I would like to start this post off with a little perfection, or as we would like to call it, the $4.99 martini.  On Saturday night, while I was in New York, I had one of these.  As you can see, there are four of them in this picture.  I had one and the other three were drank by some fabulous women.  I have really good luck photographing “things” as in, not PEOPLE.  I always have issues with my “people” pictures, with lighting, etc. I’ve found that “things” do not move, and they are easier to photograph.  I rarely drink, so I had to photograph evidence of me drinking.

I think that this is a FABULOUS shot for my3boybarians Sweet Shot Tuesday. So here’s my submission for this week’s little challenge.  The martinis are really the last part of a great day at BlogHer, so below this, I will be telling that story.

So one of the biggest issues that I had with BlogHer was the lack of food.  Seriously, I just wanted some protein.  I know that people got out every night, and experienced the city, while enjoying a delicious meal.  No, I was that nut job running around with a camera in my hand, photographing parties, and trying to get at least five minutes of quality time with my friends, who live all over the country, and other countries.

I can’t help it, I’m a social butterfly.  That is probably the reason that I have over 17,000 tweets on Twitter.  I talk to many many many people on Twitter, but never read their blogs.  Yes, I just admitted that, publicly. But I hit bottom, on Saturday afternoon.  I realized that I needed a real meal, and something that was not conference food from a hotel, served in a buffet line.

I ended up venturing out for some meat, yes MEAT with my pals, Jill, Cara, and Cynthia.  It was quite random how we all ended up with each other, but we were making plans amongst ourselves, without even knowing it.  ALL of us were complaining about getting a real meal.  I had pizza at 10pm with Jill, the night before.

I told everyone that I heard of this really awesome burger place, The Shake Shack from Alexis.  We were talking about it the night before.  I should have gone there Friday night.  So we asked for directions and headed that way.

We arrived at The Shake Shack and saw a huge line.  We immediately got intimidated and made those, “I’m not waiting in this long for just a burger”, comments.  You know the “I’m soo hungry, I could eat anything, but will wander around some more and not wait in line”, thoughts.  I then commented, “oh it is not a sit down restaurant, you just order your food and find a spot”.  We decided to wait in line, which moved rather fast.  I think we were also smart (maybe because we have CHILDREN), and sent Cara to grab a free table.

You would have thought, we were all on the show Survivor for the past month, or something.  Seriously, we all gobbled up the burgers and fries, and barely took a breath.  I had to take a picture of Jill eating her burger, because she was talking about burgers on Friday, like all day and night.  I think she enjoyed her burger, don’t you?

Of course, I’m a narcissist and had Jill take a picture of me. I was also enjoying my burger. It was like the best burger I had EVER tasted. Seriously, it was good. Can you tell how tired I was? I was a hot mess. People, don’t EVER let me fly red eye flights! I do not recover well. As a matter of fact, I think I’m still recovering from lack of sleep.

Photo by Scary Mommy…editing hijacked by me, I’m OCD like that.

Photo by Scary Mommy and Random Unknown Tourist Type

After eating those fabulous burgers, we headed back to the hotel.  We decided that we needed a group picture.  But we were scared to hand over our cameras to a random stranger, in NEW YORK CITY!  But we finally found a tourist looking person, and Jill handed over her camera.  We did not realize till later, that Laura Linney totally photobombed us.  Can’t you see that odd look that she is giving us? She is a total STALKER!

While walking back to the hotel, after the group photo, we were accosted by an employee of a deli.  He called out to us, literally.  We couldn’t pass up $4.99 martinis or as I would like to call them, vodkatinis. I think the bartender got excited with the cheap vodka, you know it was cheap for $4.99. But did we care, not really. So my first photo in this post, was our drinks…

We all reflected on our conference experience so far, and decided that this was the best part of the weekend.  We got to spend some quality time together, and we bonded.  We re-capped each of our experiences, and shared the ups and downs of BlogHer.  We all agreed that BlogHer was a bit different this year, but I think it is different every year.  Last year, it was my first conference and I did not know what to expect.  This year, I was overwhelmed but I had an enjoyable time and lasting memories.

And this is where you get the FOURFECTA….through random conversations, we dubbed ourselves, “The Fourfecta”.  Don’t we clean up well? The last photo was taken after we had eaten, had a martini, and changed our clothes.  I think we cleaned up well.

I miss my girls already. Why do we all live so far away?

Photo by Scary Mommy.