August 11, 2010

BlogHer Wrap-Up

I decided on Friday night that there was no way I was making it to 8 a.m. breakfast on Saturday. I needed sleep, first and foremost. After arriving back at the hotel after midnight, it just wasn't going to happen. I grabbed coffee from my room and figured I'd function on caffeine and a granola swag bar that found its way into my bag until lunch.

I spent my morning and afternoon floating in and out of sessions. They told us to "vote with our feet" so I did, often. I was really pumped about the Fitness Blogging session, but after investing 15 minutes, realized that this was a room full of a lot of women who wanted to talk about weight loss and plateaus. There's nothing wrong with that; but it wasn't what I was expecting so out I went.

I found myself in the Tragedy session where two of the speakers were Anissa and Peter Mayhew. Anissa suffered a massive stroke and her husband blogged her progress and the family's heartache in the days that followed. Listening to them speak was inspiring, especially after losing my grandmother to a massive stroke in April.

When it was over, I rushed out to the Humor Writing session. It was funny, but it was so packed and when I saw a message on twitter that the Small Blogs session was incredible, I walked again.

I walked into this room and looked around. This, the last session of the conference, was filled with women I had met and connected with during the conference. People talked about loving their small blogs, and using their blogs as writing exercise, not for ad revenue and shameless self-promotion. It was here that I had the guts to speak up (before the time was out-which had happened to me in another session). (By the way-here's a link to that post I mentioned in there.) I stood up and suggested that instead of all running off after the session was over, why not stay, exchange business/blog cards and get to know each other a little better? We may not have 50,000 followers on Twitter or write a blog that pays our mortgage, but couldn't we all help each other grow and at least expose our writing to other like-minded people?

The response was incredible. Instantly, Tricia turned around and handed me her card. I instantly saw "fighter" and knew we would hit it off. She teaches boxing of all things. With a blog called Left Hook, we were destined to be friends. Even though this looks more like a right back fist, she is legit. She's actually just showing off her new swag bracelet.

P1010378

Then other women started moving over towards me and handing me their cards as well. This was a friendly group. By the time I left the room, about 20 minutes after the session had ended, I had met at least 15 new people and found some really interesting new blogs to read. Here's my collection of cards from the weekend.

P1010387

When the final keynote of the day wrapped up, I returned to my room to get ready for the night. Armed with a cell phone full of blogger's phone numbers, I wasn't worried about arriving at parties by myself. As a crasher anyway, who didn't realize the importance of RSVPing or trying to get invites to private parties, I was relieved when Faiqa invited me to a Blogger Meet-up at The Volstead, for all the bloggers without parties to attend. Funny that I had no parties to attend, but still didn't know about the Blogger Meet-up. I sent text messages to all my new friends and they began filing in. It was one of the most relaxed environments all weekend and I had a blast while there.

Here I am with "Mrs. Smith," whom I will always think of as a great little sister. We had an absolute blast together.

P1010372

It was after The Volstead that we went to Sparklecorn, which sounds cheesy and ridiculous, but it was easily one of the best parties I had ever been to. . .EVAH. This is the cake from said party, made by Charm City Cakes. You know, the Ace of Cakes people on The Food Network. I seriously love them and couldn't wait to try the cake. Each turret, unicorn, etc. was a different flavor. The one I had was banana and it was easily the best cake I have ever had. Mrs. Smith had a peanut butter slice and I was lucky enough to snag a bite of that one as well. It tasted like a Reese's Peanut Butter cup would if it was a cloud. In a word: incredible.

P1010375

Then, standing right beside that amazing cake, I recognized one of the people I was determined to meet over the weekend. . . Amalah. One of the first blogs I ever read, I felt like I already knew her as I walked up, introduced myself and asked for a picture. The coolest part? She totally knew who I was, probably because as a newbie blogger I had tagged her in a meme just for fun. I never thought she'ddo it, but she did and the mad hits I had that day from Amalah blew this then-newbie blogger out of the water. She was gracious, warm and totally normal. What a relief.

P1010381

Before heading out, "Green" and I posed for a picture and spent some time discussing our experiences at BlogHer. If you appear on her blog, you appear as a color and she promised me "teal." You guys all know how much I like my shades of blue and green around here.

P1010382

With Sparklecorn wrapping up, Mrs. Smith and I headed over to CheeseburgHer. A so-called rite of BlogHer passage, I wasn't surprised to see so many people walking around with McDonald's bags on their heads. I had seen the pictures from last year. And then I saw Goon Squad Sarah! Buddies in my blogger fantasy football league for years, it was so nice to finally meet her.

P1010386

After getting my fill of snack wraps and burgers, we decided enough was enough. All in all, I had a great time at BlogHer. There were some awkward moments; but overall, I made some great new friends, and found inspiration and writing advice that I needed. . .

If only I had met Lisa Stone (whose blog has clearly been neglected because she's been all busy running some site called BlogHer or something). . .

P1010385

And there she was, in the gray dress right behind Mrs. Smith. If only I had known this before I downloaded my pictures after arriving at home. "Hi Lisa, wish we had met."

Finally, because you can't talk about BlogHer without talking about the swag, I'll show you this, a partial picture of all the swag because I had already loaded all the edible stuff into my pantry closet. I didn't attend the private parties with vacuum cleaners. I didn't have any clothing companies throwing free clothing at me. But I did make some nice connections with sponsors, and get some cool new stuff, my favorite being the Tempur-Pedic travel pillow that made my bumpy bus ride home a little more tolerable.

I learned many things at BlogHer this past weekend. First, I love this blog and I should be more proud of it and promote my writing and my work more often instead of worrying that people will be offended by something I might write one day. Second, some bloggers can be downright odd. I should have expected this, but I guess not everyone has a healthy balance between their online lives and the ones they tend to write about. And finally, there are some amazing people out there; and I consider myself very lucky to have been able to attend a function where I could meet so many of them.

I would like to thank my neighbor Amy, for letting me borrow some beautiful jewelry pieces for the trip. Thank you Amy!