For the past five years in a row, I’ve found myself in a bit of a funk come mid-summer. It’s a bit childish, for sure; this funk is all about jealousy. I’m missing the BlogHer Conference. This time of year, every year, bloggers from the far corners of the planet converge on a selected city to meet each other in person, drink, discuss tricks of the trade, and show off their high priced footwear.

This year, right now, they are in New York City.

The city of dreams.

The city so nice they named it twice.

The Big Apple.

Right at the top of my list of places that I want to visit.

The tweets and blog posts are rolling in with updates on the shenanigans and tom-foolery, and I’m enjoying the opportunity to live vicariously – to a point. Part of me is still pouting.

There has always been a good reason why I couldn’t go: pregnancy, a new baby, cancer, and most significantly, no money.

This time of year has also become a time of resolve – of promises to self. One way or another I’ll go next year, I promise myself. If I put away $100 a month starting now… yeah, right. If I had a spare $100 a month, it would be making a very small dent in some Very Large Bills. Or buying a lot more shoes.

Each year I promise myself I’ll find a way, one way or another, to go next year. The truth is that I make a lot of promises to myself. Making use of that gym membership, walking every day, eating more vegetables, getting out of debt (snort), scrubbing the toilet more frequently… And I let myself off the hook for those promises quite easily.

Don’t make promises you can’t keep? Sure. Sounds good. So about eating more vegetables…

Instead of promising myself that I will go next year, this year I’m participating in the NoGo BlogHer blogparty and The Blog Hop.

When did you start blogging?
I’ve been blogging off and on since 2001, mostly off until the past 5 years.

Why did you start blogging?
A friend got me started. In those days it was called keeping an online journal, and mine was on livejournal. It was much more insular then, and the posts were privately shared with a small community of other writers. I started because I loved having people to read, and comment on, my writing.

What is one thing you are going to do this week that is WAY cooler than going to BlogHer?
Play tickle monster with my 16 month old daughter

Share a post that you think says a lot about you or is your favorite.
Stuffed Bra