A HIP HANDMADE WEEKEND

this weekend i flew to utah real quick on "business" -- hah!

and oh, utah. 

no, i love utah, i really do.

utah is like this beautiful, hostile foreign planet. 

three minutes there and my throat is parched and my skin is threatening to shrink up and fall off. 

and also, all those mormons.

i kid!

i really love my visits to utah. i never have enough time to do everything i want to do there.

utah is gorgeous this time of year and i still have never hiked the Y!

and all of my favorite and best people live in utah and i'm not sure how that happened!

i like to eat cafe rio once a day while i'm there and cafe rio makes me feel like a hero!

(cafe rio! come to manhattan already what is wrong with you?! pork salad!)

utah is lovely but also it's amazingly germy******** and i'm always afraid of catching something heinous while i'm there.

but hey, let's move on! 

i was in utah this weekend for a super quick 36-hour trip to help two of my favorite people launch and promote their new exciting online craft pack, a hip handmade holiday. 

like an e-book, but actually really cool?

it is hip and it is handmade, and if i were from utah i would call it "darling" but i'm not so i won't. 

it was sponsored by vivint and they put us up at the gorgeous sundance resort. 

(i was all set to fly solo and maybe even wean my two-years-old-this-week child while i was at it, but at the last minute our holbsworker couldn't swing the days off and so i traveled with my trusty plus-one. it's okay, i'm not totally ready to wean really, if i'm being honest with myself.)

 luckily, he is the raddest plus-one under two.

(and my sister-in-law could watch him during the day.)

in between our filming sessions we got to craft. hard-core style. 

this photo right here is of me applying a bandaid after impaling myself with leather scissors. 

the scissors weren't made of leather, but rather for cutting leather.

we decided i could have the award for furthest traveled for the weekend, first to get injured for the weekend, and in the most weirdest way possible for the weekend.

i am nothing if not a winner. of all the things. 

crafting is really stressful to me, have i mentioned?

i am good at admiring the crafting, or buying the crafting, but not so much at doing the crafting. 

but such as.

(it was not so stressful to nicole and jennifer because those two are pros.)

(photo credit kindly to alison, thanks for letting me steal it!)

(the rest are mine, and now we're set.) 

filming involved hiding a can of diet coke in my pants. but not like that! come on.

nicole and emily, you so owe me a couch crash in the city. let's play!

it was fun and furiously quick and i feel so honored to have been invited.

and so, so proud of susan and alison.

those girls have such an eye, you're going to love it, i promise.

thanks again to vivint and sundance and my sister-in-law and to all of utah for not getting me sick (knock on wood).

and also to the girl who came up to me and said, "omg, are you the pink peonies girl??"  

because that was hysterical.

*** 

this blog is so silly sometimes. i've kept one since before
"monetizing" was even a thing, and i have said and will continue to
say plenty of stupid things in here. i'm not a horrible person and i'm
not trying to push anyone's buttons. i'm just writing down my life and
trying desperately hard not to think about it  too much. all you
readers are a bonus, and i respect you a lot. so sometimes i do what
you tell me to do. change this or change that. sure, okay. i mean,
this is MY blog about MY family and i don't really make any money off
you like you seem to think i do. (dudes, i sure wish i did though!)
someday all "this" will go away and at the end there will just be
THIS, this blog. some photos of my family and a written account of who
i am, right this minute. and occasional giveaway posts for me to roll
my eyes at that mean absolutely nothing to my family. i struggle with
balancing the "taking advantage of opportunities" bit with the "this
is my family record" bit, but even harder for me to juggle is this
interesting, sometimes wonderful but often awful relationship of
"readers and bloggers."

two years ago when the ball really started rolling on "mormon mommy
blogs" i started getting some backlash from people who were new here,
thought i was doing this "for profit" and "as a business," and took a
lot of what i was writing (rather tongue-in-cheekly) really really out
of context. i was horrified. so i went through and i wiped it. i took
it all out, deleted tons of posts. i figured, well, what can i part
with? i stripped it down to bare bones so nobody would ever get the
wrong impression. when i read those posts now, it makes me feel so
sad. i can remember what i'd written that i'd removed and honestly, i
did a disservice to myself and to my family. those years were hard and
those posts weren't all that great, but they were important. to me.

i got some of the nastiest, meanest, most purposefully insulting
comments from "readers" yesterday and today demanding that i apologize
for mentioning that i'd spoken about a topic with a friend that, to
me, was a funny thing to talk about in utah. that's all! that is the
only reason that i included it in the post. it was a lovely, memorable
lunch, and for the rest of the day i giggled over a bunch of
conservative mormons dropping OTHER PEOPLE'S rape fantasies casually
into conversation. i want to remember that conversation because it was
good, and funny, and poignant at times, and inspiring at others, and
the rape fantasy bit was just a tiny portion of it but what would
remind me of it best. you want a bunch of wink smiles and explanations
and disclaimers any time i write anything? fine. but then this will be
YOUR blog. not mine.

in a few hours i'm going to delete this little update. i want those of
you who care to know that i am sorry for upsetting you. i am going to
remove the offending sentence, as well as any comments referring to
it, because this is my blog that's meant to be a record of my life
with my family and not as my life as a business woman beholden to her
readers. in the future, if i say something off color that offends you,
please know it was accidental. i can be ornery at times but i am never
mean. if you ask nicely, i'll do just about anything for you. if you
are hurtful to to me because you need to "take me down a notch" or to
make yourself feel better, i'll delete your comment and feel sorry for
your mother, who obviously never managed to teach you any manners.