My Journey Through Blissdom 2010

I’ve been trying to write this post for the last several days… I guess I’m still trying to process everything that I learned, exprienced, and observed at Blissdom. My head is swirling with inspiration and ideas and I’m looking forward to putting those ideas into action sooner than later!

I know that not everyone who follows this blog is a blogger. So, for those of you who aren’t familiar with Blissdom, it is a conference tailored to women who publish online {aka blog}. This year 500 tickets were made available and the conference was SOLD OUT.

We began our journey on Thursday, February 4th, after making the short 2 hour drive to Nashville, TN, we arrived at the Opryland Hotel Thursday afternoon. We? Yes, we. Go ahead, call me a chicken, but I wasn’t about to attend a conference by myself. So, what’s a girl to do? I dragged asked my mom to go with me. :)

We checked in, hiked to our room and unloaded our stuff for the weekend. I gathered my laptop, notebook, business cards and a hotel map and headed for the Inspirational Writing Workshop sponsored by Hallmark. When we arrived there were crowds of women sitting on the floor outside of conference rooms. I immediately felt overwhelmed. Did I look ok? Would I be able to recognize other bloggers? What would they think of me? GULP. The workshop was inspiring in case you were wondering! :)

That evening we were scheduled to attend an “off-campus” party at the Country Inn. That’s when the fun really began! I’ll spare you all the details, but in short it involved a sweet bus driver named Marla, getting lost, pulling into the wrong hotel, and almost crashing! Good times on the #countrypartybus! It was during that ride I met Corrin, The Chatty Momma, Southern Bella’s Ways to Save, The Frugal Find (and her hubby), and Ms. Latina!

That same evening we attended the Clever Girls Collective Party where I won a giveaway and met Heather of Just Doing My Best!

Friday morning we had a yummy breakfast sponsored by Bagelfuls (If you haven’t tried them, you should! The strawberry cream cheese ones are delicious!) Breakfast was followed by the opening keynote speaker- Kevin Carroll. His story is an amazing one! He encouraged and inspired us to find our own red rubber ball.

We learned the legals in and outs of blogging and the art of personal branding. We enjoyed a yummy Hunt’s sponsored lunch of Eggplant Chicken Parmesan. Absolutely no detail was left unturned. Just look at these cute centerpieces!

The highlight of the evening was attending the Savvy Blogging Dinner! This event was hosted by a group of amazing women (check out the Savvy Blogging team.) During this event I had the opportunity to meet Carrie, Melissa, Angie, Sara of Savings.Com, and Andy. The food was yummy, the swag rocked, but most of all I enjoyed being in the company of some of the best known names in the blogosphere!

During Satuday’s breakout sessions we attended “Blogging With The Stars,” “Evolving into a Professional Blogger,” “Niche Blogging,” and “The Wizards of Ad.” The one message that was consistent throughout all the sessions was- Be Who You Are & Blog What You Love!

The night concluded with a pajama party and karaoke (and no, I didn’t sing)! Here, I had the opportunity to meet Miranda {who gave me cards for free toilet paper!} :)

Would I go back? Absolutely! Seriously, look at all the Swag I brought home.

Special thanks to my Momma for tagging along! I had a blast. :)