BlogHer – Unlikely Martha

BlogHer 12…Who I Met

Please note at BlogHer there is so much walking and carrying of bags of swag to do that wrangling my camera became quite a feat so you will deal with my shortage of DSLR photos and my plethora of iPhone Instagram photos. Unfortunately I still failed to get a lot of photos. There was a lot going on and everything was moving fast and keeping up with a camera wasn’t first on my priority list.

I arrived in New York late Wednesday evening after an awful flight. I’ll spare you the details but just make note that we sat on the runway for nearly an hour after my flight was already delayed by 2 hours.

Trina and I prior to take off

I digress.

After arriving in NYC Trina and I met up with Tamara of Blitz and Glam at the airport. this was my first time meeting Tamara IRL and she was also my roommate so I was hoping she was just as fab as she looks…and she was.

Shortly after getting settled in I bumped into Brandy of Mama Knows it All in the lobby before heading over to Times Square to find something to eat and snap a pic or two. Here’s one. I’ll show you the rest later in the series.

Thursday evening before the conference “officially” began Trina threw a pretty awesome social mixer at Pranna Lounge where I met a lot of my blogger buddies and a few new faces to include NY State of Mom, Brooklyn Active Mama, Our Delightful Home, Houseful of Nicholes, A Chic Mommy, Army Wife 101, Sister Save a lot, Loom Lids Layers, Justice Fergie, OK Dani, and Harlem Lovebirds

Phew.

(l to r.) Roses Daughter, Yours Truly, Our Delightful Home, NY State of Mom

Looms, Lids and Layers

Diary of a Chic Mommy

Houseful of Nicholes

Justice Fergie…She is also a curator of Be Blogalicious

Here are a few professional pictures of the event. It was awesome. Beautiful women just getting together for networking.

Forever Young and Fab and her guest, Roses Daughter

Blitz and Glam

Brooklyn Active Mama with one of her delicious Red Velvet cupcakes

The evening’s winners

Trina. The hostess with the absolute Mostess

So Friday when the conference actually started we had kind of formed one of those “cliques” people hate but I think that is just normal when you are in an environment with nearly 5K people that you don’t know *shrugs*

During the course of the weekend i met so many amazing people to include these lovely ladies Justice Jonesie, Think Feminist, Dr. Goddess, Momma Expat, Just Breathe Mama, and Veronica Armstrong.

I also got to meet Luvvie. She is just as hilarious in real life as she is on Twitter.

Have you met any of your favorite bloggers/twitter buddies IRL? Who would you like to meet if given the opportunity…and no you don’t have to include me on that list!!!!

15 Comments

Uncategorized

Obligatory Post #BlogHer12 Post

Unless you’ve been under a rock, and haven’t been by here, or on Twitter, or on Instagram, or on Facebook I am returning from my inaugural trip to the holy Grail of all blogger conferences better known as BlogHer. I spent the last 4 days in NYC meeting blogger friends in real life and I was very fortunate to connect with some new bloggy BFFs.

To be completely honest I don’t really know where to start to offer a recap of my experience, so please charge it to the game if I seem a bit all over the place with this and forthcoming posts.

So to start somewhere seeing that I measure most things by the value received based on my dollars spent I will say the trip was well worth the money invested. When I spend my money I want to feel that the organizers value my dollar as much as I do. From the Obama and Martha Stewart appearances to the quality of food that was served I almost feel bad for paying as little as I did for my early bird rate.

Then there are some values that we receive that just can’t be quantified and that my friends would be the social aspect. Just meeting so many new faces and being able to connect faces with blogs, and spend time talking to people who “get blogging” it was inspiring and just downright fun…and you know your girl is ALWAYS down for a good time.

To keep these posts to a minimum length and keep y’all from zoning out on me I’ll take the whole week to recap my experience with a series of posts

Who I met

What I learned

Where I partied

When I stepped away from BlogHer to explore the city

Why I would attend BlogHer again..The Good.The Bad.The Ugly

How I plan to implement what I learned

I’m glad to be home and ready to head into the fall. My son went back to school today so my summer has unofficially come to an end, but at least it went out with a bang.

Since I’ve been out of the loop, what have you guys been up to?

15 Comments

Beauty• Children• Family• Hair• Random• Summer

She So Random

The past few weeks around here have been extra chill. For a New York minute I was starting to feel bad about not really being productive then I got over it. We’ve been going to bed late at night and sleeping late in the morning. We have the next 9 months to be on a schedule. I think we’ll enjoy these last two weeks going with the flow.

Speaking of New York I am ramping up my preparations to head to the Big Apple for BlogHer in a couple of weeks. I have childcare lined up and the majority of my outfits have been planned out via Evernote in this manner.

I do need to pick up a few things and I plan on grabbing those sometime this weekend. My sense of urgency is real because my son goes back to school on Monday the 6th and I get back on the 5th so everything needs to be in order.

I can’t wait to meet some of my bloggy friends and just have a good time. I have been invited to a few private parties and I do plan to attend. For the amount of money that has been dished out I need to get the most of the weekend.

I am thankful for BlogHer this year because it is keeping my mind off the impending anniversary of my mother’s death which is on July 27, and her birthday is on August 4th. With so much to do I won’t really have time to sit and mope. I suppose this is a good thing.

Lil Mama is now fully potty trained. No diapers or wipes to be found around these parts. She is even starting to go on her own…but if the light is out in the bathroom no haps. I “stared” she says, and “stared” means scared.

I have been on a mission to take better care of Lil Mama’s hair. Y’all know how much of a hair person I am not. I can cornrow really well and I’ve been known to sew in a weave or three. Yes, me. That’s how I made money in college. I tried out a coconut oil and honey prepoo on her hair and I am a believer. I was putting ponytails in it and her edges were starting to be affected so I have been two strand twisting or cornrowing it. I have seen an improvement over the past few weeks. Now to be consistent.

My son took his first flight alone from Las Vegas to here on July 5th. I was a nervous wreck. He did fine. He was such a big boy. My dad bribed him with an iPod. I really didn’t want him to have one then my dad had to remind me that he bought me a Gameboy when I was his age…Wellllllllllllll…..moving on. Could I be a hater?

My son is taking up soccer for the fall. I am looking forward to seeing how he enjoys it. Truth be told I never really thought he liked football much. He requested soccer and luckily we didn’t miss registration so I guess I’m now a soccer mom.

I’ll start doing house updates sometime next week.

Enough about our goings on. How are you? What’s been going on in your world?

33 Comments