We’ve all had our moments where we have to wake up and check our outbox to see what exactly happened last night. I may or may not have had one of those nights after my whirlwind 26 hour Vegas trip…

But that is besides the point.

Texts From Last Night is probably one of the best and most hilarious ideas ever. Bored? Bummed? Has it been way too long of a day? Need a pick me up to send a friend? Texts From Last Night: All The Texts No One Remembers Sending will be your best friend. Not to mention when you are spending way too long doing your hair and someone is waiting for and pretty close to leaving without you, this right here can be the perfect coffee table book that distracts them!

If that hasn’t convinced you that this book is awesome here are a few of my favorites from the book that I got to preview:

(510): The party tonight has no theme but I’ve decided to go as a home wrecker.

(410): my mouth tastes like poor choices

(917): I’m once again drinking at eight am on a Sunday in my tutu. This garment is literally my best purchase ever.

(206): how the fuck does easy mac keep making itself at 3am when i’m wasted? what is this phenomenon?

Right? RIGHT?!

Okay, so right about now I’m sure you’re wishing you had a copy of your own and luckily for you, I’m giving a copy away to one reader!

To enter:

• Go to textsfromlastnight.com and pick one of your favorite texts.
• Comment back here with it.
• Tweet or blog about this contest for extra entries and comment again with the link.
• Do this by Monday February 1st and you’re in!

The answer: Ummmm. Did you forget that WE ARE THE INTERNET?!?!!??! And also, Yes We Can!!!

The result: Brandy and your Hot Awesome Dude… this one’s for you. Love, The Internet.

Our Plea

Our friend Brandy is a brilliant writer, a wonderful teacher, and a generous friend.  And she is in love with a man who has just been diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

We are raising money for the Multiple Myeloma Research Fund in his name.  For the price of a cinnamon dolce latte, half-caf, hold the whip, you can be part of an effort to cure a disease that affects approximately 750,000 people worldwide.

http://www.loveharder.org

Every dollar brings us a dollar closer to a cure.  And every donation brings a sliver of hope to a girl who needs all the hope she can get.

Love Harder,

Jamie

What You Can Do

• Give. Be part of a worldwide effort to cure a disease that affects approximately 750,000 people worldwide.  Every dollar helps.
• Pass it on. Forward this story to five people.  Share this blog post.  Become our fan on Facebook.
• Love harder. Life is short, love is unbending, and no one knows what could happen next. Tell someone you love them today.

Where Your Money Goes

• The American Institute of Philanthropy recently named The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation one of the best organizations to give to in terms of their accountability and use of resources.
• By working closely with researchers, clinicians and partners in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, the MMRF has helped bring multiple myeloma patients four new treatments that are extending lives around the globe.
• The MMRF has advanced twenty Phase I and Phase II clinical trials. They need your support to advance these clinical research programs and accelerate the development of better, more effective treatments.
• The MMRF’s Multiple Myeloma Genomics Initiative recently became the first to sequence the multiple myeloma whole genome in its entirety.
• A whopping 98% of your donation to the MMRF will be used immediately to support high-priority multiple myeloma research.
• With diminishing funding for early stage drug development and the next myeloma treatments not expected to be approved until 2011, the MMRF desperately needs your help.

DONATE: http://www.loveharder.org
CONTACT: theloveharderfund@gmail.com
FACEBOOK: http://facebook.loveharder.org
MORE INFO: http://www.themmrf.org

A couple weeks ago, I was invited to attend a press launch party for Swagg. It was going to be making it’s debut in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronic Show. And we all know how much I love Vegas and being asked to attend as press for such a big event was pretty exciting for me. I was praying the incoming snow storm wouldn’t ruin my plans.

Luckily, my flight still managed to take off and four hours later, I arrived in sunny, warm Las Vegas.

I stripped off my winter coat and hurried over to the Hard Rock Hotel where I would be staying for the night. I’ve never been to, let alone stayed, at the Hard Rock because it’s just off the strip but it was a really cool hotel. I had a killer room in Paradise Tower with a great corner view and the most luxurious bed I’ve ever been in.

(I also may or may not have a slightly drunk video tour of it on my camera that I may or may not upload later)

Later that night, I got dolled up in a pretty purple and black dress and made my way down to Body English for the press party. I mingled with some people, drank quite a few tequila filled drinks, seen Kara from American Idol and grabbed a press kit. I made my way over to The Joint because there was suppose to be a VIP Kid Rock concert there. Personally, not a fan of his but Khloe Kardashian was going to be there and I basically wanted to drink shots with her because she’s freaking crazy.

BUT

I got a message on Facebook from a friend who lives about 15 minutes away from me that I haven’t seen in a couple years that he was in Vegas as well. I ditched out Kid Rock and any hopes of getting hammered with Khloe in favor of heading over to the MGM Grand to meet up with Mark.

While I was waiting for him to find me, I sat just outside of the lion habitat (and was very upset they had gone to sleep) and was hit on by two Russian dudes in their 60s. Then Mark called and I walked away in the middle of their what I’m assuming was a plan to kidnap the really drunk girl from Chicago who was very sad the lions had gone inside. The rest of the night involved me playing slots with his money, him feeding me gin and tonics, Burger King, O’Sheas and a failed attempt at frozen hot chocolate from Serendipity 3. Probably lots of ridiculous conversation of which I remember bits and pieces. And who knows what else happened.

I eventually made my way back to the Hard Rock to catch a few hours of sleep. But my phone kept ringing and I guess people in Chicago thought it would be awesome to call me around 8 which is like 5 in Vegas. Then Mark texted me to tell me he was just getting in at 5:45 so lunch the next day was probably out and then the alarm in the room burst into my short lived dreams with Mexican music at 6.

Vegas did not want me to sleep. But who am I to argue with Vegas? When it calls, you listen.

I dragged myself out of bed slightly hungover, got ready for the day, packed my new gifted goodies in my already over packed bag, checked out and headed to the strip. Amazingly, I did not burst into flames when I finally seen the sunlight and decided to take a look at the newly opened Aria which was stunning. I walked the shops in Planet Hollywood, lunched in Caesar’s and finally got my hands on a frozen hot chocolate. Hit the slots again as I waited for my car and made my way back to the airport.

And that my friends, is how you do 26 hours in Vegas.

(I mean if you HAVE keep all your teeth, not find a baby in your closet and wake up with no tigers in your bathroom sans Bradley Cooper’s hot ass in a suit)

(but it could have been infinitely better had I had a suited up Bradley Cooper)

(many, many thanks to Swagg, Mark and tequila for an amazing time in Vegas!)

You see, my weekend was filled with too much awesome. So much that I’m hungover from it.

(Or not enough water, whatever)

At first I was kinda sick and that was just not going to go well with my plans. I had to cancel dinner with Jessica Maria, who was in town, and Ang on Thursday night. And then missed Friday night’s Motion City Soundtrack show and one of the outside pockets of my Marc Jacobs bag got completely soaked on the outside and I had a three minute meltdown in the Target parking lot that included freaking out on Twitter and me being very close to tears because YOU JUST DON’T FUCK WITH A GIRL’S MARC JACOBS.

(Yeah, I’m talking to you, Target carts)

That night after a little bit of  a late start, I met up with an old acquaintance, who I haven’t seen in about four years. Personally, I’m a fan of spending my Friday night talking to a cute boy and eating soup until 2AM. So here’s to new friends!

The following day, I spent it mainly in bed with Barney Stinson and making out Christmas cards which was great until I got a paper cut on my lip. Who does that? Apparently, I do.

(I’m sorry if your Christmas card has blood on it)

But yesterday was a pretty fantastic way to round out an amazing weekend. I was just minding my own business when I see a tweet from Whitney (who has an excellent fashion blog you should check out) that Rodarte for Target was out and I was all HJASDLAK and ran out wearing leggings as pants and my ugly boots. All my clothes were in the laundry and it was CLEARLY A FASHION EMERGENCY so I made an exception to my rule.

Bad fashion for the sake of good fashion. Duh.

Here is my good fashion: crepe lace print dress and this cardigan. The cardigan (mine is grey) is amazing which is to be expected if you are familiar with Rodarte knits. AMAZING.

And then I found out that Brittany Murphy died. WAY HARSH, TAI. But seriously, I need to go buy Clueless and watch on repeat to honor her memory because it’s really one of the best movies ever. She was way too young to come to an end so soon.

My sister, Sara, is also home for the holidays so she was my partner in crime for the night. Then I got a text saying Jessica’s flight got canceled and Sarah flew in from Detroit for the night and we all hung out at the Motion City Soundtrack show! I haven’t really listened to them too much but after seeing them live, they definitely have a new fan.  After we got to run backstage and say hi to Jesse (Jessica’s husband) and it was pretty cool being able to meet one of the people I’ve read about for so long.

The show itself was fantastic even if it made me feel totally old. I use to be the one bouncing around in the crowd freaking out to my favorite songs and this time I was up in the side balcony checking everything out from up top. Regardless, I need more rock shows in my life.

There is only one way to wrap a night of good fashion, music and friends: GRILLED CHEESE. So the sister and I headed to The 44th Ward Dinner Party to grab a Belmont Harbor which is basically the sandwich dreams are made of. No joke, come to Chicago and I will take you there.

And the winner for most awesome weekend ever goes to me.

A diamond encrusted toothbrush that allows me to sparkle while brushing my teeth, well sparkle if I wasn’t planning on placing it in a glass case on a satin pillow for all the world to admire and be jealous* that they don’t have a blinged out toothbrush.

Thanks to the lovely, Shaba! No gift will ever compare.

Do you think there is a market on Etsy for diamond encrusted toothbrushes? Just throw Twilight and Edward in the tags and you’ll make millions.

* except for Brandy. Our toothbrushes were separated at blinging**.
** do people still say blinging? I kind of hope not. Bedazzling? Let’s go with bedazzling.

No, really.

Sometimes you just need to buy shit. And then that shit makes you feel better.

This past weekend I went out to buy a new pair of boots and flats. But I happened to walk into TJ Maxx first because sometimes they just have good pieces and you get lucky. Well, I just had to do a quick run through of the handbags and then my eyes fell upon it.

THE BEST BAG IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.

(okay, maybe not world but the most perfect bag that I’ve never needed that day)

And I told twitter that I was in love but was having a hard time justifying it, you know with the whole been poor and jobless thing. So I proceeded to take many a lap around the store trying to talk myself into buying it or putting it down.

So I walked and walked around the store and then this happened:

This bag has been sitting here. Taunting me. Begging me to just take the damn tags off already. But I had to consult you all first. Here it is in all it’s purple leather, long strap AND handles WITH a zipper, roomy glory. It’s kind of everything I want in a bag that doesn’t start with “M” and end with “arc Jacobs.”

(It kind of reminds me of this Miu Miu bag I’ve been obsessed with for the past 2 years that I will probably never own until I get a sugar daddy.)

(Now accepting applications.)

So there you have it. The bag I probably should return.

Keep it or return it?

P.S. You’re fucking crazy if you think I’m going to return this. I just felt better pretending I would at least consider it. Let’s just talk about how pretty it is.
P.P.S. Don’t judge me! It wasn’t that that much.
P.P.P.S. FINE, stop pressuring me. It was $150 but it was the best goddamn $150 I have spent recently. Don’t you see how pretty it is?!
P.P.P.P.S. PURPLE LEATHER. STRAPS. HANDLE. ZIPPER. PURPLE.

I just like drinking it.

So what better way to choose your wine than picking out whichever is prettiest?

I told twitter about an adorable bottle of wine I bought about a month ago and then decided all the wine I would get from now on would be based on labels. Twitter wholeheartedly agreed with me and I was all, “OMG Let’s have a pretty wine label party!” then the awesome Working Girl Two was like “I’ll host it at my place!” which was fabulous because I live on the south side and people are afraid of the south side (and I don’t mean south loop. That is not the fucking south side.) and it’s is hard to get to.

ANYWAY.

Yesterday was our party. And it was amazing!

This is only a small portion of all the wine we had.

I really wish we would have got a photo of all of the bottles lined up. We had some really great ones. But at the time, drinking totally trumped photo taking. Understandable, right?

We basically had the best group of people come and had like 423 bottles of wine and snacks. Porch hangouts led to wine shots in the kitchen with Jess and Erin. Things were getting a little crazy and Lacey was like just stay with me and Nicole tonight instead of driving home and then the party REALLY got started. We killed off all of the white wine while having the most epic dance party in the history of the world.

No, really. Madonna. Nsync. The motherfucking LION KING.

And it only got better from there because POP! There went the red wine and the iPod started burning up because we were playing dj and dancing like crazy.

It was seriously one of the best nights I have ever had in my life. Everyone got along famously and had an amazing time. I really need more time with friends like this.

Thanks so much, ladies, for coming and hanging out.

I’m SO ready for Pretty Wine Party 2.0!

I got an incredible amount of satisfaction from this email.

Not going to lie.

Okay yeah, I know there are two huge things wrong with this dream of mine:

1) I have no rhythm and can’t dance very well (it takes a lot of alcohol to get me to the floor).
2) I’m like 3272034 pounds too overweight to be a burlesque dancer.

One of those issues could be resolved though and no, I don’t mean that I’m going take dance classes.

Let’s hit the gym, yo! I want me some fancy lingerie and boobie tassels!

(What?)

I’m sure many are wondering what brought the realization of this dream on. Well, my best friend (formerly known as the boy) was going to be playing VIP host for the night and very last minute managed to get me on the guest list for Ivan Kane’s Forty Deuce.

Forty Deuce is a burlesque show that is normally in Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay but I guess they have hit the road. So they were going to be at the Venue in the Horseshoe Casino which is all of a five minute drive from my house. What was really neat about it was how they mixed musical genres. It went from a “classic” burlesque set (Hey Big Spender) to a rock set (Pink Floyd’s The Wall) to a funk set (with some Kool and the Gang). And in between each “set”, there was an awesome DJ, Graham Funke, who is a resident at many Vegas clubs. I’ve seen him play before, he knows his shit.

Best part about it? Watching the show with best friend’s parents. While some might find that kinda awkward, I was all: whatevs, boobies bring people together. And then his mom loudly saying one of the girls had a “fat butt”. I almost died laughing.

All in all, it was a great show and a lot of fun. I wish I would have had more guest passes and notice and I would have invited some Chicago ladies along. It would have definitely been a great girls night outing!

ANYWAY.

Back to my future burlesque career.*

Watch your back, Dita Von Teese**. My boobie tassels will be better than yours one day.

* I think my career is ending before it even begins.
** Let’s just let Dita continue to think I’m a threat.

‘

This was a whirlwind of a weekend. But it was absolutely amazing.

Last year was my first year attending BlogHer, but I’m not going to lie, I was still pretty overwhelmed. Thursday afternoon, I walked into the Social Luxe party alone, did a quick run around the room and had to step out to take a breather. Lots of women, noise and so much going on. I was freaked for a second. The lack of cell and internet reception made it hard to connect with other people I might know to get a little more comfortable. But I sucked it up and made some friends!

I attended a few sessions but I walked out of some because they didn’t seem like the description. Or a lot of the ones I wanted to go to were too crowded or you couldn’t hear. I think last year may have had some better sessions. But I really think they need some bigger rooms, especially for sessions you know will be popular like those about branding or humor.

The exhibition hall was way bigger than last year. There were some really great booths there this year. I particularly liked Suave and Disney because duh, hair product and Mickey Mouse ice cream bars are the way to my heart. The food this year was a major upgrade. No crappy boxed lunches in 09. Woo! But the lack of water was awful. Tons of Pepsi products, which I love, but a girl needs some water too! (Note to self, bring water bottle next time.)

I got a massage in the MicroSpa. That dude worked the shit out of my shoulder. He told me he could tell it was jacked up so he spent extra time on it. And really? I’m going to have to work massages into my budget every now and then because I just felt so amazing after.

There was the Wienermobile which was fucking awesome. Tara and I got to take a ride around Chicago and harass tourists with the intercom thing and horn. It was amazing and so is Tara. I’m so happy I met her!

I met Tim Gunn. I’m pretty sure I literally squealed right before our turn. I was so scared and excited but he was probably the nicest person ever. We discussed Project Runway Allstars!

It was pretty great having BlogHer in Chicago. I got to do a few things that I’ve never done in my 25 years here. I took a carriage ride down Michigan avenue to the Hancock for a Nintendo Enthusiast dinner. Went up 95 floors to the Signature Room where we had an amazing dinner. The view was amazing. My table was amazing and watching lightning from 95 floors up was amazing.

Then I met Edward at the MamaPop party all decked out with my glow sticks and twittered about it and all you bitches went nuts. So here is my proof, me and Edward:

(dazzled drunk Jamie kissy face)

The next night, I walked the red carpet with my BlogHer crew at BowlHer (not BLOWher), rocked a hot pink boa and hit the open bar hard.

As if that wasn’t enough? It was time for the CheeseburgHer party in the Presidential Suite. This meant more wine and cheeseburgers. And of course, McDonald’s bag hats. For the second year, this has been my favorite part of BlogHer.

(this was taken on my iPhone but is pretty accurate. That night was hazy, blurry and filled with McD’s bags and hot pink boas)

My favorite part about blogging and BlogHer is the connections I make and the relationships that are built. My two partners in crime for the weekend: Jess and Katelin (stay tuned for a video blog from us soon!). New friends: Beth, Heidi and Tara, let’s all move to the same city. The best date ever, Maggie. Chicago gals that I don’t see enough, Allie, Suz and Angie. Yvonne is probably the coolest person ever and I love her so much. I wish we could have chatted more. Some official BlogHer ladies: Jeanne, Elisa and Jenny who I’ve been talking with for a long time so it was great to finally meet. And Gwen Bell was so so great even though I was totally awkward and didn’t know what to say around her. It was just amazing meeting people I admire and respect so much.

Everyone else I stumbled upon, drunkenly talked to, excitedly introduced myself to, speed dated, everything… I could go on forever and link everyone in the world but it was great meeting everyone! You know who you are.

Best part of a weekend with 1200 women?

No drama. No bullshit. Just respect and fun.

I was not interested in any of nonsense and just had the best time.. So thank you for that, ladies!

P.S. We will be hitting NYC for the conference in 2010 and I’m determined to have an even stronger 20 something presence there. So if you’re interested, let’s get the ball rolling and make this happen!

P.P.S. I was awful at taking photos. Once everyone else get some uploaded, I’ll steal some and make a BlogHer photo post.

* For the record, I don’t say it’s Christmas just because of the insane amount of swag. Everyone is all “wah wah BlogHer isn’t about the swag, you greedy bitches”. It’s the one time of year, your other (blogging) family gets together, learns things, has a big party, shares stories and gets drunk. Just like your normal family gatherings. AND the presents don’t hurt but swag is obviously not the reason why I go to BlogHer.