Carolina on my mind

April is almost here which means it's almost time for Ben & Anna's wedding and our trip to Charleston. Yay!

Tonight I started looking at fun things we might do there. I'm not sure if we'll book anything before we go but I at least want ideas. So far the short list is

• Carriage Ride Tour, as in horse-drawn carriage complete with tour guide dressed as a Confederate soldier. Does it get more authentic than this? (Also one of my coworker's kid is really into Civil War history... I'm highly considering this option just so we can take a picture for the kiddo.)

  

  Insert Ross & Cheryl

  
• Folly Beach Bicycling, sounds super fun right. The bikes are actually two-person trikes so they look a little silly (as you can obviously see from this awesome photo) but I'm not ruling it out.
• Charleston Harbor Tour, or to quote Anna "I'm on a boat!" I did a Sydney Harbor Tour when I studied abroad and it was great. This one sounds even better (if you take out the "Sydney" part of the former) because it really takes you in where you can see things. Love it. Con: tour guide not dressed as Confederate soldier.
• Parasailing, in Folly Beach. Led by Capt. John who looks like a really cool cat. I'm not really sure who he is but he is the star of the website and I'm sold.
• FIG, as recommended by Ben. Apparently the must-visit dining location.

Have you been to Charleston/Folly Beach? Do you recommend something for us to do on our adventure?

DC Weekend Round Up

Long time no see y'all. Well it can be explained by my four day jaunt to DC. I'm still recovering (both from working long hours and from a wine night with Anna) but I wanted to quickly give you the round up of news and will maybe post longer things later.

• DC went great from a work stance. The Nonprofit Technology Conference was great! I'm especially excited that I ate lunch with some folks from the American Cancer Society and that our local Ronald McDonald House received an award for a short film. Very cool.
• I had a great Saturday night with Ben and Anna. Their apartment is super cute with very American decor that feels perfect in DC. Loved seeing them!
• I came home to the cleanest house in America. My wonderful hubby not only cleaned house but he CLEANED. I've never seen a cleaner house that wasn't a model home. It's beautiful and I'm going to work really hard with him to keep it this clean. Thanks honey!
• I changed my Twitter handle. This blog has about 6 readers and probably 2 of them are on Twitter but nonetheless, I'm getting the message out. You don't have to re-find or re-follow me or anything. You just have to know that when you see tweets from @CLBlack425 that it's me. (Btw really jazzed that my email, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter all use the same name now. It makes my little marketing heart sing.)

And now I am going to bed. Good night!

Puppy Dog Sleepover

This weekend Ross and Ryan headed up to Dallas for Rick's birthday celebration. I did my part by taking care of Ryan's german shephard, McKenzie. She's a sweet pup. Huge, but sweet. Actually, its sorta funny to see her as I'm so used to Lexi's determined alpha dog self that McKenzie who is 20 pounds bigger but has no interest in being top dog, is just kinda funny.

Anyways, I picked up McKenzie last night and brought her back to our house for a sleepover.

OMG. There was no sleep at this sleepover.

For the most part they were very good puppies. Lexi got a little sassy when McKenzie first arrived but in fairness, the house was dark and all Lexi knew was that some puppy was coming into her house. Once it was established that McKenzie was our friend, all was fine. So they played, and played and played. Wonderful. Excellent.

Then it was bedtime. Holy cow. Lexi and McKenzie both jump into bed with me. McKenzie kinda walks over to me in bed to snuggle and Lexi flies off the handle. She starts growling and promptly inserts herself between McKenzie and me. McKenzie goes to the opposite corner of the bed and we're all good.

But apparently then she gets lonely and comes back to Lexi and me. Again, Lexi is just not having this. She makes sure there is no room between us for McKenzie to wiggle into (not hard when its 70 pounds that would need to wiggle). McKenzie finally lays down and the pups are licking each other, happy as can be I think. Until McKenzie tries to scoot closer. Lexi literally starts taking her paw and pushing McKenzie away. It was very "This is my bed and my mama. Not yours."

Eventually McKenzie sleeps in the puppy bed (which Lexi initially objected to but when I told her to shush she seemd to relent). I use sleep loosely because McKenzie also paced the living room, whined, laid down in the bathroom, went out to pee 3 times, slopped up lots of water and barked at a mystery something she thought was on the front porch. Every time she moved to do any of these things, Lexi sits right up at attention, half of the time, on top of me and every time waking me.

It was a very eventful sleepover puppy dog overnight and that's why McKenzie is back at her own home now and I'm wondering how much Starbucks it will take to power me through my afternoon at SXSW.

SXSW: Now I get it

This weekend I'm hanging out at SXSW for work. (Come to Convio's nonprofit meetup tomorrow at 3:30 if you are SXSW-ing.) At first I was thinking "ugh, a weekend of work. LAME." And I kinda had to drag my butt downtown for SXSW. Add to it that on my very first day (yesterday) one of the session's presenters didn't show. Not a good first SXSW experience.

But today I got down there bright and early for a session on the future of nonprofits. And then I went to a session on nonprofits and celebrity endorsements. And then one on social media as a customer retention tool. And finally one on texting to donate. Oh and I did a survey for Chevy in the middle that got me a Starbucks gift card.

Um...yeah, 100% sold on SXSW now. I'm having a blast! I'm totally geeking out to nonprofit and social media stuff and not feeling too much like a geek because everyone around me is geeking out. And that I'm on my phone tweeting the whole time - not geeky, cool. It's amazing! I love it.

I'm super excited to head back tomorrow and Sunday and geek out some more. I think I'm going to add some more sessions/parties to my schedule and beef up my experience in the last two days I have.

In. love.

And here's the video interview I made today and posted to the Convio blog. But because you are my awesome blog reader, I'll post it here too so you can watch it. (What's that you say? You aren't a total nonprofit geek like me and creating innovation in nonprofits doesn't really speak to you? OK fine, so don't watch it. But just know, I am geeking out hardcore.)

Go Crazy

Tonight was one of my three days to go crazy on what I ate. I mostly did. I had Mexican food for lunch and dinner. Delicious. OMG so delicious.

The downfall to having healthy friends is if you decide to go crazy you either a) eat all the shrimp queso by yourself which is rarely a good idea or you b) don't eat shrimp queso. I went for the less destructive option of not eating shrimp queso.

However despite the lack of shrimp queso, I had a great night out. Nichole, Brittany and I celebrated the beginning of Nic's vaca. I cannot tell you how jealous I am of Nichole and her hubby's week vaca to Jamaica. I wanna go to Jamaica. They are snorkeling, hiking through waterfalls, getting massages and having a private four course beach dinner.

Tell me you don't want to do those things. I dare you. Liar. You want to do them all. Just like I do. I hope Nic and hubby have an excellent time. They deserve a good vacation after all the hard work they've put into making this dream trip a reality. We should all be so lucky as to work so hard and honestly and be rewarded so wonderfully.

Here's to Nic and her Jamaica vacation!

Dear Anna

Dear Anna,

Your engagement pictures are too super duper cute. That is why I am taking the liberty of posting the link here so that everyone I know can see what good looking friends I have. After all, we're defined by the company we keep and I try very hard to keep company only as good looking as you and Ben.

http://www.peterfingerweddings.com/anna-and-ben-engaged-picnic-on-daniel-island-south-carolina/

XOXO,
C