If you’ve been a long time reader of this blog, then you know that every summer I start back up with my Jimmy Fund fundraising (Hey! I heard that groan.). If you are new readers: Oh hai. I am not above getting on my knees and begging for donations. (I’m serious.)

Basically my family is insane and we are running and participating in a number of fundraising events over the next couple of months. Next weekend my dad is riding 200 miles in the Pan Mass Challenge. Every year we fundraise and ride for someone. This year it’s 6 year old Megan Legare. She is the spitting image of my sister Kate when she was a kid, so it hits home even harder.

I designed the bike shirts this year for the team, and I made sure to design them in Megan’s favorite colors: PINK AND PURPLE. (You can thank me later, Dad. You’re going to look so pretty!) I also am in the process of making some coordinating signs for the team to show everyone all the good this fundraising can do. The signs star little Megan and Jack (who the team has gotten to know well over the years). GO JACK. Click here to see a rough first draft the sign and be guilted in to donating.

Here’s a video from Fox News this morning where my Dad had a chance to talk about the ride. (Click on the second video down called “Meet the Peeps”. The interview with my Dad starts at about the one quarter mark.)

Another event we are working on (and by “we” I mean my Dad planned and organized it, and I got the job of creating all the signage for) is our Annual Jimmy Fund Golf Tournament. It’s August 13th and open to the public. Are you a golfer? Want to play? Shoot me an email and I’ll give you the details and sign up info. There are lots of goodie giveaways and a party after with Emcee Butch Stearns from Fox 25.

And finally, (the part where I really ask you to click and donate), my whole family is doing the Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk again (I’ve lost track of how many years we’ve done this as a family … I want to say 8? I could be wrong though.).

I will probably post a few reminders before the walk, but this is going to be my big “BEGGING FOR MONEY AND AM NOT ASHAMED TO GUILT YOU INTO IT” post. If you can/want to donate (THANK YOU), please visit my Jimmy Fund page:

Jenny Frazier’s Jimmy Fund Fundraising Page.

Now go donate some cash to help out the kids! And if you can’t donate, help out by passing the link along? Thanks!

Nothing says “Welcome back from San Francisco” quite like a yearly exam at the gynecologist, no? (Yeah, shut up, I warned you I was going there right in the title.)

Last week I got a call that I would be seeing a nurse instead of my doctor because, I don’t know, she was busy doing things to other women’s parts that day. I was told I would be seeing nurse Ashlee Wentz.

(No. Obviously not really, but I’m not telling you her REAL name. And this definitely goes somewhere. Plus my friend Danielle, who is totally reading this, LOOOVES Ashlee and Pete.)

So I get to the doctor’s office, get my temp/height/weight/BP etc done by a lovely, chatty nurse who then tells me to “take it off”, as it were, and wait for Nurse Ashlee Wentz who would be in to see me very soon.

So there I am, rocking a (really hot) paper gown, when I hear a knock at the door. And in enters …

Ashlee Simpson.

A girl I totally went to HIGH SCHOOL with who apparently got married and did not inform me of her NAME CHANGE or the fact that SHE IS A NURSE, right now MY NURSE, at MY DOCTOR’S OFFICE.

Do you know how awkward THAT conversation is?

“OH HAI! I haven’t seen you in, oh, a decade. And now here I am. Naked. In front of you. So …. how’s the fam?”

Actually the truth is (oddly enough) the conversation wasn’t really that awkward. Even though I was, you know, completely nude under a paper thin paper gown. And she couldn’t have been MORE nice or MORE gracious or MORE fast running out to grab another person to attend to me.

I feel like most people would pull their clothes back on and slink out of that office as fast as they could, but we all know, I’m not most people. Most people wouldn’t tell this story, much less BLOG ABOUT IT. ON THE INTERNET.

So of course as I’m leaving I wave and shout towards the other end of the office where she is finishing up her day of work “BYE ASH! SEE YOU AT THE TEN YEAR REUNION IN NOVEMBER!”

Yup. Welcome new readers from BlogHer. Just in case you weren’t aware of this already - I really am the epitome of class.

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* Note: For Nurse Ashlee’s privacy (and mine…I guess? Though I’m pretty sure that went out the window a long time ago.), I will delete any comment guesses on her real name. Because, really, haven’t I told you enough already? ;)

I’ve been trying to document this whole BlogHer experience since the beginning. And now that I’ve been, and talked to my friends back home, and tried about a dozen times to start this very entry, I am pretty confident in the saying “I can’t explain it - you just had to be there.”

I know. What a crappy cop out. But it’s the truth. If I learned anything from the experience, it’s that any conference or networking event, BlogHer included, is what you make it.

I flew out to BlogHer actually having met (”in real life”) only ONE person and with the goal of walking away with knowing at least 50 more. It was that simple for me.

In the week before I left, I was lucky enough to have the help and support of Boston-based friend John Wall (John writes about marketing at Ronin Marketeer and has a weekly business podcast “The M Show” as well as a podcast with PodCamp co-founder Christopher Penn called “Marketing Over Coffee” - both are full of useful information and can easily be found in the iTunes store. Best of all? Both are free!).

John e-troduced me (see what I did there?!) to a number of women also attending BlogHer, so as an addendum to my goal of meeting 50 people, I decided that at the very least one of them had to be someone John recommended. (What can I say? He knows good, smart people).

So I flew out to San Francisco with a few new names in my iPhone and a goal.

By the end of the conference, I can say with absolute certainty that I met some of the very smartest, very funniest, very sweetest women (yes, including one of John’s recommendations!). But I also think that I had a very different approach and very different idea of what I thought BlogHer would be.

First of all, I am a networking addict. I went into BlogHer having just redesigned my main website for ultimate social media networking, I was armed with business cards and buttons, I was ready to meet people and talk business. Basically, I was ready for the events that I’ve been to and organized myself in Boston.

BlogHer is not a Boston event. And, in some ways, that is what made it great. It was a completely NEW experience with new people. There were well-designed sites, and business cards and buttons all over BlogHer, sure! But I definitely made more friends than business contacts. And that was definitely ok - you know I love to socialize as much as the next person. I was able to participate in many conversations about the business of blogging and privacy issues, so it wasn’t alllllll drinks (but there were a lot of drinks - wow BlogHers, me included, can throw them back!)

My favorite part of BlogHer was meeting and really getting to know the group of amazing women I spent the majority of the time with - especially because I was half expecting to not really get to know anyone, just meet a lot of people in passing. I went out there knowing Kerri (who I visited for the first time in March out in Portland) and then met and spent a great deal of time with Sarah from Whoorl.com and Hair Thursday, Jenni from SchnozzFest.com, Amber from MooseInTheKitchen.com, Angella from DutchBlitz.net, and also (for only a day!) San from TheInBetweenIsMine.com. We had an amazing time and I can say without hesitation that I am entirely grateful to have met everyone I did, but spending an extended amount of time with that group of women really made it all worth it for me.

Also entirely worth it? Even though I spent a very short amount of time with them, I met two really great Boston-based women: Laura aka Pistachio and Boston-newbie Mle-Mle aka Lucy’s Spleen. I honestly can not wait to spend some more time with them here in Boston.

I met a number of other fantastic women (and a few guys!) who I’m working on adding to my Blogroll and just because I didn’t link the majority of the people I met in this entry, doesn’t mean I think of them any less. I literally have not yet sorted through ALL. THESE. CARDS. I’m sure as the week goes on I’ll have more things to write, more links to link.

I do have some “least favorite” BlogHer list makers, but to be honest they’re not worth discussing. The things that I disliked about BlogHer is not a person, an event or anything really specific or tangible. It would be difficult to explain and I would rather take what I learned, the good and the bad, and put those lessons towards future events.

(While I won’t write about it here, if you have questions about what I disliked or if you want to know because you’re considering attending BlogHer in the future, I would be more than happy to explain and answer any questions through email.)

So in the end, I am happy I went to BlogHer. I was inspired, got some fantastic ideas for future events here, and have a list of dos and donts if I return for BlogHer ‘09. Plus I got to spend a lot of time wandering around my second favorite city in the US which is always worth it.

That beast being me.

My red eye flight last night was delayed until 2:00 am this morning. And then they started boarding the flight before the cabin had been cleaned, so they had to move us back on the ramp (in the cold, cold San Francisco night). Eventually the cabin was cleaned and they started properly getting us all situated on the plane.

The flight was full, but at least I had had the foresight to book an aisle seat right?

WRONG.

Some mother must have booked the same flight for her and her 7 year old too late to sit together. So she was behind her daughter. The two of them kept standing to talk to each other about the flight, and how they weren’t sitting together ENTIRELY IN BABY TALK.

So I gave the mother my lovely aisle seat for her crappy middle seat one row back. My new seat partners (on both sides AND behind me) ALL. SICK. Sneezing. Coughing. Sucking back snot and then (NO LIE) snot rocketing it into their hands and wiping it on the seat back.

I put on my iPod, pulled my blanket over my head, managed to get some on and off crappy sleep, and all the while hoped for “the best.”

“The best?” WAKING UP TO MY BODY COVERED IN HIVES THIS MORNING.

I’m assuming it was the shitty airline blanket? I don’t know, but I am an irritable, itchy bitch of a human this morning.

I promise San Francisco and BlogHer were both great though. And I will write about all the wonderful people I met (and now absolutely ADORE) once I get some sleep, some Airborne, and some Benedryl.

But for now all you need to know: BlogHer? Great! Red eye flight? Total Fail Whale.

I don’t care what other people say about this city, I will always love
it here.