I’m just kind of, seeing other people. But you can come to! In fact, that would be amazing, if we could all just “be” together.

Am I perving you out yet?

I’m oh so excited to announce that I have been invited to write for an outstanding website. It’s an entertainment website that’s incredible. And the host? He’s a total hottie. I hear he rubs his wife’s feet at night after bathing & feeding their two kids. Well, the bath part is true…working on the foot rub part. Yep, the lovely folks at Clearchannel have decided to take a chance on a “wife blog” & are giving me my own page on my husband’s radio website www.kaneshow.com. I’m beyond excited & hope to make a huge impact & show them that someone needs to be representing us wives, mommys & ladies.

Here’s the way I see it working. LPM is my firstborn baby & will always be a priority. I plan to post weekly tutorials, recipes & my usual type posts here. The little taste you’ve gotten of bitching editorial columns like this & this will live over there. I’ll also be posting my retorts to when my husband likes to talk about me on the air as well as some fun fashion & beauty posts. If this is where you’re used to finding me than don’t worry, I’ll always let you know on here, what I’m posting about over there. That way it’s kind of like a Natasha buffet & you can just serve yourself whatever you’d like. Ooo, that sounded dirty.

I hope you’ll bear with me during this, I decided awhile ago that my dream goal would be to pick up some freelace writing opportunities & one day, just maybe, be able to do some television work. Did you know I got my degree in TV Journalism? I never used the darn thing & have always kind of regretted it. This opportunity certainly seems like it could be an amazing step in the right direction. Say a little prayer, ok?

You have been so ridiculously supportive of me throughout these last four years. Post partum depression, adding a 2nd child, Lyme disease…you’ve played a major role in being my friend through all of them & I know you’ll support me as a BFF now too.

So here’s my first post over at www.kaneshow.com/natasha, it’s about vasectomies. Because why not hit the ground running with penis talk? Can you believe I actually worked in marketing too? Ha! Guess there’s a reason that didn’t pan out…

Take a little peek & tell me what you think. You’ll notice some of my old LPM posts are on there already, that’s because I thought it’d be a good idea to launch it with some meat on it’s bones. Someone once told me…”you don’t open a grocery store without already stocking the shelves”

I’d love love love any topic ideas you have too!! Just leave a comment here or there or email me at natasha@littlepinkmonsters.com  I’m supposed to post over there 5x per week so any ideas you got would be gold!

Much love,

Nat

It’s my last day in Utah & I’m ready to go home. The Alt conference was AMAZING, absolutely stellar, but I learned something about myself this weekend. My brain has a maximum capacity level & when it hits that level it shuts down. No matter how persistent or dedicated I tried to be after too much stimulation I just had to put myself to bed. It’s not the way I want it to be but that’s ok, it’s me.

(getting grumpy by end of day, so glad Susan decided to capture the moment, she then promptly sent me to my room)

I learned that from listening to Gretchen Rubin speak. That sounds bad, she didn’t make me feel like I had to go to sleep, she taught me to accept who I am. She wrote “The Happiness Project“, have you heard of it? It’s sounds wonderful & I’m totally going to buy it in the airport bookstore. She talked about all the little changes we can make in our everyday lives to achieve happiness. One of which being recognize who you really are & accept it. If you don’t like to journal or listen to music, fine, don’t force yourself to be something your not. Good tips…

By far the most fantastic part of my trip was I won a computer! I’m sure I should say the best experience was everything I learned or bonding with other creative women but no, it was definitely winning a free computer.HP had a design contest with Anya, season 9 Project Runway winner. You had to design a dress that could be part of her “Carribean Chic” collection using their HP touchscreen computer & the Art Rage software, she then narrowed it down to 12 finalists & then picked the winner. Somehow, I’m still not sure how, I actually won!!SO. FREAKING. EXCITED. And honestly, I’m absolutely thrilled about the computer but the part that makes me smile while typing this is that someone so talented & creative actually thought what I designed was worth something. I’m sorry but that type of validation feels great. Also my roomie Susan was one of the finalists! Perhaps it was something in our water…

Next best part of the trip? Meeting the actual human beings that write some of my favorite blogs. Despite some of my suspicions they really are people & not robots. Every single one of them was so sweet. We chit chatted forever & I loved every second.The amazing Heather Armstrong from Dooce, she also wrote this book which, quite literally, saved my life.

Jenny from Little Green Notebook, my favorite design blog

Dana from MADE, seriously, such a sweetheart

Susan, aka my roommate & possibly a robot, from Crafterhours

Susan & the infamous Amy Butler

And yes, I actually did learn a lot from the conference too. There were courses on utilizing social media, photography workshops, vlogging seminars & advertising tips. People like Maxwell from Apartment Therapy & Ben from Pinterest spoke about how they started their fantastic (& ridiculously successful) websites. It was so reaffirming to hear how some of their first ideas didn’t take off. Or that each one of them hit a slump where they were completely burned out on blogging.

Speaking of Apartment Therapy I cannot believe my castered crates were featured by them this past week! I went up to Maxwell & thanked him personally for still recognizing little bloggers like me. Their post has sent me a huge amount of traffic. THANK YOU AT!!

So here I am, sitting in a lovely hotel lobby, sipping coffee that’s actually hot & typing away, uninterrupted on my laptop. I should be soaking up every second of this but all I can think about are these two faces…

Makes me tear up a bit. In fact I’d better leave it at that. People are starting to stare.

Miss you all & happy to be home!

…or at least room service & a bed to myself.

I’m at the Alt Design Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah for their 3rd annual blogging conference & I gotta tell you, I’m not sure which I’m more excited about, the fantastic things I’m going to learn about growing my website or the fact that I get 5 (FIVE!) days to myself in a fantastic hotel room. Sighhh. I love my girls, love them dearly, but I was in desperate need of a break. And I love my husband, more than life itself, but I needed to go away by myself. I haven’t been on a trip by myself since 2004. Honestly, I never had any desire to travel by myself, I’m not very good alone, but now after having someone demanding my attention 24/7 I’ve learned to appreciate the awesomeness of having some time to yourself. I’m sure I’m going to miss them depserately soon, I did tear up when I left them this morning, but for now I’m still excited. Excited to be away but even more excited to see what I can learn about myself & my passions when it’s just me. Hooray!!!

I’ll have pictures & updates coming soon, Susan from Crafterhours is my travel partner/roommate so I’m sure we’ll have some adventures. In the meantime if you’re interested in alt check out my twitter, I’ll be tweeting throughout the days! (Woohoo, I have time to tweet!!)

You know when something is so ugly it’s cute?

It’s been a really long day & I was just winding down to watch the season premiere of Dance Moms (that & the Kardashians are my completely shameful indulgences) when P showed me this video. Drip drying baby sloths? Come on, I’m smiling just typing it.

I was really hoping to have these ribbon dowel holders I’ve been working on finished & installed for today’s post but I just couldn’t find a way for naptime & my drill to mesh. Perhaps tomorrow. Hope you liked the sloths. (if you didn’t you might just want to have a loved one pull our their soul detector & give you a once over)

Kind of a hokey title but the only other ones I could come up with were “Winter Wrapup” (bleh) & “New Year’s Organizational Massacre” (a bit dramatic, I admit. I was referring to my cleaning annihilation yesterday but was afraid the violence would overshadow my tips)

First off, how was your Christmas? It was really nice here. This is the first year we’ve spent it without any extended family. The first 30 years of my life I spent Christmas morning in Florida with my family. Last year we stayed home but had my in-laws come stay with us. This year however we were completely solo. I was kind of worried I’d find it depressing but to be honest, it was actually kind of awesome. Just the four of us, doing whatever the heck we felt like doing. No one to play host to & no traveling during the holidays. Just us. And Christmas. It was nice.

Sam & I made pumpkin bread. I resolved that even if it’s messier or takes longer or comes out crooked I’m going to let her help more. What fun is it to help your mom bake if all you’re allowed to do is stir for a few seconds?

There were snowflake peanut butter sandwiches. I need to warn you however, once you start making pb & j’s with a cookie cutter it’s hard to get them to go back to plan old squares. (thanks Nana)Christmas Eve we made the new tradition of going out to a lovely mexican restaurant called “Rosa Mexicana” on the National Harbor. Unexpected bonus? Humongous Christmas tree with a light show every 30 minutes!Then of course there’s Christmas morning…For New Year’s Eve we had a date with our couch, a bottle of champagne, 2 little nutcases in footie pajamas & a table full of quick & easy appetizer type dishes for us to snack on all evening long.There was tuna & avocado salad, brown sugar baked brie with apples, shrimp cocktail (tip- place shrimp in a bowl over a larger bowl filled with ice water. It will keep them chilled without getting soggy), fish sticks, mini pizzas, baby quiches & my own little brainstorm (although I’m sure I’m not the first to think of it I’m still quite proud) of smoked salmon on onion crackers with a smudge of cream cheese & sprinkle of scallions. It’s basically the appetizer version of P’s favorite breakfast dish, bagels & lox. (not rocket science, I know…but still)

Almost everything was pre-made with the exception of the salad & lox concoction. Easy peasy no stress, my favorite.

 And yesterday, sighh, yesterday I’m quite proud of my friends. I don’t know why or how but I somehow got the New Year’s Day decluttering bug in a major way. I’m talking on the verge of possessed. At one point P asked me if I was pregnant & was nesting. (Bite your tongue!)It was one of those things where I hate the clutter but didn’t have the time or energy to clean it so the junk drawers just grew & eventually got to that infuriating point of not even opening. Yesterday I had enough. If you were a tupperware without a lid in my house than you were my bitch.

Today 6 bags worth of randomness made their way to Salvation Army & IT FELT AMAZING.

Speaking of starting the new year off with a clean start (literally) let’s talk resolutions. What you got? I’m all about setting goals for myself that I can most likely meet. I’ve found that resolutions which are too vague or far-fetched are just setting myself up for failure. For the whole resolution equation to work you need to make it specific, attainable & to the point. Don’t just say “get in shape”, say “walk 3 times a week”. Or if it’s to “be a better dad” than how about think of a few ways you can specifically attain that goal. A change you can get going on immediately is best.

Here’s mine…

*plan a date with my husband at least once a month

*find physical activities with Sam that we can do a few times a week (if left to her own that kid is happy doing puzzles, tv, drawing or any other stationary activity 24/7. I need to find a way to get her active while being fun. Sophie on the other could stand a little downtime)

*Get back to running. Start with elliptical once a week & build up from there while it’s cold out with a goal of running outside at least bi-weekly once spring hits.

*Blog, blog, blog. I love Little Pink Monster & I want to nurture & grow her as well a new blog I’m starting for my husband’s show. It makes me happy.

So that’s it, out there for the whole world to see! Don’t leave me here all alone in the boat…what are you going to do in 2012??