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	<title>WIRL Project &#187; Awesome</title>
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	<description>What It&#039;s Really Like.</description>
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		<title>I Stopped Apologizing For Being Me</title>
		<link>http://www.wirlproject.com/i-stopped-apologizing-for-being-me/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wirlproject.com/i-stopped-apologizing-for-being-me/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Jun 2015 01:00:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Guest WIRL]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life/Leisure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WIRL Challenge]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Apologize]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Awesome]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BlogU]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Me]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[People]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WIRL Challenge BlogU]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wirlproject.com/?p=6977</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I have struggled with other people’s assumptions my entire life. I remember being in the principal’s office at the public school we were zoned for when we lived in the country, and her leaning in and asking me “Are you an only child?” I was in her office because a boy had run up to me and grabbed me between my legs when our Spanish teacher was out of the room. I was so embarrassed — it had been a dare, I think, from the way his friends were laughing — and would never have spoken a word about it to our teacher. But my friend was appalled and dragged me to the principal and now there I was, sitting in front of her, mortified and sweating and wishing I wouldn’t have let my friend shove me into her office. “Are you an only child?” She asked me again. “Yes.” “Well, that explains it. You’re probably spoiled.” The number of siblings I did or did not have had nothing to do with the fact that I was minding my own business, sitting on a windowsill talking about whatever 5th grade girls talk about, when someone shoved his hand in a place it never should have gone. But I was a white girl who was dressed nicely and got good grades, and now it was out that I was also an only child too, with parents who worked in the city. HOW DARE I. This is when my shame began: the apologetic feeling. The I’m sorry for being who I am. The let me work really hard to make you feel okay about dealing with me. I have spent almost my entire life dealing with a compulsive need to prove to others that I’m not an airhead because I smile a lot. I’M JUST A HAPPY PERSON, DAMN IT. I have worked tirelessly for far too long to prove that I’m not bitchy because I’m a confident woman, that I’m not racist because I happen to be white, that I’m not closed-minded because I was raised in a Conservative Christian bubble, and that I’m not judgy because my house is clean. I’ve spent my life feeling afraid of offending others with my presence, even when they were the ones offending me. Fuck. That. Noise. I don’t want to apologize anymore and I don’t feel like I have to, because I have experienced the elation of being immersed in a situation where everyone is just as screwed up and weird and talented as I am and it was AMAZING. It was such a moving experience to go to the Blog U Conference last weekend and feel completely accepted into a group of people who are not at all like me, but yet somehow completely like me. We swept the Notre Dame of Maryland University campus with a quirky, maladjusted wave of awesomeness. The nuns probably all rolled over in their graves or crossed their chests or something. I can’t wait to go back. Somehow these people who I have never met in real life know and understand me better than people who have known me for 35 years. I don’t know how or why and I don’t understand any of it, but apparently this is what it feels like when you find your people. This is what it feels like to not have to explain or apologize for being yourself. This is what it feels like to be seen. I never would have had this experience without the support of my amazing husband, who raised the funds for me to go, and without the support of my bomb ass friends and family who keep pushing me, reading my work, encouraging me and telling me I need to shut up and stop apologizing for the love of holy hot dog buns. Go find your people. It is so, so worth the wait. &#160; &#160;  *This WIRL was originally published on Modern Mommy Madness. &#160; Join The Conversation! Easily contribute your story here. &#160; About the Author… Harmony is a full-time mother of three who navigates the waters of motherhood without any grace or finesse whatsoever. A fan of strong coffee, red wine, and sturdy undergarments, her work is best described as &#8220;honesty and insanity in one fell swoop.&#8221; Harmony is co-author of Scary Mommy&#8217;s Guide to Surviving the Holidays and I Still Just Want To Pee Alone, the third installment in the New York Times Best-Seller series. Her work has been featured on Today Parents, Scary Mommy, Mamalode, Mamapedia, Bon Bon Break, and more, but her home base is her blog, Modern Mommy Madness.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>BlogU: Middle Age Middle School</title>
		<link>http://www.wirlproject.com/blogu-middle-age-middle-school/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wirlproject.com/blogu-middle-age-middle-school/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Jun 2015 21:00:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Guest WIRL]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life/Leisure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WIRL Challenge]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Work/Money]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Awesome]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Awkward]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BlogU]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle Age]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle School]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WIRL Challenge BlogU]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wirlproject.com/?p=6974</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I had the weirdest dream: I’m sharing a couch in a hotel bar with “I Just Want to Pee Alone” NYT Bestselling Author, Jen Mann. Our conversation meanders from our mutual admiration for Hugh Howey to me giving her shit about the fact that her rental car has manual roll-down windows. We then somehow make the connection that I was in the PTA with a book blogger that she follows. The next thing I know, Kim Bongiorno (Let Me Start By Saying) is next to me dressed up as Urkel performing a “Dancing With the Stars” worthy number with Frugie from Frugalista Blog. This dream is so much fun that I don’t want to wake up! But this isn’t a dream. This is Blog U. When I signed up for the Blog U conference on a (wine inspired) whim a few months ago, there wasn’t even a schedule in place, let alone a list of presenters. All that was on the BlogU website was the registration form and this picture of Kim Bongiorno, Nicole Leigh Shaw and Kerry Rossow. My fan-girl obsession with Kim Bongiorno seemed to be a good enough reason to fly half way across the country and miss my kids’ last day of school to attend the 3-day blogging conference so I put down my wine and filled out the registration. As the months passed, and the details of the conference were revealed, it became clear that I should start making more of my career decisions after 2 ½ glasses of wine. In addition to Kim Bongiorno, the ‘faculty’ list now included Jen Mann (People I Want to Punch in the Throat, I Just Want to Pee Alone), Nicole Knepper (Moms Who Drink And Swear), Jill Smokler (Scary Mommy), Anna Luther (My Life and Kids) and Ilana Wiles (Mommy Shorts). And they were just a few of the amazing talents leading classes, (please see them all here.) The excitement of the opportunity to learn from some of the most talented and successful women in the blogging world could only be matched by the thrill of finally getting to meet many of the bloggers that I have grown to admire and care for during my nine-months of blogging. But there were still some doubts: What would they be like in real life? Would conversations still come naturally when there weren’t 1,000 miles and a computer monitor between us? What if they didn’t like me? Was this going to be awesome or was it going to be awkward? Some of you, (okay, two of you), may remember one of my very first posts, “I’m a Facebook Girl Living in a Twitter World”. The post is about how terribly overwhelmed and nervous I was about trying to ‘break in’ to the world of blogging. (And oddly enough, just as he did with my dream-like conversation with Jen Mann, Hugh Howey played a prominent part in the story.) Here’s a brief excerpt: “The first thing I realized was, Holy shit, I think every mom in the world has a blog, (and some of them even have two!) The second thing I realized was “Holy shit, I think all of these mom bloggers are all besties who have been partying together for years” and immediately felt like the new girl at the party who keeps wandering around trying to squeeze my way into a bunch of circles of conversation only to look down and realize I’m not wearing any pants. Super awkward, super humbling. I have been fortunate to make it through all levels of school without a socially awkward phase and at age 42 I thought I was safe….guess not.” Coincidentally, the theme of the dress-up party that Nickelodeon hosted on Saturday night was #MiddleSchoolAwkward. I hoped that this wasn’t some cruel foreshadowing that all my fears from that original post would materialize during the conference In one sense, it turned out that part of my post from back in September was correct: Many of these bloggers are besties who have been partying together for years. Fortunately, the part that I had wrong was the belief that I would need to “squeeze” into their tight-knit conversations. The reality was that no matter how tight the circles were, they opened right up to welcome me when I arrived. They were friendly, generous, smart, kind and so damn funny. As for the part about looking down and realizing I wasn’t wearing pants….that was also accurate, but only because I went and removed my leggings from under my skirt half-way through the Nickelodeon party after almost having heat stroke on the dance floor. I originally intended for this post to be more of a true recap of my weekend at Blog U, but every time I started writing, I felt like I was trying to describe a dream: It wasn’t so much the individual moments or the events, it was how they all tied together to create a feeling that I’m simply not able to describe except with the word grateful. Grateful for the weird inspiration, while brushing my teeth one night last August, which led me to start a blog about beginning a job search after 10 years as a stay at home mom. Grateful that one silly post about my super-anal Childcare Instructions that I left for my in-laws got noticed by someone at Redbook.com and took my blog in a new direction. Grateful that this new direction has given me the opportunity to meet so many new friends who share my interests, weird sense of humor and unusual combination of extreme-emotional-introvert/extreme-sharing-extrovert. Grateful that I have a family that supports me (both with their love with their cash-money) so that when I suggested going to Blog U so I could spend the weekend with these new friends the response was an enthusiastic “you should totally do it!” (Except for my 9 year old, who continues to remind me that you’re not supposed to meet up with strangers from the internet.) Grateful that after all my fears that the Blog U might turn out #MiddleSchoolAwkward, instead it ended up being #MiddleAgeAwesome. And since a picture speaks a thousand words, I’ll let this one do the rest of the talking. &#160; &#160; *This WIRL was originally published on The Dusty Parachute  &#160; &#160; Join The Conversation! Easily contribute your story here. &#160; About the Author… Once upon a time, Susanne Kerns was a Senior Account Director at an advertising agency working for two of the top brands in the world.  Nine years ago she traded in her corporate life for a life as a stay at home mom, raising two of the best kids in the world.  She started her blog, The Dusty Parachute as a way to dust off her online advertising skills and begin her job search. Instead, she now uses it as a way to spend lots of time on the computer so her kids think that mommy has a job.  Susanne’s essays have been featured in Scary Mommy, BonBon Break and Redbook and she is also a contributor in the upcoming books, It’s Really 10 Months, Special Delivery and Martinis &#38; Motherhood – Tales of Wonder Woe &#38; WTF?!  You can follow her on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>We REALLY Were Awesome In Middle School: BlogU 15</title>
		<link>http://www.wirlproject.com/we-really-were-awesome-in-middle-school-blogu-15/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wirlproject.com/we-really-were-awesome-in-middle-school-blogu-15/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Jun 2015 08:00:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Guest WIRL]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life/Leisure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology/Web]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WIRL Challenge]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Awesome]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BlogU]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Epic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle School]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nickelodeon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WIRL Challenge Blog U]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wirlproject.com/?p=6946</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Last weekend I had one of those Experiences-of-a-Lifetime-You-Will-Never-Forget. That’s perfect because I don’t want to forget it. Ever. After a year’s worth of endless behind the scenes planning and four days worth of running like a mad woman lifting boxes heavier than my Jillian Michael DVD-trained muscles should ever be allowed, WE DID IT. We pulled off an amazing Blog U 2015 Conference. It was boss. Really, there is no other way to put it. It might be important to note that my hair is now dyed blue, but more on that later. For now, let’s just focus on the fact that BlogU was incredible. Full of hard-hitting blog how-to that you need to know and tons of co-blogger bonding, it was, in short, EPIC. I could go on and on about the pride that soared through my soul reflecting in the heart-bursting moments when the Term Paper of the Year awards were read (really, this ended me) or when the faculty showed off their savvy brilliance schooling us during sessions. It was beautiful, the kind of beautiful that words don’t accommodate. But let me focus on the highlight of the weekend–the #MiddleSchoolAwkward Night sponsored by Nickelodeon. It was aces. A gorgeous mix of poignant ungainly pre-teen memories coupled with the extreme coolness of ginormous scrunchies. The chance to throw-back to these years was a gift. A really, really fun gift. The thing is, back when we were in Middle School, we were awesome. We were fearlessly committed to our hideous neon accents and off-center ponytails/t-shirts. It was a Lifestyle of Awkward and we were its spokeswomen. It was fabulous in its tragedy. We were a mess and we didn’t know it. God knows if our mothers actually knew it or they were just too traumatized by our appearance to give us a polite head’s up. Either way, we were rocking it. We were rocking it in the way that we so passionately believed in our NKOTB paraphanelia, we wouldn’t have believed any naysaying anyway. For one night, we were our stunning awkward selves, and this is why Blog U has captured my heart. It’s a chance to embrace yourself for whatever and whoever you are–poofy tulle skirts included. See you in 2016, friends? **This post originally appeared on The Mom of The Year as part of Nickelodeon’s® sponsorship of The Blog University. The series “100 Things to Do Before High School” premiered on June 6 @ 8pm on Nickelodeon.”** &#160; &#160; Join The Conversation! Easily contribute your story here. &#160; About the Author… Meredith Spidel blogs at The Mom of the Year, where she dedicatedly earns her title one epic parenting fail at a time, offering quick, relatable laughs for fellow parents of the world and all their empathizers. She has been part of several best-selling anthologies, including I Just Want to Pee Alone, I Just Want to Be Alone, I Still Just Want to Pee Alone,You Have Lipstick on Your Teeth, and Clash of the Couple. She has been a staff writer at Aiming Low and has been featured on prominent sites such as Huffington Post, BlogHer, In The Powder Room, Bonbon Break, and Scary Mommy. Meredith loves her role as the Executive VP/Operations Manager of The BlogU Conference and enjoys providing social media and consultation services. When she&#8217;s not breaking up fights over Legos and juice boxes, she remains fully committed to sharing a less serious look at the world of parenting. You can find Meredith on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Google+.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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