My days. My nights. My life. Lived well.

So, I said I was going to try to blog each day in April, and well, here I am. I really wasn’t lying about that. There’s a lot of stuff that happens in my life or that I see that probably doesn’t deserve a full blog post, which is where Facebook and Twitter fit in.  Anyway, Rob always says I should do a food blog. I don’t know about that, but I do have strong opinions about food things. I wish I didn’t, but I do.

This March I was extremely disappointed for a few days when I kept trying to score a Shamrock Shake.  I tweeted all about it. I know I’m not the only person that thinks they are an awesome seasonal treat. Plus, Rob and/or I have been sick for the last month on and off, so there was only like a 3-day window where I actually wanted to eat dairy and wouldn’t be concerned with producing extra mucus. My throat was still sore and the Shamrock Shake was ideal! So, what gives with the Indianapolis McDonald’s not carrying them?  Is this one of those regional things? Sometimes, Rob makes me feel like I come from a foreign country, even though I’m just from 3 hours north. It probably doesn’t help that I consider anything south of Kokomo to be southern Indiana.

I went to 3 different McDonald’s in 2 days until I gave up after seeing someone’s Facebook status that the Indy region franchisees voted not to participate. Boo! Apparently though, if I had trekked over to the 71st and Michigan Rd. McDonald’s I could have had one. How did I find that out, you ask? Well, der, I just went to ShamrockShake.com (web 2.0 at its finest) and you can input your location to find Shamrock Shakes. Obviously, at most McD’s Shamrock Shakes are gone by the end of March- if not gone within days after St. Patrick’s Day- so you’ll have to wait until next year. Yeah, too bad I just found that site tonight.

Apparently, I’ll have to hang on he Northwest side next year or make the trek up to the Bend where Shamrock Shakes are abundant. Luckily, I have many reasons to go up there! Anyway, this concludes today’s episode of This Is Why I’m Fat- I mean Kristen Blogs for 30 Days: Maybe Not Quality, but at least you’ll get one.

Well, I only had comments from 7 people on my blog. But when I was checking the FirstBook blog comments at the point where there were 554 comments, I was definitely responsible for 56 of the comments and possibly more who may not have linked their sites and only put first names.

I decided to do the donation piggyback on my own site a little later than when I had originally posted just the First Book Disney link on several sites. So, keeping with the spirit of Christmas giving, I gave $2.50 for every comment I was responsible for on the First Book blog. Then I secured funds from an anonymous donor that just about matched my donation and ended up being able to donate enough for First Book to get 200 books!

It was a really nice way to give to others during the holiday season. I am sad that more people didn’t find out about the promotion since Disney was willing to give up to 250,000 books and the final count was 705 comments. But, I do know that I did my part and was responsible for at least 8% of those comments getting posted with lots of help from others who spread the word on after I told them.

Thanks to everyone who left a comment and/or spread the word! I think this effort was the best part of my Christmas.

So, this weekend, my awesome graphic designer friend Jennifer and I went to the BlogIndiana conference at the IUPUI Campus Center. It was a 2-day conference about blogging. I figured that my blog was neglected and for $50, it would be worth it to meet some people, get a little inspiration, and maybe even learn something.  And on all three fronts, I was successful!

After a short welcome and a couple short greetings from sponsors (seriously- I don’t know that I’ve ever been somewhere a sponsor was given a mic and they actually kept it short and didn’t push their crap on you), we were off to the first panel.  Basically, the schedule for each day was 2 panels in the morning, lunch (provided), a topical panel with multiple bloggers, and 2 more panels in the afternoon. On Saturday there was a networking event where we ran into some chick who was pushing some multi-level marketing product. 

I won’t get into gory details, but one of the panels sucked because the guy who was doing it was basically pushing his product.  Most of the other presentations were really good.  The conference itself was well-organized and I felt like the guys organizing it (Noah Coffey and Shawn Plew) were really quick to respond and adapt to different situations and make everything go smoothly.  Like how after the first session, the presenter (Andrew Paradies from Photrade) handed out some paper evaluation surveys and everyone’s reaction was like, “We have to fill these out after each session? Paper surveys at a technology oriented conference?” Well, Noah and Sean heard everyone and by lunch- no more surveys and plans for an online one instead. 

I did have the epiphany during the last session (Blog Review & Critique) that I actually know more about designing a blog and using certain plug-ins than I thought I did.  Granted I’m not one of those people making moolah from my blog, but I’m not really trying to either.  And frankly, I do know that in order to be making any money from your blog, you need to be consistent about it- which I definitely am not.

Anyway, the best part of BlogIndiana was just the interaction with other bloggers.  So, I will now give you a small modified blogroll of people I met and blogs you may be interested in reading (and obviously click the links in the text above to see the blogs of people I mentioned there):

Jeannette Fulda- pastaqueen.com In addition to this site, she also wrote a book based on her weight-loss journey called Half-Assed. The girl lost 200 pounds!  She is super nice and super smart, and I joked she’d be my new best friend.  And she’s cool enough she could be.

Casey- mooshinindy.com Casey is a “mommyblogger”- a term even she hates- who takes GORGEOUS photos and went to the State Fair 5 times this year. 

Hope Baugh- Indy Theatre Habit Hope really wants people to go to the theatre.  So she started a blog talking about everything coming up in Indianapolis Theatre. At some point in the next couple months, Jennifer and I are going to try and help her snazz up her site a little, but her writing is great and I think she’s blogging for a nice cause too!

Tedra Richter- Tedra on Twitter Tedra right now does most of her blogging on Livejournal and it’s marked as friends-only, so I posted a link to her Twitter so you can watch her micro-blog. 

Renee Wilmeth- Feed Me/Drink Me I really don’t know how I first found Renee’s blog.  But as I read it, I saw that she knew her stuff and I take her recommendations seriously.  It’s because of her that I found out HOW AWESOME brownies from Circle City Sweets are.  She’s a little more gourmet and foodie than I am and definitely has a more sophisticated palate than I do, but she’s in the know when it comes to food stuff in Central Indiana.

Kirsten- Middle West Meals I actually know Kirsten through my old roommate (and saintly friend who helps me organize), Mary.  They used to work together at Borders and I happen to run into her once or twice a year.  I had no idea she had a blog!  She likes to cook and share recipes, so it is definitely worth checking out.

Anyway, it was mostly dudes there, so I think a lot of the women gravitated towards each other.  There are actually a ton of other blogs I encountered, but I haven’t had time to check them out yet. This post is already bordering on TLDR, so you can check out the entire BlogIndiana Blogroll yourself. 

Anyway, thanks to BlogIndiana, you’ll probably see more from me here, and that’s a good thing, right?

Adobe just launched an online version of Photoshop that’s free.  You go to www.photoshop.com/express and you give them your email and then you can make galleries and use some of the basic Photoshop tools on the web.  I played with it for a second, and I don’t know if it’s this computer or my Internet, but it’s kind of slow.  It may also be that this is the first launch day, so maybe they’re a little overwhelmed.  Nice idea, but right now I find the execution slightly lacking, but I will file it away for when I am on the go.

It’s really only a matter of time until all our programs come through the web.  Of that I am sure.