Thanks to Trop50 for sponsoring my writing about fabulous bloggers. This year Trop50 is granting 50 Fabulous Wishes. Click here to enter for a chance to win $1,000 to celebrate a friend with a refreshing attitude about looking and feeling fabulous!

This should be easy. I’ve been blogging for FOUR YEARS – surely I can come up with Five Fabulous Bloggers without much effort, right?

No, that is not right. I deliberated. Maybe I should be like John Cusack in High Fidelity and pick a specific category?

• Top 5 Super Cute Themes?
• Top 5 Bloggers I Have Met In Real Life And Not Chickened Out Saying Hello To?
• To Five Craft Bloggers That Make Me Jealous With Their Mad Skillz?

I analyzed.  Maybe I should see who I linked to the most? Who I have subscribed to for the longest time?

Oh ENOUGH. One of the best things about being a blogger is reading other people’s blogs.  Choosing a handful that I enjoy should not be painful.

These are the Top Five Blogs I Love To Read (a list subject to change daily, if not hourly.) (In no particular order.) (Will somebody please take these parenthesis away from me?)

1. Blogging With Amy – I would imagine Amy’s blog is in a lot of top 5 lists.  The information she provides about all things blogging is AMAZING, and she breaks it down into nice, manageable bites with her guides and tutorials.  Plus, in her videos she just seems straight up nice.  I have learned more about how to find my way around the innards of my blog from her than anyone else.  And yes, as a matter of fact that is a compliment.
2. Autumn At Oak Hollow – Blogging is just a medium.  It’s like saying that, because you use paper, you’re a paper-er.  Not everyone who has a blog is necessarily a writer. Heather is a writer. An incredible, talented, writer.
3. She Sparkles – I have never come away from Cindy’s blog without being inspired to do something.  Not in a hyper, make a list with 100 things on it way – but to be a better person.  And when you think about it; that’s really something.
4. The Velveteen Mind – Megan will be on a lot of top 5 lists too, I reckon. I love her blog for a few reasons.  First, because her writing is knock-you-down good.  Second, because she has a sincere drive to use her talent for good and pulls off some pretty amazing benefit campaigns, and third, because she is the one who taught me that knowing what opportunities to say “No” to defines you as a blogger.  Once I understood that, it cleared the way for me to blaze my own trails.
5. The Diaper Diaries – Well, duh.  This one is just a given. I like to impress people by telling them that Jill and I were “friends even before we were bloggers“.  She’s the one who got me into this whole blogging business in the first place and while my husband is still trying to find forgiveness in his heart, I love her for it. I also love that her fantastic sense of humor comes through on her blog.  Yes; she’s like that in real life.

Don’t forget to enter the 50 Fabulous Wishes contest for a chance to win $1,000 to celebrate a friend with a refreshing attitude about looking and feeling fabulous. I was selected for this Tropicana Trop50 sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do. I received compensation to use and facilitate my post.

My mom died when I was 16. I wrote about it last year, but this year I want to write about being a mom instead.

I have always felt that people don’t know how unqualified I was to do jobs I have been hired for. If they only knew how scared I was; how much I didn’t understand. But I always pulled it off and later realized that they were right. I was very qualified; I just didn’t know it.

Motherhood is the one job I feel qualified to do. I accept my mistakes, I take good advice and easily ignore bad, and truly do not care what people who do not share the responsibility of parenting my kids and therefore by definition are uninformed (at best and judgemental at worst) think of my parenting ability. It’s a blessing, really. It keeps me from having to judge other moms in an attempt to measure my own skills and assuage my own insecurities.

I am, of course, strongly influenced by my Mom. But I do some things differently. I live in a different time, and have different kids.

I let my son take Sunny D and Fruit Roll Ups when it was his day to bring a snack at soccer practice. Because I think this nourishes the kids? Of course not. Because it was just hanging around in our cupboards and we had extra. Ha! Because I see other parents let their kids do it? Nope. It’s because it means something to him to bring a cool snack. And it’s not about me.

It’s why my five year old daughter wears tinted lip gloss and has pierced ears. And is one of the brightest kid in her class – and has no idea.

I’ll help them figure out good nutrition and the importance of intelligence over appearance in good time. Sunny D and pierced ears aren’t moral deal-breakers.

My daughter left me a note on my pillow that said, “Mommy Mom. You are the best Mom. You make me feel like a heart and a star”.

My son woke me up this morning at 6:20 not because he was hungry, or wanted me to turn the TV on for him; but because there was “just a little bit of pink left above the orange in the sky” and he didn’t want me to miss it.

Today, I unapologetically celebrate being a good mom; uniquely qualified to encourage with tremendous love, and to share a sunrise and with the only two children who were meant to be mine.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Soooo…. I went to BlissDom.  It was my first time. I was so excited, I could hardly stand it. I had an amazing sponsor. For bloggers, this is one of the conferences to attend. It’s A Big Deal.

I’d only been to one blog conference before. Gleek Retreat was a small, new, local conference.  And I loved it SO MUCH.

BlissDom was in Nashville, is several years old, and had about 600 attendees. And I loved it MAYBE NOT SO MUCH.

Let me back up. What I did love was meeting the people in real life I had worked on campaigns with and previously only known on-line. I loved talking to new people about being able to make some money blogging with Collective Bias.  The sessions were great, the speakers were inspiring, and the ridiculous amounts of swag caused me to have a 30 pound carry-on by the time I got my suitcase down to a reasonable weight.

My shoulder hurt, but I was not paying an extra $20.00 to check a bunch of stuff I got for free.

I loved meeting the PR people and brand representatives.  Some had community giving initiatives that could really make a difference to people in Grand Rapids.  I did my best to charm them.

I loved talking about you guys – I told everyone that Big Binder readers are amazing people.

So what was my problem? Blog conferences are supposed to be all about community, but I didn’t feel it.  At all.

I didn’t feel left out, exactly, but I expected to feel all warm and fuzzy; surrounded by my social media peers.  People doing the same thing I’m doing.  People who got me.

No warm. No fuzzy. Did it bother me? Yes; but only until I figured out why.

I learned a lot at BlissDom about blogging, but the most important thing I learned was about, well, me. I already have a community, and it is YOU. Leave me a comment? You’ve made my day. Send me an email? You’ve made my week. I walk on a cloud when I meet someone who says, “Oh, YOU write Big Binder?!” I love it when people get excited about winning a contest I have run, or tell me about the fun they had an event I made them aware of. I have a sense that although I haven’t talked with all of you in person, you are good people.

You are my community. It’s good to be home.