Texas Monkey

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Vegas Baby

Ok I'm finally at a point where I can muster up enough energy to sit down and blog about my awesome trip to Vegas. If you've been here a while you know that I passionately publish for Macaroni Kid and this past weekend was our very first Macaroni Mom Meetup. So it was a little of working and a lot of playing type of trip. To say that it rocked would be putting it mildly but when you're so tired, words just don't come easy to you and so "It Rocked" will have to do. But multiply that by 100. Oh and I'm not gonna lie, this is a long ass post, may or may not have inside jokes, some ramblings, and not much of a good flow so you may want to come back after a few cups of coffee. Just sayin, I'm still tired people!

First the Cons of my Vegas Trip:

Apparently Vegas doesn't think that Diet Dr Pepper is the greatest beverage ever so it was impossible for me to find one. I had to settle for Diet Pepsi and that just sucked. Oh how I heart you DDP!
I only won $40 instead of the million I was hoping for. I so wanted to come back and give my notice at work and tell them to suck it but $40 doesn't really allow me that luxury. One day my little pretties!
I missed Poppa like crazy! I am one of those wives that just prefers to be with her husband at all times. I'm more relaxed around him, feel safer, and just usually have a better time overall. I really want to go back with just him.

That's it, those are the only cons!

I won't go through a play by play but just highlight some of my favorite parts, which is kind of hard to do as I loved so much about the trip. You may be wondering what the purpose of the MeetUp was. Well that's none of your business. Kidding. It was to focus on us as Moms and learn more about community building, goals and purpose of what we've chosen to do with Macaroni Kid, some etiquette, Twitter 101, Advertising, PR, some legal stuff, and over all bond with other Publishing Moms.

I met my Sister In Law out there, she's a PM (Publishing Mom for Macaroni) in Ohio. It's been a year since we've seen each other and well that's too long to go without seeing someone you love so much! I'm married to her brother and she and I were roommates for nearly 4 years back when Poppa and I were dating. We've never done a trip just she and I especially without the hubby and kids so this was a treat for both of us.

Our schedules were a great combination of work and play. The mornings were spent in seminars and meetings listening to some amazing speakers like author Lisa Quinn who wrote the awesome book Life's Too Short To Fold Fitted Sheets. If you have not had the chance to read this book you must, it's eye opening, hilarious, and sends perfection out the window!

Some of us PM's are also blogging mommas and a few there are blogging gals that I ~~worship~~ ~~stalk~~ follow. There's Chief from Hiding From the Kids, Supah from Supahmommy, my sis, Bree Bees, and then myself. All 3 of these awesome gals helped me see that Macaroni Kid was for me and so I'm so thankful to them. But I had no idea how much they loved me. I mean from the moment we got there Supah was all like "OMG it's Shayna from Texas Monkey" and then Chief shrills like a little girl and jumps up and down and runs over to hug me and I'm all like settle down little fans, let's not piddle ourselves, there's plenty of time and me to go around to get your fill. I mean every break we had they were like, "OH please have lunch with us, we need to pick your brain and learn from you and bow down to you. Please take your picture with us!" So being the loving celebrity that I am I of course spent every waking moment with them when really all I wanted to do was just take a nap, but hey this is why we do it right, to make others happy, make their dreams come true. Who knew being so loved was so tiresome. I even signed their autograph book and didn't charge. Oh you should have seen their eyes light up, it was like Christmas morning. Bless their little hearts. Small Disclaimer - By they I really mean me and by me I really mean them. :) Yeah I kind of heart them!

Left To Right: Chief, Bree, Me, Supah (notice how big I'm cheesin?)

The awesome Headquarters and founders of Macaroni Kid really pulled out all of the stops for us this weekend. Our resort and accommodations were top notch, to the belly rub downs to laying out by the pool, you get your fix of relaxation. WHAT?! Your resorts don't rub down your belly? Oh you are so missing out.

One night they took us to Simon restaurant at The Palms and can I just talk about this for a bit. I'm a girl from Texas ya'll and here we're raised to have a love affair with food so there's not much that can still impress me. But either I just don't get out much or this chef's main goal is to blow your socks off, either way the food was to die for.

While there we had the pleasure of tasting wines and the maker and owner of the wine we were enjoying came into our room to speak to us with this beautiful thick Italian accent. We couldn't understand a word he was saying but no one wanted him to stop. Oh and yeah I won a bottle of wine that he signed for me. He had a little hard time with the spelling of my name and so it reads Shwawynana. So guess who had the nick name of Shwawynana the rest of the weekend?! :)

After dinner a few of us took a cab while a few others piled into Chief's rental car and headed to the strip. We were suppose to meet at Excalibur but apparently driving a rental in an unknown city with a car that fits 4 but has 5 wine filled women with the top down makes you get a little lost. So after waiting on the curb for an hour we finally took a cab to them, much easier that way.

Bree waiting patiently.

We were at the Belliagio so of course we had to go out and see the dancing waterfalls and it was beautiful!

Here are some more shots from the strip.

For one of our luncheons the great folks from Lego came and did a community building luncheon and had us build with a small set of Lego's. We may or may not have known at the beginning what to build but at the end were to share a story about our little master pieces. I totally sucked big time at this. But it was fun.

This was mine, see my bow on top of my little person's head. :) Oh great now I want that cookie in the background!

Supah didn't suck, she was good at it and so proud of herself too. This picture captures her in her proud moment with her stop light creation and Chief's look on her face in the background is priceless!

Love It!

Lego Luncheon

The last night we had a bowling party, drinks, food, and lots of laughs. Again to say this weekend rocked is an understatement! I came back so energized, refreshed, motivated, and excited to make Macaroni Kid Dallas the best kid site this city has! I can't wait for next year's meetup in Miami FL and know that if it's anything like this year then I'm in for a treat.

Me and Nicki (one of the founders)

Supah and Eric (one of the founders) and her flying pig, again, she's such the overachiever!

No I'm not jealous. :)

My bowling team. (Why am I the only one with a drink in my hand?! Hey the more I drank the better I got!)

Me and Supah (See I told you she was constantly wanting her pic taken with me)

And because I have no shame, I'll do a quick plug for Macaroni Kid, if you think your city would benefit from this service and want a real work from home job with no contract and working with the most awesome women and support then shoot me an email at shaynam@macaronikid.com and I can go over any questions you may have.

Happy Hump Day Ya'll

Monday, June 7, 2010

Me Monday - A Mac Kid

Have you seen the Macaroni Kid Logo around blog land lately? You may have at least noticed it at the end of my posts lately or to the right of my sidebar. Well since today is Monday and that means it's all about me, I wanted to share something with you that I'm so excited about and kind of need your help with.

I’m sure you’ve heard me talk about my desire to become a SAHM (Stay at home Mom) or WAHM (Work at home mom). My heart is to be close to my monkey and spend the days with her instead of at my desk and she in daycare. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job, and love her school. I love what she’s learning and the friends she is making but I want to be a part of it with her. I think both SAHMs and moms that work outside of the home have a tough job, neither is easier or better, I just have been a working mom and now it’s time to work towards being an at home mom.

So to help me achieve this goal I of course started Texas Monkey Boutique which has been doing wonderfully but just at a place to allow me to do it full time and stay at home. To help me get their quicker I have decided to add another endeavor to my resume.

I am starting a new venture called Macaroni Kid. It is a free weekly e-newsletter and website that lists all the upcoming happenings and events for kids in and around North East Dallas. I launched my first newsletter two weeks ago and will continue to use Thursdays as the day when my newsletters will be emailed out.

As a new mom, I found it difficult to find out about so many of the great events that go on in my community without having to search all over and I think that my new newsletter will be a huge help! The newsletter is free and we have a privacy policy in place (we don’t sell or give away names or email addresses).

So this is where you come in for help. I’d love to add you as a subscriber to my little newsletter. The more people I get to subscribe for this free service, the better my chances are at gaining paying advertisers, free vacation offers for my subscribers, and more, thus allowing me to become a SAHM or WAHM if you will. I want to continue to help my family out financially and my goal and desire is for this adventure to allow that.
This week I'm running a giveaway, free movie passes to the movie of your choice just for getting the most subscribers. Pretty easy and we all love the movies!

I realize that not everyone may live in the NE Dallas area but I know a lot of us travel to the Dallas area for mini vacations, shopping, eating, etc so this can help you as well. And if you live too far to visit then maybe this will be incentive to come see me. :) If anything you will have access to ideas to look for in your own community as well as great parenting articles, tips, ideas, crafts, recipes, freebies, and fun giveaways.
At the very least you’ll be helping me out by being a subscriber.

And if you aren’t in the NE Dallas area but think this is something that your area would benefit from then talk to me about it and you can start your own little website and become a publishing mom like myself.

If you have a business and looking for some really cheap advertising rates and want to know exactly who your target audience is, then please talk to me about it. I am targeting parents with children ages newborns through high school and moms and dads who are the decision makers in their households, so if you advertise with me there’s no wasted time or money on readers who aren’t with children. Make sense?

If this is something you don’t mind helping me with, just put a yes in the comment section and I can add your email to my list. Or simply go to the Sign Up page and enter your info. Again, nothing will be shared with anyone or anything. And when it is emailed to you on Thursdays, all I ask is you click through it, maybe visit my site every once in a while. And this week you'll automatically be entered into 2 giveaways.

Also I know you know many parents and I would love your help spreading the word to them! So feel free to forward this to every parent you know. J

I don’t want to take up any more of your time and I apologize in advance for the multiple blog posts, tweets, and facebook posts you are about to see from me but in order to get this off the ground and get me to be a SAHM I’ve got to get the word out. And remember it’s totally free.

Thank you for your help and also know that you can submit tips, recipes, and more and if I feature yours you will win a great prize!
I really appreciate your help, I know we all get tired of the vote for me posts, and tag me, and follow me, and subscribe me, but in order for some of us to meet certain goals it takes the whole village to help us get there. And I love my village of readers! So if there's something that I can do to help you in something you are passionate about then please let me know so I can begin to repay the favor to you.

Happy Monday Ya'll.