BlogHer? I Hardly Know Her.

Tomorrow afternoon I leave for Chicago to attend BlogHer '09 as Mabel's Labels Official BlogHer Correspondent. I'm flying with Julie Cole and her new baby boy. When we get there we will be dumping our bags and heading out to party #1 of many (there are so many parties I can barely keep track of them). Also, my best friend Jennifer (that's her in this first picture) of Also A Talker and It Ain't Meat Babe fame is attending as well. I can't wait to see her. I really can't wait to have a conversation with her without having a child crawling all over me. It has been a long time (about 4 years) since we had 3 whole days together to just relax, shoot the breeze, and truly be Jennifer and Katrina again.

Of course, I'll be tweeting and blogging a tonne. The agenda each day is jam packed, and seeing as I am there on official correspondent business, i feel like I should make the most of it. I have already picked out which sessions I am going to attend (geeky, right?) and now all I have to do is a mountain of laundry, figure out what I'm going to pack, and make sure I leave Scott set up for success with the kiddos while I'm partying it up in Chi-town.

One of the things I'm really looking forward to is getting to meet some of the bloggers I read on a regular basis. There is Cecily Kellogg of And I Wasted All That Birth Control fame, who impresses me on a daily basis with her brutal honesty, integrity, foul mouth and terrific writing. She writes about being a recovering alcholic, infertility, losing her twin boys half way through her pregnancy due to pre-eclampsia, being a mom to a little girl, and being overweight. And she's funny.

Jess Howard from Drowning In Kids is also going to be at BlogHer, and I know she is super shy, but I'm hoping I can buy her a glass of wine and tell her how powerful I think her writing is. She has four kids, is going through a divorce, and has blogged through being separated, reconciling and getting divorced. Add to that her frankness about suffering from depression, dealing with being medicated and non-medicated, and all the messy stuff that goes with it, she is an incredible woman.

I'm hoping some of the other mommy bloggers who entered into the Mabel's Labels BlogHer '09 Contest will find their way to Chicago. There are some really talented writers in that bunch. I expect I'll also meet a lot of inspirational women over the next few days and that my daily blog reading will increase by ten fold.

If you are interested in following along, I'll be blogging over at Mabel's Labels. I'll be sure to link to my posts from here as well. See you in Chicago!