I must admit that I keep thinking it’s Wednesday. Mostly because my daughter had a softball game last night and they are usually on Tuesdays.

Her team won, making it to the semi-finals, in a wicked-cool blow-out. When you’re 9, that’s huge.

OK, back to business. This morning I got myself out of the house before 7:30, which is when I’m usually trying to coax the toaster oven into just one more morning of dutiful service.

Instead went to a real, live networking event here in Evanston.

Much to my surprise (and horror) it was a speed-networking event.

Egads. That is about the worst thing imaginable for a coffee-deprived writer of elephant manifestos.

I went there to promote something that I’m doing more and more of these days (and yes, Jen, I am finally taking your advice!). I’ve officially started reaching out to more small, local businesses, talking to them about how to use blogs, establish really fun e-newsletters, showing them how twitter can be fun and beneficial, and all kinds of other things that it turns out my friends who own businesses need. If you’d like to find out more, visit my new “Remarkable Biz Blogs” page.

Well, somehow I managed to survive speed networking. That was largely thanks to the fact that I made a new and very sweet friend, Susie Gray,of susangraywellness.com, who is a craniosacral therapist. Just saying it sounds relaxing. It turns out she works a lot with kids, and we had a lovely conversation. She was my networking partner at about the midway point through the speed networking thing. Thanks, Susie, for helping me get a grip — and I can hardly wait to connect again.

I have to say there were so many nice people. To my great surprise I won a water bottle (which above-mentioned 9-year-old has already declared dibs on) from Cherie McKeage of cherieloans.com, a local mortgage planner.

I was with Lauren Galuszka of CJE SeniorLife when I won the water bottle. We had just been talking about what a good-lookin’ bottle that was. Lauren works with the elderly and her facility is fantastic. I can tell she’s an idea person, so we’re gonna get along just fine.

Joseph A. Smith was delightful to talk to, even though we had a whopping 2.5 minutes for conversation. He’s a financial planning expert, and we had enough time to mutually agree that these days many people are making some truly awful financial decisions.

My first new friend at the table was Hal Koughn, hal@halkoughn.com. He’s a very experienced Chief Operations Officer-kind-of-guy, so what he offers is like a “rent a C.O.O.” service for small, local businesses. I thought that was brilliant and very useful. He also lives right down the street from where I used to, and former neighbors are often very nice people indeed.

Brooke Saucier of the Evanston Chamber of Commerce and I had a memorable but brief conversation about twitter and about stay-at-home parenting. Many thanks to him for making me feel comfortable right from the start.

I also made a new friend in David LeRoy of Diagnostics Technical Support. David is one of those really, really fun and helpful folks you call when your computer has driven you almost to the point where you need someone like me for therapy.

Last-but-not-least were mortgage consultant John Noyes who has such a friendly way about him, and the passionate-about-doing-taxes-right Katherine Chung. I’m looking forward to getting to know all of you much better — and hopefully being able to spend longer than 3 minutes talking to you!

A special thanks also goes to David Levine of Illinois Nut & Candy. David, you should know that my kids are super impressed that I actually know someone in the candy industry. And I have friends whose children need gluten-free-everything, so that was 2.5 minutes well spent. The bribes were also very timely and well received!

Online, so many wonderful people to thank this week.

People are starting to subscribe to the “toddler tantrums” e-course, which is magnificent. I’ve also been in touch with several of them, and will soon be posting another e-course on child nutrition and behavior (the e-book is already on the “free stuff” page if you just can’t wait).

So much information on twitter, and I’ve found such amazing and inspiring people there. At the top of the list are @sparkyfirepants, an artist who is also a genuinely nice guy and who it turns out likes Effie, and of course my real-life big brother and general fun guy to hang out with, @oldermac (which makes me “younger mac”, I guess).

I also want to thank my happiness project group members, Staci (who has just yesterday given herself permission to “not,” which is super cool of her), Susan, Melissa, and Laurel. And of course all our kids. You guys are my center. Thanks for the guidance.

And, thank you to all my readers. And to Effie, who continues to share her wisdom ever so quietly and patiently. (*whisper * nudge * nudge * —> if you haven’t read The Elephant Manifesto yet and shared it, get it now!)

All my love to all of you, and keep rockin’ the world!

Anything you’d like to say thanks for this week? Feel welcome to share!