Top Ten Things I Loved about Blissdom

Snuggling with my little girl!

Two weeks ago was my first attempt at a Top Ten list. It was a bit intimidating but lots of fun. This week, I am combining my carnival efforts by doing my Top Ten Tuesday and Things I Love Thursday all in one. That and it has been over two weeks and I haven’t done a proper Blissdom recap. What is up with that? So here we go.

1. Hanging with my girl

I have shared a little about struggling with being a mom of two, but really that is just the tip of the iceberg for me. It is also one of the reasons I decided to take Tessa with me for the weekend. By far, the greatest outcome from the weekend was spending time and bonding with this little bundle of joy. I will write more about this soon in another post, just know it was the highlight of my entire weekend.

Beautiful table settings and food at the ConAgra/Hunt's luncheon

2. Hunt’s/ConAgra Lunch

I write a food blog, it is not a mystery that I love food. And ConAgra and Hunt’s did a fantastic job with the first luncheon. The food was magnificent – Eggplant Parm Rolls. The table settings were beautiful. And the company of other bloggers was grand. I also stole won the George Duran Take this Dish and Twist It cookbook at our table which by the way is fantastic! I can’t wait to share some of the recipes with you.

3. Conversations with other bloggers

By far, the greatest resource of information at these conferences comes from those that are attending. It is nice to talk to authors of blogs that are bigger or more experienced than you so you can get some perspective on where you are heading or new ideas. It is wonderful to talk to bloggers that are smaller and less experienced than you because you can assist them on their journeys and still learn some great things about how to make your blog better. And above all, my favorite thing to talk to them about is how they got started, why and what they write about. People simply fascinate me.

Me and the Sisterchicks!

4. Meeting some great readers and fellow bloggers

I have already told you about all the bloggers that blessed me that weekend, so I will let you read there if you want more!

5. Meeting some of the great ladies of Ketchum and ConAgra

The last evening we were there I got a text from my roomie that I needed to get myself to the Hanes and Orville Redenbacher Pajama party ASAP! Turns out Kate had run into Lauren from Ketchum and Abby from ConAgra and they were talking food. Knowing my love for my site and connecting with others Kate had the decency to summons me so that she could introduce me. I was so absolutely grateful.

I had a great conversation with these ladies about this site and some upcoming plans I am trying to explore. They were so hospitable and were fun to watch as they passed Tessa around stealing some lovin’ from her. We use so many ConAgra products in our menus that it makes it so much more enjoyable when I can put a a face with a product. I’m looking forward to the possibility of a great relationship and opportunities with this company in the future.

6. Putting faces with names of some of my favorite PR professionals

If you have blogged for any length of time you may or may not have had the opportunity to work with PR professionals. These are the worker bees behind the companies and giveaways that you see on blogs. They are a busy lot of individuals who are always out and about working on connecting, connecting, connecting. As a blogger, you mostly interact with them via email. I love when I have the opportunity to meet and talk to them face to face.

I was so pleased to meet up with a few of these folks. I met Jessie back at Blogher and she has a sweet spot in my heart as she represents Ziploc! (Well, and she is a kind and energetic person too, which is awesome.) I also got to finally meet up with Cat of Clever Girls Collective who I have been emailing for several weeks now. Clever Girls Collective threw a great party too. Tessa got to wear her first feather boa! ;)

8. Hanging with other foodies

When you have a food blog, it is natural to want to connect and meet new food bloggers. At least, I think it should be. I am no exception. Erin arranged for us foodies to congregate over lunch on Saturday so it made finding these other foodies a little easier. I walked around collecting business cards so I could share them with you (I will do that soon). As well as have some new inspiration for Once A Month Mom menus.

9. Getting new ideas for the blog

I wish I could share all of the new ideas I got by sitting through sessions but there just is not enough space here. That, and I will be revealing many of them over the next few weeks and months. Stay tuned.

Tessa enjoying the Quinny stroller!

10. Trying out new baby equipment

Prior to Blissdom, Christine from From Dates to Diapers started inquiring about all of the moms bringing #Blissdombabies. She spent time putting together baby swag and obtaining Quinny and Kolcraft strollers for us moms to utilize during the conference. As I sat and talked with her the first day about who had sponsored the gift bags she humbly responded that For Baby Gifts sponsored the bags but that it was an idea she wasn’t compensated for, she just wanted to put them together. So sweet.

When you ask me why I blog, that is why, people like Christine. See this blogosphere or ours is full of them. They are women that care passionately about their readers, their community and the other women that call this blogosphere their home. They are women who go out of their way to make things happen, help others, and share that love daily. It is an AMAZING place to spend your time.

So thanks to the wonderful women that made Blissdom a reality, to the wonderful sponsors who support this place that I like to call home and to the other women out there that I share the blogosphere with. I love being apart of this with you and feel honored to be blogging beside you!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 8:00 am and is filed under Chatter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.