On Thursday Macy’s will celebrate Black History Month by honoring the legacy of Romare Bearden. They will help The Romare Bearden Foundation celebrate the artists 100th birthday.

About Romare Bearden
Recognized as one of the most creative and original visual artists of the 20th century, Romare Bearden had a prolific and distinguished career. His life and art are marked by exceptional talent in a broad range of intellectual and scholarly interests, including music, performing arts, history, and literature and world art.

If you are interested in attending the opening reception and exhibit please visit Macys.com for a location near you. There are two locations in California – Macy’s Baldwin Hills and Macy’s Union Square.

If you are local to Los Angeles.
When: Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 6:30 PM
Where: Macy’s Baldwin Hills–3rd floor, Museum of African American Art
Who/What: Macy’s celebration of Romare Bearden’s 100th birthday!

For more information visit: http://bit.ly/MacysRomareBearden

A few weeks ago I introduced you to the Vonage Time to Call App that helps you make international calls for less. You can read the original post, vonage time to call app – make international calls for less.

Details about the App
The Time to Call™ app and make low-cost international calls of up to 15 minutes to landlines and mobile phones in over 190 countries. Save money over dialing directly through major mobile carriers, and pay for your calls through your iTunes account. It’s FREE to download with no monthly charges and no commitments.

How it Works
This is how it works, the initial download includes a FREE call up to 15 minutes after that you pay per call. You can talk for up to 15 minutes for $1.99 or less. The calls are billed directly to you iTunes account.

We also mentioned that Vonage is offering an iPad 2 to ONE LUCKY BIZZIEMOMMY.COM reader in celebration of my birthday. Okay my birthday has nothing to do it, but that’s still pretty cool, right?

HOW TO ENTER
1) Leave a comment here, and let me know where would you call with the Vonage App. (I would call my little niece in France in case your were asking).
2) Share news about the Vonage app and the iPad 2 giveaway to your friends on Twitter or Facebook (don’t forget to leave us a comment that you did so we can track it)
3) Sign up for our newsletter so you can be first to know about giveaways and upcoming new content.

BONUS ENTRY
1) For a BONUS ENTRY download the app and try it for yourself. Download on iTunes. Tell us who you called in the comments below.

* Increase your chances to win. Several other bloggers are participating in the iPad giveaway. You can visit www.callsfrommysmartphone.com for more details.

Entry Deadline
You don’t have much time to enter, this giveaway ends on Sept 1, 2011.

Thanks!

Oh and if you haven’t tried Whrrl yet, you are missing out!

WHAT
The Creative Freelancer Conference is the first and only full-scale business conference for self-employed creative professionals. Our goal? To help you maximize your freelance income by sharing best business practices and sage advice from seasoned solopreneurs who’ve learned through experience what works, and what doesn’t.

WHO
The program is geared toward freelance graphic designers, copywriters, illustrators and photographers, as well as solo practitioners of interactive, interior and industrial design. Anyone who makes a living selling creative services on a freelance basis (or would like to) will benefit.

WHEN
Wednesday afternoon, August 26, through Friday noon, August 28, 2009.

WHERE
All conference events will be held at the Omni San Diego, in the heart of San Diego’s Gaslight District.

WHY
Because knowing how to identify good prospects, promote your services effectively, write and present proposals, communicate the value of your work, negotiate rights and fees, build strong client relationships, allocate your time—and juggle all of the above—can transform your business, your income, your life.

If you are one of the lucky one’s that get to go – please stop by after the event and let us know how it went.

Details
Date: September 16, 2009
City: San Diego, CA
Location: University of San Diego – Joan Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice
Time: Conference Session 10:00 am – 4:45 pm, Reception 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Breakout Sessions
Track A – Getting Started:
Ideal sessions for the mom who wants to learn how to start her own business. These empowering sessions will provide a solid foundation for a mompreneur to get started!
Track B – Running Efficiently:
Ideal sessions for the mom who has her own business but wants to learn how to run it more efficiently. These sessions are packed with useful information providing immediate value to any business!
Track C – Next Level:
Ideal sessions for the mom who has an established business and is considering taking it to the next level. These motivating sessions will help inspire you to take the next step!
Track D –Inventor Fast Track:
These sessions will give attendees a tangible action plan to bring their inventions to market and cover all major components to take their “concept to cart”!

For more information: http://momsinbusinessunite.com

It all started on Thursday morning, I was stressed about over sleeping so I couldn’t sleep. So I just got up and finished packing, amazingly the Hubs got out of bed and got ready without having to use my drill sergeant tactics as he calls them. A little too eager for me to go, hmm I wonder?

Any this BlogHer trip is all about discovering new things. So naturally the first “new” thing started before I even took flight.

I hoped on the Flyaway with Kim @ House of Prince and heading to LAX. The Fly Away was so stress-free it’s definitely my new way to travel to the airport. There we met up with the rest of the LA to Chicago Party Plane crew. I most excited to meet with Caryn from RockinMama. I think we were destined to be friends as we always end up at the same parties without even knowing either of us will be there. To get the complete list of party plane attendees check out the BlogHer Party Plane Roll Call. While the plane did get a little rowdy non of the other guests complained during the flight.

After about four hours or so we safely landed in Chicago where I meet two of the ladies from Moms without Blogs. Since I wasn’t headed to the Sheraton like the rest of the party clan I opted to take the L train with Lee from Moms without Blogs. Being an LA girl I have never really taken real public transportation so this would be 2nd first.

We took a taxi from the train to our hotels. As I mentioned in a previous post I stayed at the Affinia Hotel in an amazingly gorgeous and modern suite. Thank you again Jerri Ann of MomCentric for letting me crash in the suite.

Because there was so much traffic (thanks Obama) that day I never did make it to the SocialLuxe Party, one of the party’s I was looking forward to attending. I did get to meet some amazing people at the both the People’s Party and 704 Party. I meet with my Skype buddy Nichole @ The Guilty Parent and she introduced me to Lyndsey and Alyssa. The parties were great I finally got to meet Jessica Smith from JessicaKnows.com in person. Without her help I would have never found the BlogHer ticket for sale. I could go down the list of the amazing woman I meet but that would take forever. So let’s jump ahead to Friday.

I have to say having a non-sleeping 18 month had conditioned me well for the BlogHer experience because I was up well before 8am and I was ready to rumble. Well I was at least ready to get into a taxi and head to the Sheraton. My Hubs ordered me a Sash from The Sash Company and had it FedEx’d over.

The first thing on the list was the Welcom to BlogHer Session. It was amazing to see all of these women in a room together. I poken’d and bump’d several people before we even got started. They announced that BlogHer 2010 will be in New York, lots of people cheered. I wasn’t one of them. New York is a complete opposite of LA. Anyway hopefully 2011 will be in California.

I’ll tell you more about what I learned in my first session with the next post.

BizzieMommy.com will be reporting live about the events at BlogHer starting Wednesday July 22, 2009.

Well things didn’t exactly turn out how I intended them to. In my defense I have an excuse, several actually…
The internet connection for my iPhone was ridiculously unstable and slow and by the way did not work during the evening receptions. So you missed the pictures of me doing karaoke.  Okay not really, I didn’t karaoke.

My hotel room was inconveniently off site, as marvelous as the room was, I wasn’t able to rush to my room and post the day’s events. I was only in my room to sleep that’s all. Well and shower and chance but you get the idea.

Hold on trying to muster up another excuse…

Wait for it…

Oh I got it! I was having so much fun connecting with everyone that I completely forgot to tell you about it. I tweeted a little and whrrl’d a bit, but just couldn’t get to write an actual blog post.

I promise I will be wrapping up my experience in the next blog post, I promise.

I can’t wait to meet the great woman I’ve been twittering with, blogging with and reading with for the past couple of years. Hopefully I’ll be able to connect with everyone. If not I am armed with some really cool networking tools.

Before I even found out I was going to BlogHer I ordered a handful of Moo cards, the little mini ones, for my blog. But it was only 100 cards so I ordered one more set just to be safe. Then I was thinking what “digital junkie” uses PAPER business cards?

As a “digital and tech junkie” I thought I would try some DIGITAL ways to network and report of my BlogHer experience. I found and installed some really cool networking apps on the iPhone.

WordPress for iPhone – I can update my blog with events and activities without having to carry around my laptop.

TweetDeck for iPhone – This is actually the first time I’m using TweetDeck. I have no idea why I never used it on the computer. I set up a #blogher search deck.

Bump – This is an interesting app that I can’t wait to try out. Everyone with the iPhone should download this free app so we can easily exchange contact information, you can even control how much information you want to share.

Whrrl – You guys already know I love this new mobile story editor. Be sure to download the app so you can whrrl at BlogHer

Facebook for iPhone - Update your facebook while away from your computer

textPlus+ – textPlus lets groups of friends chat all at once – like a chatroom in text!

If you have an iPhone and have some of these tools, please let us know and if you know of some other good networking tools, please let me know.

The iPhone isn’t the only networking gadget I have up my sleeve. I bought a Poken months ago, but never went anywhere to use it. I hope I run into a lot of Poken uses so we can exchange information to!

I’m not discounting BlackBerry users. I replaced mine with the iPhone months ago. I would love to know what tools you have on your Blackberry to help you network.

I’m staying at the beautiful Affinia Chicago!

Affinia Chicago offers an experience in total comfort, customized by you. Did you know you can select your own pillow for your sleeping bliss? Choose from a feather & down, sound, hypoallergenic, magnetic therapy, buckwheat or Swedish memory pillow. Okay I didn’t even know they had buckwheat pillows did you? Which one should I try?

You can also try one of their Experience Kits. Get out and explore the city with the Walking Tour Kit, fill tranquil with their StayFit Kit and they even have a BYOB guidebook you can take to explore the local wine boutiques.

Affinia is hosting a Tweet-Up to Kick-Off BlogHer on Thursday @ the rooftop bar c-view between 7-10pm. From the pictures the view looks spectacular.

Affinia Chicago is located: 166 East Superior Street, Chicago, IL 60611, to make reservations call 1-312-787-6000.

Oh did I forget to mention their grandparents were there?

Harris Ranch is a good half way point between Sacramento and Los Angeles so we meet there and they take the kids back to Sacramento for a week.

So even though I will miss them, it will be good for me to catch up on some much needed rest and catch up on some product reviews. And of course get ready for BlogHer! I’m so excited to be leaving in just a couple of days.

I decided that with so much going on I should start getting things together now. Since I still have to do some clothes shopping to pack, I decided to collect all the things I will need for my conference bag.

Inside my BlogHer Conference Bag?

1. Dell Laptop – it’s not the mini laptop that I wanted but it will do for now. It will be perfect for live blogging and taking notes during sessions.
2. Pink Moleskine Thin Notebook – I bought this little notebook to keep notes about the BlogHer event. I wanted to keep everything together for future reference
3. Canon Rebel XS DSLR – I love my XS and will be taking pictures and uploading to flickr throughout the event.
4. iPhone –Well it should be obvious why this is coming with me. I’ll be writing about all the tools I’ve installed to help network so check back tomorrow.
5. Flip Video Camera
6. Moo Business Cards and Holder
7. Moleskine Notebook
8. Moo Business Cards – I ordered extra business cards.
9. Kodak Zx1 Video Camera
10. Creative Vado Camera
11. Conference Bag – I bought this bag from Arden B a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t used it yet, so I’m hoping it will work out great for the event.
12. Poken – This will be the first time I’ll actually be using my Poken so if you have one please exchange information with me so I can test it out.

What are you bringing to BlogHer? What’s in your conference bag?