chadvaderIf you would have told me one week ago that I was about to spend a 5 day weekend in Las Vegas networking, learning from, and making friends with some of the internet’s most influential personalities for free, I would have un-friended you on Facebook and called you bad names in my head. It’s not nice to be mean like that, you know.

But obviously, you weren’t lying, and now I need to re-add you to my Facebook entourage, because it happened. I’ve been dreaming of going to the Blog World Expo for months and months. I entered contests. I tried to find sponsors. I even prayed for a pass sometimes. It wasn’t until the day before Blog World began (Wednesday) that my dreams came true. I got an email from my journalism professor announcing that the press pass I had applied for earlier that month had been approved!

Mind you, this was the day before Blog World. At 10 o’clock. My tentative ride was leaving at 11:30 am.

I canceled my plans for the weekend and packed my bags just in time to jump in the monster truck with two of my best mom blogger friends, Stephanie and Joanie.

As we drove, I tried to keep calm. I mean, I’m a dirt poor college student without an income, and it would not be appropriate for me to share a room with married woman (I might be poor, but I have class). I had no place to stay, and I had no money for a hotel room.

Turns out, luck found it prudent to shine down upon me once again.  I showed up at the Hilton that evening in the middle of a huge Tweetup. I was able to talk to some locals and explain my situation. Before long, I learned that the fellas at the Hilton were raffling off some free nights at the hotel.

You can only imagine my reaction when I won the last drawing at 10:30 pm with sweet jazz music playing in the background. To put it simply, I screamed like a little girl and nearly lost control of my bladder.

Not only did I get a free pass to the Blog World Expo, and a free room from the awesome guys at the Hilton in Las Vegas, but I even scored myself an income, got to see Cirque du Soleil for free, went clubbing with the raddest moms on the planet, met some of my heroes and became 100% addicted to Blog World.

I’ve never been much of a risk taker in my life, but I learned from this weekend that if you don’t go for it, you’ll never get it. Just start moving forward towards your goals, and the little bumps in the road will work themselves out.

And that, my friends, is the Blog World miracle.