BlogHer ’11 Highlights: Who I Met and What I learned

As I was working on this post I came across a few blogs poking fun at all of us bloggers who attended “the conference” and are posting poetically about “our experiences.”  I had to sort of chuckle at myself, and it made me realize that all of my internal shuffling may not be that big a deal to the world.  However, I’m going to post some big things, if anything so I can remember them when I’m 80 and still blogging with a voice-activated iPad.  I’m sure by that point I’ll be lucky to even be able to read my past posts!

I learned a lot about myself at BlogHer (which is always a good thing).  Two big ones:

• I am scared of anything dressed up in a costume.  Weird.  I posed with the Jimmy Dean Sun (he is SO FLIPPIN’ NICE!- for reals) and that was okay because I could see his face, but I couldn’t do the Smurfs, the Pringles guy, or the California Raisin.  Too weird.  This makes no sense because when we go to Sea World or Lego Land I’m totally fine when I’m in “mommy mode.”  So strange.  My friend Dana waltzed right up and took pictures, but I either took them for her and then begged off or walked the other way.

• I really, really want to do something with blogging and writing (and maybe some crafting).  I have no idea what, but BlogHer ’11 has lit a fire under me to figure out what that is, and figure it out sooner rather than later.  I like technology (thank goodness I have Michael in my corner in that area), I like the Internet, I like reading and writing- it seems like a natural fit.  I still have scads of materials to go through that I was handed by different people from different companies- who knows.  I love and hate the open-ended-ness of it.

I also met some amazing people.  The biggest one for me, as in, “Holy cow theresheistheresheis…there…she…is….” was meeting Stephanie Nielson of the NieNie Dialogues.  She was amazing.  I was so nervous- I didn’t want to waste her time or make her feel like she had to talk to one more person.  But I also knew that I’d regret it later if I didn’t go say “hi.”

When the session was over my friend, Dana, saved the day again, ushering me up the stairs to meet her and take my picture with her.  Stephanie couldn’t have been nicer.  It helped that I had Em with me- I know she loves babies. 🙂  But seriously- I couldn’t admire anyone more than I do this woman.  Her strength, courage, perseverance… Not to mention her amazing sense of style and her beautiful family.  I feel like her story is one that constantly reminds me that there is a higher power.  Thanks to Dana for pushing me along and taking these pictures (she deleted some just so she could take these!):

Although I didn’t get to formally introduce myself because I had no idea who she was, the very first person I spoke to on Friday morning was Lisa Stone, CEO of BlogHer.  Yowzas.  It was awesome.  I was making my way into the Newbie Breakfast and she was walking out.  She stopped to peek at Emily, tilted her head, and asked,

“How old?”

“5 weeks.”

“*sigh* You’re making my uterus hurt.  You look fabulous.”

“I’m wearing Spanx.”

“Honey, everyone here is wearing Spanx.”

Hilarious.  She gave me the most genuine smile and told me to have a fabulous time.  Such a nice way to start the conference.

And then there’s this sweetheart I met in the Lactation Lounge, Ky of Two Pretzels.  Ky has a wonderful blog and an even more wonderful personality in person.  That’s really something I liked the most about BlogHer- it sort of humanized the whole blog experience.  Ky and I somehow ended up in the LL 3 or 4 times over the course of the weekend.  She was amazing and instead of dumping her pumped milk, she donated it to a local mom- how rad is that?  Currently Ky lives in Cabo.  Yes, as in Mexico.  So exotic!

I also met Jes Ferris of Chirky.  She oversaw a Birds of a Feather session I went to and I seemed to pass her everywhere I went- she ALWAYS smiled at me.  It was a nice reminder to smile at people.

I wish I could have seen my friend Tonya in action more.  She was in charge of a huge party that I did not attend in order to save my sanity and energy.  Tonya, who has nearly-5-year-old twins, completely understood, too- she’s cool like that.  Tonya is not someone I just met- come to think of it, she’s probably one of the first bloggers I ever met, but I just had to give her a shout out.

So there you go- my big BlogHer ’11 moments.  In a few weeks I will have fresh memories to take the place of these- so much coming up and so ready for it all (not.).  My “to do” list is growing and growing, but for now I’m perfectly content to let it grow right alongside my kids.  They don’t really care what I have to do, so I’m going to adopt that attitude for a while and just do what I can, the rest can wait.