The concrete jungle of playground equipment looms before me on this random Tuesday afternoon.  Maybe this will be the day.  The day I meet her:  Mrs. Right.  Heck, I’ll even take Mrs. Right Now.  I have long since lost the idealism of a perfect match.  But these days, the prospect of finding a play date, any play date, seems slim to none.

The stay-at-home mom I seek is not for the benefit of my boys.  No, its for me.  I have been “off the market” for a while: having babies, changing diapers and potty training.  Now that I am ready to put myself out there again, it seems all the good ones are taken.  What’s an attractive, intelligent, 40-year-old woman to do?

I approach the monkey bars with my sons Gavin, 5 and Beckett, 3, eagerly looking for any prospects.  I spot one under the neon green, corkscrew slide.  She looks nice, well put together.  Maybe she craves a new friend who understands the minutia of our daily robotic life.  The mind-numbing “Groundhog Day” of laundry, snacks, cleanup, bedtime, repeat.

I remember, not so long ago, when making friends used to be easy.  Before kids, I was fun, outgoing and energetic.  Yeah, I’ll say it:  I was hot, hot, hot!  But these days I am a pantry full of Cheerios and a case of wet wipes away form being a survivalist.  The scolds of “no” and “not now” are the only intelligent words that have crossed my lips these past five years.

I worry that I have been out of circulation too long to jump back into the game.  That my edge is gone and my appeal has faded.  Or worse, that I have lost the ability to speak the foreign language of adulthood.  Still, I approach the woman.

“Hi, my name is Jane,”  spills out of my mouth, a little too eagerly.  “Hi,” she replies, looking at little caught off-guard.  “I’m Julie.”

I bet she gets hit on all the time.

I introduce my boys, who made friends with her children in less than 40 seconds- the little showoffs- and I begin the clumsy dance of probing her for information.

We exchange some pleasantries like, “What a great day to be outside,” and, “Wow, this park is clean,” and then I notice it.  Right there in the middle of her shirt: a baby bump.  We talk some more, and I learn she is due any day now.  In other words, she is off the market.  For the next six months, she will be devoid of any contact with the outside world, enmeshed in that foggy malaise of sleep deprivation and baby vomit.  She simply wouldn’t have time for a new relationship.

My fantasy of the two of us sipping Melot together on her gorgeous back deck with our cherubs playing perfectly together is dashed.  The rumors are true.  All the good ones are taken.

As I leave the playground, juggling my boys’ jackets, gloves,  hats, Cheerios bag , a tan rubber dinosaur, my car keys, a light-up giant eyeball, three rocks some acorns and a sand-encrusted Hot Wheels car, I wonder, am I doomed to be single forever?

I posed this questions to another mom I tried to “pick up” last week.  Sadly, she was already in a committed relationship with three gal-pals with children the same age as hers.  “She’s a play date polygamist!” But we discussed how hard it was to meet moms you want to hang out with : the fun ones, the happy ones, the ones without issues.  She gave me hope.  If she could date three at one time, then surely I could land one.  So I’ve re-doubled my efforts.  After all, I am quality.  Any mom would be lucky to have me as her play date.  Right?

I’d say the majority of my time online are spent either using these words, learning about these words or playing with these words. Pretty cool. Have you done one for your site?

December 23 Web tool. It came into your work flow this year and now you couldn’t live without it. It has simplified or improved your online experience.

Tonight I sat here a while thinking about all the web tools I use for both work and personal, trying to decide which one meant the most to me. I pretty much exist because of web tools. I’m not joking here. As the Community Manager and SEO for SEOmoz, I spend my entire day online. Usually communicating with people through social media, instant messaging, email, pretty much anything you can imagine. If I’m doing site audits, I use a gamut of tools from various Firefox plugins to Google Webmaster Tools.

Although all of these are essential to my daily life, there’s really only one that helps me focus during the day. Only one that can instantly pick me up if I’ve had a bad day, or take me back to a specific moment in time. Whether I’m working in a coffee shop or from home (and soon to be from the office… WOOT!) I couldn’t go through the day without Pandora.

As I type this Pandora is playing “Ixtapa” from Rodrigo y Gabriela and it makes me smile. How many web tools do you use that can put a smile on your face? Exactly.

Family

Career

Personal

Life

Challenging

Crazy

Engaging

Colorful

Tough

Tiring

Lovely

Eye Opening

New

Long

Short

Fun

Transforming

REWARDING.

This was a year for change for our family and for me personally. The one word that encapsulates 2009 for me better than any other is “Rewarding.” Oh what a year. Whether it was watching our sweet daughter grow into her personality, changing careers, or nourishing my relationship with my husband, 2009 was rewarding.

I can only hope 2010 has as much to offer as 2009 did.

Today’s topic for the #best09 blog challenge:

December 17 Word or phrase. A word that encapsulates your year. “2009 was _____.”

December 8 Moment of peace. An hour or a day or a week of solitude. What was the quality of your breath? The state of your mind? How did you get there?

As a working mom it’s definitely difficult to find those moments of peace. Lately I’ve realized I need to take steps to ensure I get even short moments where I’m not working, thinking about my family or any number of million things that need to get done in a day.

Although I’ve started making sure to do little things like give myself a facial mask every now and then, stretch and breathe before going to bed or even play sudoku to take my mind off things, I still have a long way to go.

The view from my hotel room in NYC

The one moment though that stands out to me was on my trip to New York in October. One night after having dinner with co-workers I was ridiculously full and decided to go for a walk. I didn’t go too far really, just a few blocks around the hotel. It was a crisp night and it was great to feel the vibe of the city.

As I walked through Times Square (not normally an area of the city I love) where the flash of the lights and the sound of music and other noise is deafening, I ran across this man playing “drums.” In those few minutes as I stood there watching this amazing guy I forgot where I was. His music grabbed me and pulled me in. The craziness around me was gone.

The moment didn’t last long… a few minutes at best. But I had my handly flip video camera with me and had been shooting all sorts of random things that evening. I actually didn’t even realize I was taping (is that even the right thing to say??) him until I went to put money in the hat and remembered!

Walking through the city that night was somehow quite relaxing, and this man playing drums was the icing on the cake. I walked back to the hotel and the wind had picked up. When I got up to my room I realized  I was absolutely freezing, but the smile on my face made me forget all about it.

Oh! And I can’t forget this gem. Although it wasn’t the most relaxing part of my stroll around NYC, it was the most exciting! This is how my walk that night began:

Yea, uh huh. That’s Jude Law! Maybe this is what kicked off the serenity in my walk.

I <3 NYC!

December 6Workshop or conference.Was there a conference or workshop you attended that was especially beneficial? Where was it? What did you learn?

This year I attended 8 work related conferences and spoke at 4 of them. One thing I’d like to focus on this coming year is speaking more in order to perfect that art.

As for the best conference this year, our own SEOmoz Training in August was by far the most informative, interesting and fun conference I attended. Each speaker had 30 minutes to an hour so they were able to really get into some in-depth information. Many conferences have 3-5 speakers on a panel, who have maybe 10 minutes each. This makes it really difficult to get anything other than high-level information.

Not only were the sessions great, but the entire seminar was a ton of fun. The food was great (which rarely happens at a conference) plus each night there were networking events that gave me the chance to talk with many of the attendees. I really look forward to next year and hopefully will also get to attend our training seminar in London as well.

Here are a few of my write-ups on some of the conferences I attended this year:

Favorite Tidbits from PubCon 2009

SEO Training Series – First Day Wrap up

The Good, the Bad and the Funny – SES San Jose 2009

Best Thing About Search Conferences

Jane and Robot Search Developer Summit

This is my version of Rudy and my recent road trip. I wanted to document it as well as attempt to take a few good photos. Rudy is the real photographer though, and if you want to see amazing photos of the trip, be sure to check them out here: Road Trip: December 5 – Laramie and Brush.

As I was going through the photos and trying out various free editing software, an idea formed. Why not tell the story in photos? It was a fabulous day, although it was seriously freezing outside. We look forward to having this road trips in Seattle soon!

December 5 Night out. Did you have a night out with friends or a loved one that rocked your world? Who was there? What was the highlight of the night?

This is actually a tough one. I don’t go out nearly as much as a used to! For one, the economy has more or less kicked our butts, and if you have kids you know how hard it can be to coordinate a night out. Plus, since I manage an online community I usually need to do a little work at night. This was also a tough topic because the times I have gone out, have all been pretty wonderful.

The beauty if being picky and choosy about when you go out and when you don’t/can’t is that it seems to limit the number of boring – sucky – expensive – so so – nights. Rather than pick just one, I decided to describe the top 5 awesomely magnificent nights of 2009.

Night Out With Best Friends

I’m actually not really sure of the exact date and this may very well have been in December 2008. I think it still qualifies though because the pictures didn’t get posted to Facebook until February 2009. This is a group of friends from college including Melissa and Teresa who also write (ehem) here at MomsByte. Melissa was in town from far away South Africa so we had a fun night with some of my very best friends in Fort Collins (where we went to college).

Jen, Aubrey, Melissa and Teresa at the Rio in Fort Collins

Wishing Good Friends Farewell at Mataam Fez

What an amazing night I had with my husband Rudy and our friends Lindsay, Eric, Evan, Cindy and Jesus. This was out first time to Mataam Fez, a wonderful Moroccan restaurant in Denver. Lindsay and Eric moved to Seattle a few days later and this was our last time seeing them until we went to Seattle in June. We had such a great time! We ate, danced, laughed and just had an amazing time with great friends.

Rudy, happily giving the belly dancer a dollar

Celebrating My New Job

We invited a bunch of friends out in April to celebrate my new job. We went to Patrick Carroll’s which is just a few blocks from where we live. Many past co-workers joined us plus quite a few of our friends. The best part of the night though was when we went back to our house and some of the guys played guitar while the rest of us stole our daughter’s (she was at grandma’s house) instruments. We stayed up way too late, singing, goofing around and laughing up a storm. It was the perfect way to kick off what was the beginning of many, many changes in our lives.

We ran out of adult-sized instruments

A Fun (and very late) Night with the JDs in NYC

In October I went to New York City for a job-related conference. There were plenty of conference parties, and great times out with my professional friends. However the night that made this top 5 list was my last night in NYC. I have two friends named JD who both live in NY and we went out on the town. Hah! Ok, not really. But we did find an amazing (and inexpensive) restaurant called the Hummus Kitchen in Hell’s Kitchen (JD #1’s new ‘hood). From there we spent the next few hours (went to bed around 5am) checking out the neighborhood.

The perfect JD sandwich

We went to a couple bars, at one we got everyone at the bar (ok there were 8 people total including the bartender, but it was like 2am or so) to take a shot. We also stopped for dessert and coffee at some point and ended up back at my hotel room and Skyped with Melissa (who was just waking up in South Africa). This was one of those nights that “just happened” and it was absolutely perfect.

Killers Concert at Red Rocks!

I’m not sure this one needs much of an explanation. I mean seriously… seeing the Killers at Red Rocks was amazing!

Fans going crazy at the Killers concert

We met for dinner first, then headed over to Red Rocks. I hadn’t been to a concert in over a year so I was super excited! We made our way down to pretty close to the stage, which was great for watching the show. However when it was time to leave, we had to climb our way out to get back to the car.   The parking lot was a complete mess – of course – so we hung out for a while. We had a great time taking photos and generally messing around while we watched the crazy people trying to leave.

Yun, Jozianne, Jen, Laura, Eric and Josette feeling the love after the Killers concert

Whew! The biggest takeway I’ve found from reflecting on my best nights out in 2009 is that I truly have a great group of friends. I’m so grateful to have many people in my life who I love and care for. Thanks everyone!

Obviously there are still a few more weeks in December, and I’m hopeful that there will be at least one memorable night to add to this list.

December 3 Article. What’s an article that you read that blew you away? That you shared with all your friends. That you Delicious’d and reference throughout the year.

Oh! And actually this is my 3rd post in 2 days because I got a few people from work to give up their favorite articles of year as well, and put a post together.

So, everyone (I say everyone but mean the 3 other people who read this blog) is going to think I’m a big kiss-up or something. But out of all the articles I’ve read this year – and I read a LOT, as it’s part of my job – the one that grabbed me, pulled me closer than knocked my socks off was this: Intention: How do you start your day? from Gwen Bell.

Ok, to be honest it was this post over on Outspokenmedia.com that first turned me on to Gwen. After reading that post, I started following Gwen on Twitter. August was a crazy busy month for me, and honestly I wasn’t paying much attention to my Twitter stream. But in September, I saw a tweet from Gwen that caught my eye.

(btw just in case you’re wondering, this is how I found the tweet Yes. I’m a geek)

I clicked over and saw the post mentioned above. It was in the middle of the work day, so I quickly scrolled through, thought “ok this is interesting, I’ll come back to that” and went on with my day. A day or so later, I remembered it and went back to check it out.

Now, I was going through a pretty rough (as in I was being a major crab ass) time. There wasn’t any one thing that was making me blue, just being busy, life changes, etc. And I found myself every day going back and re-reading this post. I’ve always been pretty lazy and absolutely hate getting up in the morning. I loved the idea that the way you started your day was the way your day would go. I mean, come on… it’s not profound or anything, but for some reason I had never really thought of it before.

Once upon a time I had also become interested in Buddhism and Zazen but let life take control and although I never lost interest, I also never read more, practiced enough (ok at all) or tried… really. Watching the video of Patrick (below) made me laugh and honestly reading the post was quite relaxing to me. Seriously, check out the post. The content, the layout, the photos, it’s all very calming.

So I set out to make some changes. Not just to my morning routine (which usually started with me complaining about something) but to my entire schedule. I had to kick myself into gear, think positively, be positive, get my shit together. There. I said it! I was a mess.

I’m still a bit of a mess… haha I suppose it takes some time. But this post pointed me in the right direction and got me on my feet. Thinking about what was important to me, how did I want to portray myself (and be) to others, was I really this crabby 36 year old mom and wife? Remember these are questions to myself… no need to answer that last one.

The point is…the article rocked my socks off and started me off on the right foot (well maybe the left foot because the left is best, right? heh). The next article of hers that launched me into something new was How to create your personal manifesto. But that one will have to wait for another day. I’m pretty sure you’re bored to death right now (and yes, I mean you… the one person who’s read this far).

Thanks Gwen. I really appreciate your positive attitude and sharing your ideas with others.

I set out last night to write the first post about my best trip of 2009 (the topic for December 1st) but instead I ended up upgrading Wordpress, changing the logo and getting the site organized. I figured what the heck, there will be a new topic tomorrow right? Lucky for me today’s topic is your best restaurant moment of 2009… which just happens to have happened during my favorite trip!

This year I’ve had the opportunity to travel quite a bit for work; both to conferences and to the office which is in Seattle (I’m in Denver… for now). Which means I’ve had plenty of options for both the best trip and best restaurant experiences over the year. But the one that really stands out in my mind is the one where my family was able to join me!

In early June I had a conference to attend plus needed to spend a little time in the office. We decided it was a perfect opportunity to get my husband and daughter out as well so we took a nice long weekend. I headed out early, then later in the week, they joined me. This meant that my husband was in charge of taking our daughter on her first flight, by himself. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t do it, but there is just so much that goes into traveling with a child that I think he was a bit nervous about it.

Needless to say, the flight went great and having headphones and an iPhone definitely helped. We did some of the touristy Seattle things, like go to Pike Place Market and see the Aquarium. But mostly we got to know Seattle. What we didn’t realize going into it, was that by the end of the trip we’d realize how much we’d love living there.

With my job being in Seattle and working from home in Denver, it was definitely a possibility. But until that trip, I wasn’t overly excited about it. I’ll have to write more about the future another time… but for now this was my favorite trip of 2009. Not only did I have my family with me, but we made a decision as a team that Seattle was the place for us. (Of course at that time it was sunny and gorgeous the entire week! hah)

Now on that same trip, one morning (early afternoon perhaps?) we met up with our good friends Eric and Lindsay Wassell for brunch(ish). They had recently found out she was pregnant with twins, and we were trying to show off our little Eva and how awesome kids were. Eric was sitting next to Eva and was trying to keep her entertained. He was pretty good at getting his spoon to not slide off his nose (we won’t discuss how big his nose is… kidding!!) and she wanted to try! What came of this was lots of laughter and our 18 month old daughter sitting in a restaurant with a spoon on her nose, happy as can be. We laughed so hard at her glee!

It was wonderful. One of those experiences where the company, the food and conversation all mesh and you simply have a wonderful time. It wasn’t a fancy place. We didn’t spend a ton of money. We just had a great time. It was truly special and I look forward to going back there when we move to Seattle! (ok ok more about that another time) Unfortunately the Wassells have moved away, but some day we’ll meet up with the whole gang (remember, they’re having twins!) one of these days.

If only you could see the smile on my face from writing this. What a fun trip, and wonderful brunch! I’d be doing a disservice if I didn’t show off my husband’s photos of the trip (see the full set here). He’s a ridiculously awesome photographer and I’ve grown accustomed to always having amazing photos of our trips.

I love you guys. Thank you for a wonderful trip!