rochelledenise.com

There are days when you think, quite seriously, that life is literally a roller coaster.

Today is one of those days.

I was just getting back from lunch when my cell phone rang. It was the alarm company letting me know that someone was breaking into our house. Knowing that Lori is sleeping during the day and can’t hear a damn thing that goes on downstairs, I was completely freaked out by the fact that some stranger could be wandering around our house, or even go upstairs to her room and she wouldn’t know.

I told the person on the phone that there was someone in the house, and that they weren’t able to hear the alarm, so if there was police or security on the way, they needed to hurry.

When I got home, I noticed there were several unfamiliar cars outside our house. The lawn had been freshly mowed, and our neighbor’s garden gate was standing open. All strange things, except for the lawn. I thought about going next door to see if Josh could walk into the house with me, but decided I was being nuts and with phone in hand, went in.

The back door was standing open and the alarm was going off. I turned off the alarm, checked the door and called the company to say that the house was fine.

I could see the people whose car was in front of our house get back in and leave. They looked… well, they were looking around a lot … which made me freak out again, so I decided to over and talk to Josh. See if he’d seen anything.

Now Josh is a great guy. His wife is a nurse like Lori and they’ve been super awesome to us. They helped build our fence, we’ve had Josh over for dinner. He’s quirky and funny and just an all around helpful and sweet guy.

When I knocked on the front door, a strange man answered and I immediately started feeling strange. But I could see Josh’s wife and I could see a baby bassinet right behind him and he was whispering so I thought, ok. No problem, baby sleeping. Calm down ‘Chelle, seriously.

And then the bomb shell dropped.

“Josh died yesterday.”

…

His wife and his sweet 6 week old baby are suddenly alone in the world, and my freak out about having our house broken into is suddenly and horribly put into perspective.

Boss has told me to stay home, for which I am grateful, because I’m just …

anyway.

Gonna have a little quiet time I think. Then call everyone I know and tell them how much they mean to me.

Then drink a lot.

Monday for lunch, Kristen with a K and I took new hire Jason to lunch. We went to High Street Pub because one, it’s close and B, I like their veggie burgers.

So we sat down, waited an appropriate amount of time to get noticed by the waiter and ordered. “Veggie burger please.”

Our waiter sat down beside us, the expression he was sporting was looking bad for me and my tasty burger. “We don’t have veggie burgers. You see, they’re re-working their plant so there are no veggie burgers right now. And no Boca Burgers either. Everyone is buying those up so they’re off the shelves. So…”

“So no veggie burger.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

So I ended up with a hummus plate, but still. No veggie burgers? I was distraught!

Of course I called my mom the next day. “Mom, no veggie burgers!”

She told me that it happens, that the factory sets the same footprint, making x amount of one product before resetting for the next product, but if supplies happen to run out before it’s set back to that original product, people have to go without or learn to make them from scratch.

I told her I’d had a dream that I’d gone to the High Street Pub and showed the Chef there how to make the veggie burgers we made as kids. She laughed and said they’d probably taste a lot better. “You made a good burger,” she said.

I love my mom.

She’s the only person I know that laughs at the idea of me cooking in my sleep.

I think I’m going to be dusting off and buffing up some of my tutorial templates for different social media tools in the next weeks and posting them here for people I met up with at BlogHer08.

If there are any templates someone would like to see first, just ask. I’ll work on those before any others. Gosh, it’s been a full day and I’m still mostly glowing from the last day at the conference.

While for the most part, BlogHer rocked, there were some rather unpleasant surprises along the way. One, surprisingly, happened in the exhibitor hall.

Now, I’m usually behind the table at expo’s and conventions. It’s rare I get to play at being the attendee and being pampered too. One of the rules of a table I run is that everyone is a customer. Even the people working the convention. Never deny someone your time and information just because they don’t hit a demographic. Be gracious and smile. For bobsake smile.

So imagine my humiliation at finding a vendor (whom I won’t name) completely ignoring me because I wasn’t a mom.

Me: Hi, this looks interesting, can you tell  me about it?
Her: Sure! How old is your child?
Me: Oh, I don’t have any kids, but I have a niece who will be turning 5 next month. (says the auntie who spoils her only niece shamelessly)
Her, with a slight frown: Where do you blog then?
Me: Oh, I’m a corporate blogger. I work for PAS and run their Business in General blog.
Her, with raised eyebrow and slight disdain: Oh….

and then, gentle reader, she turned her head. No, turned her entire body away from me. Giving me the clear brush off.

I was stunned. Absolutely stunned. In my mind, at that second as I move away from her table, I hear my little internal voice say quite clearly – “Lady. My niece is turning five, and she has a very, VERY generous and loving Auntie.  You have a product of which there is a rather large sticker price. So, in the immortal words of Julia Roberts from the movie Pretty Woman, ‘Big mistake. Huge!’”

The story goes like this.

I went to BlogHer not expecting much and after two days I take away a new inspiration to begin blogging again.  It’s funny where you find passion, you know? You see it in little places, small spaces and then for a moment, it brushes against you and inspires you to find something to be passionate about.

BlogHer has done that with me.

I want to find my passion again. I want to find a joy in my voice.

Tomorrow I begin to Zen my online life. Simplify and focus.

Tomorrow is a new day.

I’ve earwigged myself with a Tom Jones song.

Good times.

I’m a week out from vacation time. Less than a week actually. And I couldn’t be happier. Need a week of reading, because that would be realllly nice.

I’ve decided to go buy new curtains for my room. I would like something that shuts out the sun a bit more in the mornings. I’m tired of waking up with the sun on the weekends. Maybe some of my sleeping problems weren’t my bed’s fault. Maybe some of it was the fact that light was coming into my room and effecting my sleep. Things that make you go hmmm indeed.

Beowulf is going to release next weekend. I think. I’m excited about seeing it. I know it’s getting panned a lot of places, but I think its gonna be really rockin.

Work will be busy this week. Lots to do. Lots to get done. I’m not in any way ready.

Vacation in a week.

*gulp*

Right after my last update on this thing, my domain was hijacked by … well, let’s just say alls well that ends well. Or some such.

Am going to NYC for a week, which is nice. I haven’t been back there in a while. I’ll see some friends and go to a couple shows and otherwise spend a lot of times in meetings.

Then from NYC it’s straight to SFO where it will be no business only pleasure. Bishie bonzi!

I bought a new bed. A temperpedic adjustable. Omg I feel old now. But I’m sure it’s going to be a back saver.

Anyway, I also updated the platform for this blog and it made strange little characters appear. That’s fun. Yay for updates.

Time for editing, and then perhaps some sitting like a slug on the sofa while watching the pretty images on the square box.

The worst thing about flying first class is you can’t imagine flying any way else ever again. Especially on long trips.It’s simply unfathomable. The seats are larger so I can move and twitch and readjust to my hearts content without bugging the hell out of my seat mate. That’s vital. Because with the state of my back these days, I really need to be able to move around without feeling like the person next to me is going to smother me with a pillow.

The weather was so bad from Denver to Boston they kept re-routing us North until we were practically in Canadian airspace.”And if you look out the left side of the plane, you can see Ottawa.”

SO yes. First class good.

My first thought when I got to our booth space was … too small. It didn’t seem big enough for a 10×10. And then I looked at all the boxes and panicked. There was no way I was going to get everything in the booth I needed to. After spending 2 hours hauling boxes and shoving things this way and that… there’s no room for everything. I’m not going to name names, but …. *growl*

All in all, the space is going to look ok. Not as nice as I’d like it to be, but what can you do.

Now I’m going to waste a little time here before heading off to get officially registered and then catch a train to Braintree and see Kendra for dinner. I’m so excited to finally meet her. I can hardly contain my gleeful joy.

My parents are back in the states. This is a good thing. I’ve really missed being able to pick up the phone and call Mom with any little question that happens to pop in. Like… how many 1/4 cups is in a quart. Seriously, these things come up.

I meant to write something today. It’s amazing how much stress can corrode your brain until there’s nothing left but the ability to sit on the couch and watch numbing tv.

Mom and Dad are out of India and Nepal or where ever else it was they were supposed to be the last couple of weeks. They’re in Amsterdam, most likely looking for clean water and toilets you sit on. Then it’s off to Poland for them. I’m jealous, if I didn’t have this show to do in a couple of weeks, I would have gone too. Next time.