Amber L. Carter's Blog, page 55

Morning work.

SMBMSP: After Hours - An Evening With Erika Napoletano (RedheadWriting)

Here's something fun I learned this year: If you want to meet one of your idols, just organize an event to get her to your town.

Although I'm sure this will surprise you, it's not as easy as it sounds.

(Unless you've got Mykl Roventine by your side)

Faithful readers will remember this from last spring. Even though I got my book signed by her, I still wanted to keep good on my word and give others the chance to meet this super awesome chick and learn more about the kickass stuff she does.

And now you can! 

If you're not already familiar with Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis, it is an awesome, awesome, AWESOME organization that puts on great events where you can meet the raddest people and learn a shit ton of cool stuff. While the monthly morning events mostly center around bacon (hey, it got me in the door) and different topics as relating to social media, SMBMSP: After Hours is a special evening thang with cocktails, conversation, and fantastic special guests.

Here's the thing: If you're into smart chicks with rad brains who are taking names and kicking asses when it comes to fucking owning life as well as their own corner of the biz world, you can't miss Erika. Even if you don't give a shit about social media or entrepreneurship or marketing, you're still going to want to come just to hear her speak, because this lady is fucking hilarious. And smart. And she has a way of bitch slapping you in a way that makes you like it.

Tickets are only $20 (buuuut there is a limit on them, and they're going fast, so you should go get yours now) and with that ticket you also get Erika's new book, a fan-fucking-tastic evening of cocktails, and a chance to hang with one of the coolest chicks you'll ever meet (Erika's pretty great, too).

So what are you waiting for, Mary?

EDITORS NOTE: Also, check out this awesome podcast that Mykl and Erika did this past week! Your girl Amber also gets a shout-out towards the end. That's totally not as important as the #mindpowerexplode interview that takes place between Mykl and Erika, except for the fact that I like getting shout-outs on podcasts and would like for it to happen more.

Hey guys, let's guilt each other into reposting an image onto our status that has no actual meaning or positive impact at all.

If you know someone who has made one of these, or someone who has shared one, (or someone who used to share one)...please add this blog post to your status for 1 hour as a mark of understanding that these are totally gross.

I hope I was wrong about the ones who will repost!!!!!!!!!!

Riblets. McRib. Ribbing. Ribbed for your pleasure. Rib-a-dib-a-dooo!

So yesterday I cracked a rib.

It didn't happen while drinking beers around midnight on Friday and getting into a Bouncy Castle with 5 of my best people pals (seriously, you guys, the part where your Friends With Kids have kids young enough to warrant a Bouncy Castle at their birthday party is one of the best parts of being friends with Friends With Kids), although, if I were going to crack a rib, you would figure that's when it should happen, right? Because that makes for an even more awesome story: We were drinking beers and bouncing in a Bouncy Castle and then I cracked a rib!

What is not such an awesome story is taking a flying leap on to your bed on Sunday morning to make your boyfriend laugh and landing - hard - with your hand in a fist underneath the right side of your rib cage.

Yeah. That was me. The girl who cracked a rib after she jumped into bed like a total fucking dorkatron.

It's not suuuuper bad - I didn't break off a piece of the riblet or anything - but holy crap, you guys. Did you know that when you crack a rib, every breath is an exercise in pain? Did you know that raising your arms or simply sitting - in any position! - hurts like a MOTHERFUCKER? Did you know that this can severely compromise some other stuff you've got going on, like, I don't know...showering, meditating, ab workouts with Jackie Warner, sitting at the computer and finishing a book, watching Shark Week...? Did you also know that it can take up to six weeks to heal and that you basically can't do anything for it except take some aspirin and a deep breath every hour to make sure your lung tissue doesn't collapse and you get pneumonia and die?!

Bet you didn't know all that, huh.

So yeah. Hope I don't get pneumonia and die.

But if I do, please remind my mom that my last wishes are laid out carefully and explicitly in my Living Will, and that I haven't changed my mind about "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" being played during my funeral procession, and I still want a cake made of my likeness that should be shared and eaten during that whole "Hey, someone died! Let's stand around and eat some ham sandwiches and talk about it" thing they always do after funerals. And if she could gather the most flattering and poignant photos of me and make them into a moving slideshow of my life set to the music of "Without You" by Harry Nilsson, that would be pretty cool, too, and would halve the odds of me coming back to haunt her as a ghost.

Wait, you guys...what if I came back as a ghost who haunted people by taking flying leaps onto people's beds?! HOW FUCKING AWESOME WOULD THAT BE. And then my eerie voice crying, 'This is how I diiiiiiiiiied!" as I did it would show up on the Ghost Hunters EVP when they did a show about it, and people would flip. The fuck. OUT. 

So maybe this rib thing isn't so bad!

We don't even have to pretend, because it DID totally happen.

Last night I was lucky enough to attend the book reading and signing by a one Jenny Lawson, aka, THE BLOGGESS.

Yeah. You know her.

Jenny was in town to promote her book, Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir). And it was awesome, you guys! You know how, sometimes, when you meet people you've admired for a long time, seeing their actual face in front of your eyes for the first time is kind of like staring into the sun: you're a little momentarily blinded while your brain scrambles to mold together all of your past conceptions of what they might be like in person with what they're really like in person? Jenny was none of that. She was hilarious and upbeat and as whip-smart and hilarious in person as she is on her blog.

I feel bad for all you fools who didn't go.

So does Beyonce.
Cluck-cluck, motherfucker.

The best thing on Twitter. Ever.

Or, at least for today.

Is it awesome that I'm reading a Women's Health magazine while eating a Reece's Peanut Butter Cup cookie?

Yeah. Pretty sure it is.

Mountain Wedding High

So this past week I was in Glacier National Park for the wedding of these jerks -

More heartfelt feelings after the jump.


Mountains and yard games and beergaritas and LARPING and late-night sing-a-longs and more mountains and a haunted cabin and A GRIZZLY BEAR JUST DECIDING TO SHOW UP WHILE MANTHEI AND I WERE WALKING IN THE RIVER.

East Glacier National Park, Montana What time is it? Hammock Time! #2Legit Brother...against...BROTHER! Haunted cabin...what's in there? Just a bunch of creepy redneck torture family zombies, I bet. Manthei, celebrating the fact that the grizzly bear must have had a big breakfast and therefore was not hungry enough to want to eat us.And then the wedding! The most beautiful wedding in the entire world. If you know me, then you know I'm a huuuuge bawl baby...and weddings, especially ones of my best friends, cause me to sob and weep and cry like it's a full-time job.

Yeah. It is pretty adorable.

And this one...it was just so intimate and magical and beautiful, not just because of the way they did the ceremony but because of who Erica and Chris are as people. Erica is not just one of my best friends - she is a kindred spirit. Back when she lived in Minneapolis, one of our most beloved traditions was taking a walk around Lake of The Isles while we talked about boys and writing and other stuff. I can still remember the walks when Chris was just a boy on the internet, and then the walks after they had met in Columbia (aka, after they both flew out to Columbia to meet up and hang out - talk about romantic, right? And absolutely perfect, if you know Erica), the walks when things were starting to get serious and therefore a little bit harder, the walk after Erica had met Chris' wonderful parents, the walk when they decided that she would be moving out to L.A. to live with Chris. Those walks are now like a moving, physical, landscaped scrapbook to me, of the trajectory of her relationship with this guy named Chris.

I already knew I liked him when Erica would tell me stories about his funny texts and emails to her, or when she would post pictures on her blog of the boxes FULL of candy that he would send to her. But I started to really love him when Erica would tell me stories of his patient and kind love for her. Late night phone conversations, pep-talk emails, and careful trips out of his geographical and comfort zone told me that Erica had found a safe and happy home in his heart. And that is the best thing that a friend can ever ask for, when it comes to someone you love finding someone they love.

So even though their wedding weekend was the first time I was meeting Chris face-to-face - and even though he did not, in fact, come through on our original agreement - I already knew that I liked him.

A lot.


A lot a lot.


You could even say I love the guy, in that non-creepy, totally platonic, "Hey I love you for marrying my best friend!" kind of way.
So anyway, congratulations again, Chris and Erica! Thank you for giving us all the most magical week of our lives.

And also, the dance party? That was pretty rad, too.

But now you're in Bali, which supports my reasoning for calling you jerks earlier. Have fun being beautiful and in love and all married on your tropical island for the next week. Pretty sure it won't be as awesome as humid Minnesota weather or traffic on 62 or dog walks around artificial lakes in the planned communities of Minnetonka, but I think you guys will probably have an okay time.

Author Edit: Last night I stumbled upon this post I wrote after meeting Erica face-to-face for the first time! So crazy. This is why I love having a blog...sometimes you're just smart enough to record those crucial bits of your life as they're happening.

When you get to hang with Maelyn, you wanna go for magic.

A pan of baking soda, food coloring in white vinegar, and a play syringe will do the trick.

What if, for every dollar we spent on entertaining ourselves, we matched it for a charitable, meaningful cause?