So here’s the skinny…its simple. To be a part of the Twitter party, simply:

1.  Join us tomorrow, Sept 8th, at 10 PM EST on Twitter!

2.  Use the hashtag #HP in your tweets so we can make sure to catch all your responses and qualify you for extra prizes.

3.  RSVP here for the party and to qualify for the drawing at the end of the night for the Grand Prize giveaway of the HP Photo Smart Premium printer. You MUST be linked up to be a part of the final random draw.

So run over to FreeAnissa and RSVP. I will be one of your party hostesses along with these cool Twitters: Anissa Mayhew, Mommy Goggles, Rockin’ Mama, Domestic Chicky, Mommy Mandy, My Therapy, Assertagirl, Motherbumper, Southern Fairytale, Mommy Melee.

Hope to see you there!

Let’s take a little stroll, meet the neighbors, do some window shopping…

The Basics of Blogging

• Blissfully Domestic: How To Blog
• Urban Giraffe: How To Install A WordPress Plugin

Every Blogger Should Know

• Carbonite: Online File Backup System
• PhotoBucket

For The Working Mother

• Mom Bloggers Club
• 5 Minutes 4 Mom

So You Say You’re Not Artsy

• Home Sanctuary
• Oh My Crafts

You Name It

• Metropolitan Mama: Fashion Finds
• TinyPrints

I hate going to the dentist and waiting an hour…after I’ve made sure to get my booty there on time.

I love doing two things at once.  Watching doing research on Food Network while working on my laptop. Making my bed while calling my sister. Walking during my son’s soccer practice.

I hate sitting in traffic.

I love crossing things off my to do list because it means I’ve been productive.

I hate telemarketing calls, junk mail and spam mail. Wasters. Of. Time.

But I love a nifty little thing called TextExpander, a customizable abbreviation Mac app.

You know when you’re blogging and you type your blog URL 13,000 times a day? It gets a little old, doesn’t it?

h.t.t.p.:././.w…w…w…t.h.e.p.i.x.e.l.b.o.u.t.i.q.u.e…c…o…m.

That’s a mouthful.

A friend told me about TextExpander and how you create shortcuts or abbreviations for those common words, phrases, heck…paragraphs you type over and over. So rather than typing:

http://www.thepixelboutique.com

I simply type

tpb

I pick the abbreviation, for as many things as I want and TextExpander does the rest.

I LOVE it!

TextExpander even tells you how much time you have saved using the application. In the two months I’ve been using it, I’ve typed 69,026 less characters and saved 2.88 hours. Sa-weet!

It cost $29.95 and you can download a free trial to see if its something you really want. But I can tell you right now…you want this. If your time is worth anything, you’ll pay for it in the first hour it saves you.

For more tips, visit Works For Me Wednesday!

Here’s a great question from Sarah from Mom Balance:

“How do I add a Twitter badge/link to my sidebar”.

Its not hard, Sarah…here are the steps:

1. Depending on what platform you are on (Blogger, WordPress, TypePad), you’ll need to create a new sidebar item or widget (or “gadget” in Blogger; “TypeList” in TypePad).

2. Find a graphic you’d like to use as your link badge. There are a whole bunch if you Google “Twitter bird” or “Twitter badge”. Here are a few…

 

(Also, you can just use a simple “follow me on Twitter” phrase.)

3. If you decide to use a badge, you will need to follow the same process to upload it to your server as you would any other graphic, so we can point to it in the next step. If you use a service like PhotoBucket to upload images to your blog, do that now, and take note of the URL (location) of the image.

4. Now, in your new sidebar widget/gadget/typelist, insert this code, replacing the text in red with your information:

<center>
<a href=”http://www.twitter.com/yourtwittername“>
<img src=”http://www.yourimagelocation“>
<br>
follow me on Twitter
</a>
</center>

5. Close and save the widget and it should show up looking something like this:

follow me on twitter

6. There is also a way to add a feed widget directly from Twitter that displays your most recent tweets. To add that to a sidebar, follow the directions here.

Not so hard, was it? Any questions?

I enjoyed the break from the daily mother routine, the mesmerizing company, the great information I picked up and of course, the awesome swag. The only snaffu was being stuck in the largest airport on the face of the earth (O’hare) without free internet and boarding a plan that was worked on for 4 1/2 hours and feeling oh, so confident that I would live to see my children again, and having my bag take an extra day of vacation (but at least I got it back, right?).

But…

I could go on and on about how the BlissDom gals (Ms. Fussypants and Barbara Jones) did an amazing job creating a smaller-size venue so you could actually, say, hold a conversation with someone?

I could tell you all about the Yani Voices preview and the private concert by two of its members, amidst a roomful of screaming women.

Then there was the Mama Mia showing, the Chris Man performance and all the clever blog names I heard throughout the weekend. Like:

Will Run for Cake
Mommy Always Wins
Playgroups Are no Place for Children
Attack of the Redneck Mommy

And being able to chat with gals like Rocks in My Dryer, We Are That Family, Musings of a Housewife, Chilihead, I Should be Folding Laundry…to name a few.

And I can’t forget the awesome sponsors who sent two brave men (John Andrews from WalMart & David Griner from Little Debbie) to face the onslaught of estrogen head on. They deserved an award.

But I’ll keep all that to myself. Far be it from me to ramble.

So I thought it would be fun to do a Q & A on BlissDom like I did when I went to BlogHer last Summer. Do you want to know anything? About any of the above or some tips I picked up from the very useful and informative sessions?

I’ll do my best to answer any of your BlissDom related questions. (And may I just add that it was all around fabulous and you should make every effort to attend next year?). And if I don’t know the answer, I’ll make something up. Just kidding.

I’ll come back to answer your questions next Thursday, so between now and then, ask away!

#118 – Tara

Congratulations, Tara! I’ll contact you shortly.

Be sure to try again next quarter…I plan on doing something similar when the carnival is back in town!