ever so slightly.

Jenny started the panel by talking about her dead dog. Then Brittany, completely dead-pan, goes, “well, my dog is still alive, sorry.” And everyone is laughing and I’m like, “Mine too!” but I sounded like the little sister tag-along trying to be cool and it occurred to me that I was probably just rubbing it in at that point. RIP Barnaby Jones.

Also that morning, I put my contacts lenses in the wrong eyes, but of course it took me an hour of blinking and trying to focus my eyes before I figured it out, and by then it was too late to do anything about it. So I told everyone at the panel my contacts were in the wrong eyes…you know, because that’s helpful for people attending a writing workshop. Then I got distracted by the sound of the Windows operating system starting. Oh, and I told everyone about Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in the box at the end of the movie Se7en. I was basically a poster child for ADD.

But! People actually retweeted things I said and made me sound like I was smart:

Love this quote: "If you don't like the box you're in, write yourself out of it." @'s Heather Spohr #mom2summit
@JenSinger
JenSinger
as a brand, totally agree! RT @: "If a brand wants you to change who you are, you dont want to work with them." @ #mom2summit
@BabyCenter
BabyCenter Dina&Jen
Breaking Out of the Box at #mom2summit w @ @ and @: We laughed; we cried. It was better than Cats!
@parentables
Parentables

After the three of us were done giving our little presentations, we opened to questions, and there were some amazing ones that made us think, and gave us time to truly articulate our passions and share ideas.

Loving the conversation! #Mom2Summit Focus Workshop with @The... on Twitpic
You can tell I’m talking in this picture because my hands are moving. I’m a hand talker.

In all, an awesome experience. For me, at least…hopefully everyone that attended the panel had a good time and learned something valuable (other than Kevin Spacey cut off Gwyneth Paltrow’s head).