Category: Blogging

Back in May when Emily and I attended Mom 2.0 Summit, we met a tall, beautiful lady named Rachel,of Back’nGroove Mom.

After she endeared herself to us and captured our undying affection, she started talking non-stop about something called Spark & Hustle. “Spark & Hustle this, Spark & Hustle THAT”!   I didn’t even know what it was!  Turns out, Spark & Hustle is a conference for women in small business, and it is making a tour this summer. At first I thought it was just a ploy she was using to get us to come visit her in her hometown of Pittsburgh, but Rachel is actually very involved with Spark & Hustle!  Over time and some charming text messages, she convinced me to attend the conference in Pittsburgh coming up on August 9th.  (Emily can’t come because she’s going on vacation. LAME.)

I am super-excited to learn more from Tory Johnson, the founder of Spark & Hustle, about doing a better job in small business – which believe it or not, is what this blog has turned into for Emily and me.  I am super-excited that my BFF Luanne is going to attend to get some great ideas and inspiration for her small business, Lulee’s Lollies.

I’m also totally jazzed that I have a generous sponsor  – Intel!!! – who I’m proud to represent!  I am so grateful to Intel for their support of women in small business.  Their technologies make SO many small businesses across the world possible!  I’m taking with me a Lenovo Edge ThinkPad loaded with some great small business features that I know will be a great help as Emily and I forge ahead with Mommin’ It Up.

If you’re anywhere near Pittsburgh, (it’s a 4.5 hour drive for us from here, not bad at all!) I hope you’ll consider joining us at Spark & Hustle on August 9th.  The tickets are really reasonably priced and the information is going to be priceLESS!  I can’t wait!  You can get more info at the website here.

I’ll report back after my trip!

So, this week something very special happened.  That Emily and I totally forgot about and remembered later. Because like many couples, although we LOVE each other, sometimes we let life get in the way and forget to stop and smell THE FACT THAT IT’S OUR FIVE YEAR BLOG ANNIVERSARY!

I’d been thinking about this upcoming event for awhile, and was reminded of it last week when Jill posted that it was her five-year blogiversary a couple weeks ago, because we started blogging at virtually the same time.  I thought, “We should do something really awesome like have a huge giveaway or throw a party or something like that.”

But instead, we just…forgot.

Emily BETTER be whittling me that chicken, is all I have to say. (Is a Bloggess reference. Go read. Then come back here and thank us.)

But anyway.  We forgot our blogiversary.

Oops.

Hey, guess what??? We’ve been blogging for FIVE YEARS!! Isn’t that crazy? When we started this blog, we had only three kids between us, and now we have five.  We were both in our twenties and now we’re clearly practically in an old folks’ home.  We’d never been to a blog conference and didn’t know what Twitter was.  We had old appliances and outdated kitchens and our wardrobes were not made up entirely of Lands’ End.  And we certainly never dreamed that so many of you would care about our successes, our failures, our clothes, our kids, our jobs, our pets, or our kids’ poop.  Ok, so most of you don’t care about that last one (but I know a couple of you do! I KNOW IT!)

Thanks for sticking with us all this time. Especially through this really anti-climactic five-year blogiversary post.  Emily and I love doing this together, but what REALLY makes us grin is getting comments from you, you, YOU!  We love the feedback and interaction with you guys.  We hope you’ll stick with us for at LEAST five more years…aren’t you dying to see if we can even remember our own NAMES in five years!?  The odd aren’t great…

Thanks for five great years, you guys.  We love you. Fer realzies.

(We’d also love it if one of you sent us a wooden replica of Beyonce’ the metal chicken.  Just sayin’.)

 

So last week when I told you about my trip to California with Toyota, I told you I’d be devoting a whole post to their philanthropic efforts.  I promised, and now I’m delivering!

Toyota’s headquarters is in Torrance, California, and they do A. LOT. in their local area as far as giving back, as they should. But what’s great is that they also enable their dealerships across the country to give back to their local communities through a matching gifts program.  Let’s say my local Toyota dealer wanted to write a check to a local charity.  Well, Toyota MATCHES that up to $10,000 for every single dealership in the country!! That’s a lot of cash, and amazing support and encouragement for it’s dealerships to give back.

The biggest and most exciting way that Toyota is currently giving back is on a national level, through a phenomenal program called 100 Cars for Good.  Via the 100 Cars for Good Facebook app (which you do NOT have to “like” to use, by the way), you, me, and the whole wide world can vote EVERY DAY for one of five non-profits to win a car.  It’s easy, it’s quick, and it’s AWESOME!! I love this program.  I love voting every day and encouraging others to vote (hopefully for the  non-profit that I chose, hee hee.)  So, on our Mommin’ It Up Facebook page, we’ll be reminding you to vote!  The program ends August 21st.

So get out there and vote! There are all kinds of resources on the 100 Cars for Good page where you can learn about the organizations up for vote, see previous winners, and even search for which organizations in your local area are up to win a car. You can check out the app, get educated and vote here.

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Disclosure: I was selected for participation in the TWIN community through a program with Clever Girls Collective. I did not receive any compensation for writing this post, or payment in exchange for participating. The opinions expressed herein are mine, and do not reflect the views of Toyota.