I don’t know who said it or I’d happy attribute it to them, but I opened up my notes folder in my email and found the following:

The more success you have the more difficult it is to be uninhibited because you come to like the success and are afraid of losing it.

I don’t remember where I was but I do recall a speaker saying so and I thought, “Oh yes, that’s why I’ve become so timid with my blogging.” It’s true, it’s very true, because blogging makes me feel like I’ve connected with so many of you. However with so many others it makes me feel like I’m standing here, tits sagging and wearing granny panties… or even worse my Hanky Pankys and you can see that my ass fell.

It’s so scary sometimes to be… wait for it… my authentic self (I know gag Oprahism disgusting) because with every added reader I’m terrified to lose one. It’s crushing every time someone dismisses us (bloggers) as not worthy of reading, and we smile and keep writing but oh please we’d all be keeping journals if we didn’t want to actually be read. Right?

One of my favorite email subscriptions is to fear.less. They don’t update every day, but when they do I’m spellbound, reading about people overcoming incredible hurdles. When my only hurdles are intrinsic and strangers on the internet I feel a little embarrassed and a little empowered all at once.

Since incubators like Science are now calling Los Angeles home I figure it’s time to start a series of posts to show off some of our finest startups.

Eventup caught my eye because it starts in the geek space but ends up in the mom space (even if they don’t realize it yet). Eventup is a site that allows you to search for a location for your event big or small in and around Los Angeles with other cities soon to launch. If I search New York I find one garden apartment, I’m assuming there will be more fabulous locations soon.

Everyone who watches the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills knows that everyone in and around Los Angeles spends $60,000 for a child’s birthday party. No? Okay maybe not $60k but I swear sometimes it’s hard to keep it under a thousand even when they’re tiny.

Let’s say you want to have a party where four year olds run around and scream their heads off but your back yard is a disaster area. Go browse eventup and you’ll find locations like this house in Beverly Hills that sits on a one acre lot. How’s this for a back yard?

Or if you’re like my friend Emily you could use Eventup to find the perfect spot for a Midnight Brunch. Yes really, brunch at midnight…

I’m excited to watch eventup launch here in Los Angeles and even more excited to see how it will expand and which cities will embrace it first.

In the end of January I was invited to Chicago along with 40 other bloggers to attend the Kenmore Blogger Summit. Since I am a fan of all things Kenmore I decided to brave Chicago’s winter and have 24 hours in the city.

It’s not easy to get to Chicago in the middle of a snowstorm. The flight was delayed and leaving the airport was more complicated than it would have been in Los Angeles or Bali. I think maybe next year’s summit should take place in Bali.

The good news is that I got there in time to hear a presentation about Google Plus. I kept waiting to hear about features I didn’t know about and I found myself oddly delighted that I did, in fact, know what there is to know about Google+. I’m not sure why that gave me so much pleasure, but it did.

That night I had drinks with friends and pretty much passed out cold by midnight, which was only 10pm my time.

The next morning everyone was whisked off from the hotel to Kenmore Studio. Everyone but me. I was late, but to be fair I was like five minutes late… if that. So I hopped into a taxi a met them there.

While at the Kenmore studio we oohed and ahhed spontaneously as chefs gave us tricks and tips to while using Kenmore products. The blender is quick and makes a kicky smoothie. Everyone loves a green drink and wants to add kale. I am not everyone but still I love a smoothie. We played with the toasters (I own one incidentally and it’s amazing). If you don’t own a convection toaster oven your life is not complete.

I roast baby and fingerling potatoes in my convection toaster oven. I add nothing to the potatoes and toss them in my toaster oven for 15 minutes. If they’re big I might go up to about 20 or 25 minutes. That toaster oven has singlehandedly added potatoes to our menu.

They brought in a personal trainer to talk about how you can turn vacuuming into exercise. It was funny and Tanis definitely stole the show… I recently bought myself the Intuition vacuum and I swear by it. It’s amazing to have a canister vac if you’re on stairs and there’s a little red and green light that indicates when floors are clean or dirty. It’s just fun, and cleaning house isn’t typically what I’d describe as fun.

The stand mixer is really nice and it features a light that shines down onto your mixing bowl. Kenmore added some features to it’s washer and dryer… which I’m sure are great, but at the end of the day these washers just clean the clothes and clean them well.

What was amazing and had everyone gasping for breath was the new refrigerator. I can’t do it justice, so if you’re looking for a new refrigerator or if you just want to see what you won’t be getting because you don’t need a new refrigerator here’s a quick video.

We also had a slow cooker challenge which my group did NOT win… and I tasted our stew and it was kind of gross… Of course I had to think of my friend Mike who is hysterically funny and swears that mothers who love their children don’t use slow cookers. I’m not sure I can agree with him… a slow cooker sure would be nice for making chili or soup if I lived somewhere cold.

The folks at Kenmore are smart about their product line. They’ve packed in technology, features and sleek design and they’re smart about social media too. Follow them on twitter at @KenmoreConnect and interact on Facebook too, the facebook page in particular shares a lot of fun stuff.

The Little League in our neighborhood is for parents too. There are moms and dads who spend a lot of time on the fields or hanging out with other parents. So much time that they’ve brought in televisions so that they can enjoy full days at the snack bar with their friends.

Baseball is everything for a lot of parents.

Baseball was everything for my son. He’s a decent player, not the best, and certainly not the worst. There are divisions by age set up but players can “play up” or “play down”. There’s a live draft and a group of fathers who are building up their summer travel teams… sort of cart before the horse. They don’t take the spring season seriously, they’re just building super teams so that they can spend the summers together playing baseball. Ooops, I mean their sons will play baseball. Freudian slip one can only suppose.

Alexander is playing down this year. Based on skill it makes little sense. Based on Little League politics it makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately in addition to playing down he’s on a team where some other kids are playing up. So he’s ten and playing with eight year olds.

He doesn’t want to go to practice this afternoon. I can’t say I blame him but I’m trying to put on a happy face for him. None of his friends are even playing in his division and it feels like Alexander’s been punished by a groups of fathers who make the Mean Girls look dainty.

Part of me wants to shame them but the better part of me knows that it’s probably for the best. It’s unlikely that Alexander will last through the season there, and if he wants to quit I’ll likely let him. I don’t like the idea of kids quitting anything, but I detest the idea of grown men ruining a great game for kids because their horrible egos got in the way. We’re looking at adding two tennis lessons a week and if he does quit baseball he can add a third or possibly a fourth.

I can say with absolute and complete honesty that I despise these men that take a child’s game and turn it into a power play for themselves. I’m not sure what went wrong for them in their lives that they’re unable to think of other people’s children.

I do think that when Alexander gets over this hump of dejection that it will be positive. It’s not like they play baseball at country clubs, right?

I hate the Chevy and Ford rivalry. I mean everyone knows that I’m polyamorous when it comes to automobiles. I love them all.

This Super Bowl Commercial makes me giggle. It’s a fantastic concept but it takes a hard swipe at Ford and features Hostess Twinkies.

GM and Hostess have something in common, right? Bankruptcy anyone?

Mr G and the kids are through the roof excited about the Super Bowl. We are certainly hoping for a big Giants Win.

This cold and flu infographic caught my eye and made me giggle. It’s just about the only part of the SuperBowl madness that I can relate to.