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So You Want To Be A Blogger? Here’s How To Get Rich
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So You Want To Be A Blogger? Here’s How To Get Rich

by Jill
written by Jill

You tell me you think you want to start blogging, and I’m really excited for you! Blogging can make you rich, it’s true. I don’t mean that sarcastically.

It’s going to be a ton of work. I mean beyond the hours of Google searches and YouTube rabbit holes while trying to figure out how to tweak codes and install and activate plugins. And learning which social media platform is hot now, and how to make algorithms work to your benefit.  And content creation. And teaching yourself photography, and video production, and graphic design.

That’s the easy work.

The grueling work is pouring your soul into a post, and then wondering if anyone even read it. The hardest work is writing the next post. And the next. And the next. Never knowing if anyone will comment, or if what you’re sharing matters.

The real work is in the practice of making yourself vulnerable. The hard part is opening yourself up, sharing what you love (or what you don’t), and finding out one day that there are entire groups of people who hate you for it.

The toughest work is realizing maybe sometimes a dissenter has a point, maybe you are wrong, and allowing that to change you for the better.

But it’s okay because you’re going to be rich from this one day.

I mean that.

Sure, the easy work can bring you paychecks. The easy work can bring free cruises for your family. It can lead to expensive shoes, purses, strollers, and phones that just show up on your doorstep.

The easy work brings you payment that comes and goes. It is gone from your bank account usually sooner than later because you invest it in more tools for more work. The products run their course, and are replaced with newer, better products that show up on the next FedEx truck.

The hard work is what makes you rich.

The hard work brings you friends you would have never bothered to say hi to in passing on the street. They have vastly different backgrounds and world views than you. They live near, but mostly far, sometimes continents and timezones away.

They make you think. Sometimes they challenge your beliefs, and sometimes they solidify them.

They support you in a way that others who love you can’t because they know the difference between the hard and the easy work you’re doing. They do it, too.

The hard work brings you experiences. It pulls you out of your comfort zone. It challenges you to be better, and to evolve.

The hard work gives you power, and if you’re wise, you work even harder to make sure you use it for good. It gives you a platform to make a change, to speak up, to bring people together, and make smaller voices heard.

One day, you will find yourself in a place you only got to because of blogging. And you’ll look around the room, inspired, knowing that you are part of a movement that is changing the world.

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You’ll see the faces, and hear the words of people who are doing hard work, too, and you’ll know at that moment that you are rich with the kind of wealth nobody can take away. You can re-invest it over and over, and make it grow exponentially. You can freely share it with those around you, and the more you share it, the more you’ll get back.

So, you want to be a blogger? Get that dot com! Learn about monetization and Facebook reach. Do the easy work, but know that it’s not until you do the really hard work that you’ll get rich from blogging.

In case you can’t tell, I came home from another Blogher inspired, and motivated, and ready to keep working hard. Actually, to work harder. I try not to blog too much about blogging, but I get asked a lot of blogging questions. And people often want to know about the monetary gain, and the free stuff. I want friends and readers and your next door neighbor and YOU to start a blog. And I want you to get rich. I really, really do. 

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Home Decor & DIYReviews

Making Our Bedroom More Magical, Less Frat House

by Jill
written by Jill

If this were an episode of Cribs, I’d be all, “This is where the magic happens!” And then you’d be like, “How exactly did you get pregnant again?”

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Ahhh… our beautiful master bedroom. Be sure, I cleaned this up for the pictures, folks. Like, really cleaned it good, and got all the dirty socks off the floor and everything. You’re welcome.

So, you can probably understand why when I got an opportunity to do a couple sponsored posts for Sherwin-Williams that focused around re-doing a room of our house based on their cool paint selection tools, I BEGGED AND PLEADED FOR THEM TO PLEASE PICK ME.

I mean, yeah…

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And, they did choose me! REJOICE! It’s a classic problem, I think. We put all our effort into beautifying the spaces of our home that others see, or the spaces our kids live in while neglecting our own bedroom. My kids’ rooms look like something out of a magazine (not to toot my own horn, but we put TONS of time and effort into decorating their spaces).

Our room? Looks like something out of a frat house… the part in the basement where they make the freshman sleep. Nothing matches. Not a single piece of purposefully bought furniture in there, except for the glorious king size bed, which we finally broke down and bought last year after one too many trips to the chiropractor, and one too many kid’s foot in my face.

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So we’re going big with this re-do. This isn’t just about the paint colors. BUT, that’s exactly where we started. Sherwin-Williams has this cool color selection tool that lets you upload a picture and turn it into a color palette. It’s called Chip It!™ and it’s addicting.

I knew I wanted this space to be something unique to Scott and me, while still keeping with the colors in the rest of the house. We have A LOT of gray going on. I joke that when we list our house for sale someday, we can title it the 50 Shades Of Gray House. Scott thinks that will send people the wrong message. Pfft.

So, I uploaded this beautiful picture that Lyndsay from Life In Motion Photography (Austin, TX) took of us last year during a Love Light session. I love the colors, I love the emotion. I love that it feels more like a piece of art than just a photograph. I want to incorporate it into the room, along with a few others she took.

Screen Shot 2013-04-07 at 11.34.13 AM

 We decided to go with Gray Shingle for the walls, and Indigo Batik for an accent wall behind our bed… which Scott is building from leftover pieces of hardwood flooring and staining, we think, a light cherry.

We hope to add lots of white to the room with bedding and other furniture pieces to keep the room from feeling too dark. I’m also toying with bringing a bit of these fabrics in:

Crazy Love Priscilla Orange - Discount Designer Fabric - Fabric.com

 

Riley Blake Chevron Small Orange

 

I’m anxious to get this renovation completed this week! I can’t wait to finally have a room that feels put together, pretty, and, like, I’d be okay leaving our bedroom door open when we have guests over.
Stay tuned for part 2- the reveal!
How do you find color inspiration for your home projects? Tell us in the comments below, and you just might win a $100 Sherwin-Williams gift card from BlogHer!
No duplicate comments.You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
  1. Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
  2. Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
  3. Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
  4. For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

 This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

 This sweepstakes runs from 5/1/2013-5/19/2013.

Be sure to visit the Sherwin-Williams brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ reviews and find more chances to win! 

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Blogher12 Photo Vomit
BloggingPhotography

Blogher12 Photo Vomit

by Jill
written by Jill

I was going to write a post full of words and thoughts, pictures were to be careful interspersed. It was hard to put together, but I got 90% done.

AND THEN I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED IT.

So, I’m taking that as the universe’s way of saying SHUT UP, JILL. YOU CAN NOT COMMUNICATE INTELLIGENTLY TODAY.

Because really, I can’t. I’m tired, run-down, a little sad, a lot overwhelmed, and I think I’m coming down with the Blogher Flu.

So? Pictures. Lots of pictures. Pretty fitting, I think, considering Clickin Moms was my super generous, awesome sponsor for all this.

 It was work, it was play. It was hard, it was fun. Blographer was amazing and enriching. Our Blogher panel (link to our live blog) went wonderfully. I won a “Blogs That Make Us Smile Award” from the Social Luxe Lounge.

I had hangovers and panic attacks. I laughed until I nearly peed myself. I made new friends and I hugged the old ones until we nearly fell to the floor.

Basically, any and all of my feelings can be summed up by my friend Mae. Seriously, THIS is how I feel, every word. I’m so glad she wrote it so I could just vomit some pictures on here and be done with it.

I hope to be back tomorrow with something more… intelligent?? Or maybe just funny. Maybe I’ll strive for funny.

Missed this place. I really did. I’m ready to make it even better.

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Be The One To Make Others Smile- Blogher & Life Advice

by Jill
written by Jill

From the moment I landed in NYC in August 2010, I was eternally grateful that I would “know” (in that we’d exchanged approximately 3,000 tweets and blog comments) 4 or 5 people at my first Blogher. When I was with at least one of them, I  felt safe. I had a wing lady.

Even if we just stood in the corner of a busy party and had a quiet conversation about “OMG, I don’t know anybody here… do you want to go get a drink… maybe we should move to a different corner of the room… is that who I think it is… nah, I’m not going to introduce myself… I feel ridiculous,”  we at least looked like we were being social and not awkwardly standing off to the side, eyeing people and desperately searching for familiar faces.

Roomies for life! Mae, BethAnne, Mandy

But, trust me when I say I did that. A lot. I mean, I couldn’t go everywhere with the handful of girls I knew. We wanted to attend different sessions and were invited to different parties.

There were several times I can remember standing in a sea of strangers and feeling so very alone.

I had no idea who anyone was. Nobody looked anything like their Twitter avatars. There were large groups of women, dancing in circles, hugging each other until they fell to the floor. They obviously had bonds that went way beyond anything I could have with them. What was I going to do? Interrupt their hug-fest to say, “Hey! You look like you might be someone I follow on Twitter, and I think I left a couple of comments on your blog. Let’s get a drink!”? That just seemed so… not appropriate.

The core of it was I was afraid I’d be shunned, which I will fully admit was 99% based on my own insecurities and not anything these other women did or said.

It was an odd experience for me. I’m normally a very social being. I really don’t have a hard time making new friends or introducing myself to people. So it was doubly unnerving when I started to feel this way at a conference full of women who I admired and who all seemed so friendly and happy. What was wrong with me?

Elevators were the worst. Forced to sit in silence with people, trying not to let them see you examining their name badge while simultaneously trying to make sure yours was noticeable, you know, just in case they were doing the same.

On one of my first (very long) rides up the elevator, I ran into Susan and Janice from 5 Minutes For Mom, but I didn’t recognize them… had no clue. They said hi first, as they stepped onto the elevator.

“Oooh! Friendly faces!” I thought.

“Hi! I’m Jill. Is this your first conference?” I naively asked.

“Oh, no! We’ve been to many,” they sweetly replied and then introduced themselves. I felt like a total tool, and NOT because of anything they did or said. Just because, well, how could I NOT know who they were… and to imply this was their first conference? I wanted to melt into the floor before my 45 minute elevator ride ended.

I’ve since had the joy of getting to know Janice and have done a couple Spreecasts with her. I even got to chill with her at Blissdom. She’s seriously super nice, and I can’t believe I let myself feel that way in NYC 2 years ago. 

Then there was that time in the elevators, the day after SocialLuxe (which I was over-the-moon happy to get an invite to as a blog awards finalist), when I ran into Allison (Petit Elefant) and Jane (This Week For Dinner), 2 of the SocialLuxe hosts. I was confident it was them because I’d seen them the night before, and they were toting a bunch of SocialLuxe stuff with them.

Just tell them you had a really good time. Just smile, and introduce yourself, and tell them the party was great. That’s it! You can do this…. OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?! 

That was the conversation in my head for about 90% of the time I shared the quiet elevator with them. Finally, just as we were about to arrive at their floor, I squeaked out, “Hey! Y’all’s party last night…. um the social lounge… I mean, you know, Social Luxe, was great. You did a great job with it! I had a really good time.” They smiled and thanked me, were beyond kind, and then they stepped off the elevator. I kicked myself for not speaking up sooner, but was proud of myself for saying something before the opportunity passed.

There were a lot of instances like that- opportunities that passed because I was too afraid to seize the moment. It certainly didn’t help that I couldn’t rely on any social lubricant in the form of alcohol because I was 20 weeks pregnant with Leyna at the time.

(I’d really like to never go to another Blogher pregnant again if I can control that.)

I’m an optimist to the core. I believe life and situations are what you make of them. Believe me when I say I had to really WORK to make my first Blogher a positive experience. 

It wasn’t about working to overcome anyone else’s negativity or unfriendliness. It was about working to force myself out of my shell, away from my safe group of friends, into situations that made me feel like the last girl to be picked for kickball. I had to work to overcome me and my insecurities.

And, to a degree, I had to do that last year. I suspect I will have to this year, too, despite “knowing” so many more people now, and being able to recognize quite a few of them at Sparklecorn even though they don’t look anything like that cartoon character they use for their Twitter avatar.

I write this for 2 reasons.

Obviously, if you’re going to Blogher for the first time in August, I think it’s important to know that it will likely be incredibly overwhelming, but that doesn’t necessarily have to equate to a bad experience. Blogher is what you make of it. You’ll read that line on countless Blogher advice posts because it’s just that true.

Generally speaking though, to apply this to everyday life,  some of the best connections and experiences can come from when you work your way through awkward situations and force yourself out of your comfort zone. Think playgroups, parks, you spouse’s office party.  When you’re feeling left out or ignored, recognize how much of that is stemming from your own insecurities, and then think about how much of it is coming from another person’s insecurities.

Sometimes all that’s needed is for one person to just smile and say hi. Sometimes that’s all it takes to bring another person out of their shell when they need it the most.

Last year at Blogher, I made it my goal to smile and say hi to at least one person whenever I started to feel isolated. I did it everywhere I went- the halls, breakfast tables, the bathroom. Every. Single. Person. I smiled at smiled back. And I’d say at least half of them smiled a smile of relief. Their shoulders relaxed a bit, many times we’d have short conversations and even exchange cards. All because someone just said hi.

That’s not me saying I was doing it purely to make others feel better. It was certainly self-serving because I needed to see smiles and hear hi’s so that I wouldn’t let myself feel as alone as I had the year before. It just happened to have a wonderful side effect for all involved – friendliness and an open door.

Be the person who makes others smile. Even when you’re feeling insecure and ignored, be the one to step out of your shell, smile and say hi. At least, you’ll get eye-contact and a half-smile from 99% of people (because there is the one percent who may disappoint, no matter how kind you are). But possibly? You’ll score a great friendship out of it. You just never know.

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Photography

How To Photograph An Ordinary Day In Your Life

by Jill
written by Jill

We all have the “pretty” pictures of our kids, our families, those days we’re supposed to document. They’re framed, in albums, stuck on refrigerators and turned into computer screen savers. They’re moments worth documenting and remembering, for sure.

But what about the mundane, the small moments of the here and now, the messes, the chaos, the perfectly imperfect parts of everyday life? Won’t these be the things we look back and truly miss? The things we’ll try so hard to remember, like how the kids looked at the breakfast table with Cheerios in their hair or how your son couldn’t put down that filthy, mangled superhero cape for weeks.

I believe in celebrating the imperfect and REAL moments in life, and one of the best ways to do that is to document an entire ordinary day. I’m not talking about a day that you plan to play supermom for 12 hours while you assign your children roles as well behaved and always-clean cherubs. I’m talking about a day just like any other. The kind of day that seems to repeat itself over and over until one day it doesn’t.

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How do you document that kind of day?

    • Choose the day. While I’m not a believer in staging any extracurricular activities just for this purpose, it might be wise to make sure the day you want to do this your children won’t be out of the house for 10 hours … unless you’re okay with taking 10 pictures of you, yourself and your coffee mug.
    • Set a timer. The night before, set an alarm to go off every hour, starting with when you usually wake. I always have my phone with me, it’s like a 3rd hand, so it works best for me to set alerts on my iPhone.
    • Prep your camera. Be sure the battery is fully charged and that you have enough memory. Then set the camera next to your bed, right beside your alarm. Make sure you have a camera bag next to your purse and ready to go for trips out of the house.
    • Prep your house. Wait? Didn’t I just tell you the point is to capture real, messy life? The thing is, if you’ve got massive piles of dishes in the background or mountains of laundry, that might be a touch distracting in your photos, and you may not be too excited to look back on them. So give your house the once-over, pick up major messes, de-clutter spaces you know will be photographed a lot. Don’t go scrubbing baseboards or wiping windows though, and know that that box of blocks is going to be spilled back onto the playroom floor at some point during the day anyway, and it’s not a requirement to run to clean it up before taking a picture. Also, think about ways you can let as much natural light into your house as possible — plan to open blinds and drapes the next day.

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    • Prep your family … or not. Let your partner in on what’s going on so they don’t think you’re suddenly a paparazzi. Ask them if they could take some pictures with YOU in them. You’re a pretty big part of the day, too, and deserve to be documented. Use your best judgement when it comes to letting the kids in on it. If you think they might use that information for evil and try to cheese it up for you all day, it may be best to just snap quietly without telling them your purpose.
    • Wake up and start snapping. The goal is to have one picture for every hour during your day, ending either when you go to bed, or when most of the family goes to bed if you’re like me and stay up for 3 hours after everyone else is asleep. There are only so many pictures I can take of my exciting life after 9 p.m. Now, this doesn’t mean you can ONLY take one shot every hour, but I encourage you to not make this a thing where your camera is pressed to your face all day. Take a few shots from a few angles of whatever is happening at that moment and put it down. Try not to over think it.

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  • Think ahead. As you’re going about your day, think ahead to the next few hours. What’s likely going to be happening then? Will you be putting the baby down for a nap, making lunch, greeting someone at the door? It’s okay to not take the picture on the hour. It’s perfectly fine to bypass photographing taking the trash out so you can capture your daughter feeding the dogs when you get back in. The only rule here is to keep the pictures of stuff that naturally, normally happens.
  • Upload, Save, Print, Enjoy. Don’t take too long to upload and edit the pictures (and by edit I don’t mean you have to do any fancy photoshopping to them, just that you need to delete the ones you don’t want to keep). Find a way to add and save descriptions of your day along with each picture, either by blogging them or scrapbooking them — something to put words with it. Finally, I think it’s a fantastic idea to turn one ordinary day into a beautiful photo book that your family can look back on for years. How often do days like that get the honor of being printed on paper? Not often enough.

In the end, it’s not about rules, so don’t stress if you miss an hour or two. It’s not about taking technically great pictures. It’s about capturing those moments we don’t celebrate now because they happen so often … the moments we’ll miss the most when they cease to happen. If you’d like to take a peek into my ordinary day, I’d love to have you.

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Blogging

Speaking at Blogher!

by Jill
written by Jill

I'm Speaking at BlogHer '12

I’ll be attending Blogher for the 3rd time this year, and this time I’m SPEAKING!

Actually, I’m on a panel with some other really amazing, accomplished bloggers: Charlie from How To Be A Dad, Mandy from Harpers Happenings and Gina from The Feminist Breeder.

Our panel’s official title is “Pro Tips: Branding and Blogging Professionally” but it’s secret title is “Fake It Till You Make it,” all about how to “dress” for the blog you want, not the one you necessarily have. We’re going to talk about how to and why it’s important to take yourself seriously as a blogger first, even before anyone else does, and how to move beyond self-deprecation as a defense mechanism to really owning the power you have. Basically we’re going to tell everyone to value themselves more. We might even have them look in a mirror and chant, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me.”

Maybe. I don’t know if they will provide us enough mirrors, though.

Oh, and we’ll actually give attendees some solid action steps they can take to help take their blog from personal to professional.

ANYWAY, super excited. And, I know a lot of you reading this don’t blog or won’t be at Blogher (sad face), so it’s not like any of this pertains to you, but to you I want to say THANK YOU because, obviously, I wouldn’t have much to take seriously if you didn’t read and weren’t such a great community.

If you ARE going to be there (happy face!) our session is Saturday, August 4th from 10:45- 12:00. Hope to see you, and PLEASE come find me and say hi.

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Blogging

#Blogher11 Swagapalooza Giveaway

by Jill
written by Jill

It’s been 4 weeks since Blogher. I still haven’t unpacked.

This comes as no surprise to my husband. It’s a running joke around here that I will leave a bag packed until it just naturally unpacks itself over time, or until he gets so annoyed with it that he does the job himself. I think it was one of those unspoken wedding vows. “Love, honor, cherish (and live with her packed luggage).”

Seeing as how our 5 year wedding anniversary is coming up next month (OMG, I know!), I’m trying to do little things around the house that show just how much I care. Okay, so maybe I still haven’t fully unpacked the luggage, but I’m getting there. And one of the things I must do first is get rid of some of the swag I came home with.

It’s not that this stuff is bad or useless, it’s just that I either have something like it already, or I don’t think I’ll  get around to using it anytime soon. So I’m going to give it to one of you. Here’s a sort of detailed list of what’s included:

Pink sunglasses I wore to the Clever Girls party
An iPhone 4 case
Perfume
Office supplies
Wipes (they say they’re for sex toys, but I double-dog-dare you to put them in your diaper bag and use them at the mall)
A couple books
A sponge
A $25 Lowes gift card
A $20 McCormick & Schmick gift card
and more

I won the Lowes gift card specifically to give away to a reader when my team won the Lowes Challenge. You can read more about it over at my teammate’s blog, Jenny On The Spot.

The McCormick & Schmick gift card may or may not be usable. It says for use in their dining room, then has the address of their San Diego location. Soooo… you can try to see if your location will honor it. Or, I don’t know, send it to someone in SD.

I would guess the total value of all the stuff is $100+ ish.

The only way to enter to win this bag-o-swag is to sign up for my weekly newsletter. It’s called the Monday Morning Procrastination Club Newsletter, and it goes out, as you may have already guessed, early Monday mornings. It’s a digest of my posts from the last week, plus some other things from around the web that I think are read/watch/time suck worthy. If you like to put stuff off, and like to have things to occupy you before you start your real work Monday mornings, this is for you.

So just go here, sign up, leave a comment letting me know you did so. If you’re one of the 210 people who already have, just let me know. That’s it! I’ll draw a winner with random.org next Friday, September 9th. Open to US residents only. Sorry Canadians. I still love you and you can still sign up for my newsletter!

Entries closed. Congrats to Heather, comment #12, as chosen by Random.org.

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Notes for Blogher12

by Jill
written by Jill

Notes For Blogher12

1. Friends are worth more than swag. I should spend more time with friends and less time with people trying to give me free stuff. People send free stuff to my door every week. Nobody ever puts any of these ladies in my mailbox. My heart hurts over how little time I spent with each of them (and others not pictured).

2. I’m not sure the full conference pass is worth the money for me anymore. I went to 2 sessions, one Friday and one Saturday. They were both lovely, but I’m not sure I learned anything I couldn’t have taken away from the live blogs posted after the conference. (Oh yeah, did you know those exist? ) I might do the Party/Expo pass next year, but still go to Pathfinder Day. THAT day was extremely valuable to me.

3. No more new shoes. Those glitter heels I HAD to have? Wore them all of 45 minutes before Miranda found me and gave me some AfterFlats. Die, glitter shoes, die. Related: Pack Bandaids.

4. Do not even bother with bringing the DSLR next year. I didn’t even have time to take pictures with my point & shoot, and barely with my iPhone. My Canon was just a burden the whole time.

5. The iPad, bluetooth Zagg keyboard combo was a total win. I’m so glad I didn’t lug my laptop there with me.

6. Pack protein bars… and a steak… or 2 (because BethAnne will love me forever if I share with her).

7. Bring a water bottle because, apparently, it’s not a sure thing that you’ll receive 3 of them upon checkin, unless next year is the year of the water bottle again…. since it’s in NYC, again.

8. Bring major zit fighting cream. Not because I broke out this year (San Diego was nice to me like that), but because I had a zit that was trying to see the Statue of Liberty from my chin all last year (in NYC, it was mean to me like that).

9. Smile, breathe, smile, be nice, breathe, smile.

10. Print blog logo alongside Twitter avatar to stick on my name badge so people aren’t all, “Baby Raaaaaabies??? That sounds…. familiar.” (I think people would recognize others and be recognized much more if everyone walked around with pictures of their Twitter avatars over their faces.)

That’s it. I’m done. Now I’ll shut up about Blogher.

Until next year.

Wait, one more thing. Don’t forget to enter the $500 prize pack giveaway from BornFree, my Blogher conference sponsor. It’s open to US and Canada residents, doesn’t matter if you went to Blogher or not, they’re drawing a winner August 22nd. 

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Best Blogher11 Memories

by Jill
written by Jill

1. Wine from wine bottles, poured straight into mouths and plastic bottles and never wine glasses, with too many ladies to count, packed in a sun filled, love filled, laughter and hug filled room. What the room did not have was an easy to use corkscrew, so it took 50(?) of us to get it open. There is a video. You may not laugh at it as much as we did. It may be one of those “you had to be there moments.” But there is a video.

Mae is very classy. She is also resourceful, like a Girl Scout… with wine.

2. Sitting on a beach (at the MOST chill, awesome #NintendoEnthused party), gathered around a fire pit, listening to some guy play and sing James Taylor songs on a guitar, discovering that the woman (a very notable one) to my left not only was familiar with the super small town I grew up in in Texas (3k people in the whole wide town,y’all), but her father graduated high school there in the 60s. The world, it is small.

3. Dance off at the Clever Girls party, Wii style. There were Smurfs involved. There was also alcohol and a little social anxiety masked as extreme excitement involved. The picture says it all. My teammates Mae, BethAnne and Suzanne were all very dancy and smurfy. Fun was had by all. I won a plush Papa Smurf for my awesome score. I knew those cheerleading dance skills would pay off someday.

Chihuahua on Redbull: The most accurate description of me at conferences.

4. Flopping into an outdoor chair after a long last day of sessions, sucking down a massive margarita, then calling Andy from the How To Be A Dad duo an asshole for taking the seat next to one of my internet besties who I hadn’t seen, like, the entire f-ing conference. Who cares that it was his seat all day? I don’t think he got my joke. It’s possible my sense of humor didn’t carry through my tone at that point since I was all tired and cranky and lacking REAL (not expo hall) food in my belly and my feet were covered in blisters. I explained to him that I’m not really a bitch. I’m not sure he believed me.

5. Hearing a woman mention “I’m a faculty member at the University of Missouri and work at KOMU…” I believe I spun around and the eloquent words that flew out of my mouth were, “SHUT. UP.” We bonded right then and there over the j-school and social media and OMG-journalism-and-social-media. And then? She asked me to come back and speak to j-school students at homecoming about what “other” things one can do with a journalism degree.

(Soo…. I can tell them you can start a blog and have really poor grammar and write in run-on sentences… and people will read you! And you can also drink wine and divulge way too much information about really personal things, and you can whine about how HORRIBLE potty training is… and people will read you! But, you won’t really get paid in cash monies. I’m sure it will all sound super appealing to them.)

6. Closing keynote, Ricki Lake, listening to her talk about producing The Business of Being Born and how it was the most important, fulfilling work she’s ever done, how she never even broke even, how it started a birthing revolution (that I like to think I’m a part of).

7. That moment at lunch on Pathfinder Day when I listened to Jess Weiner speak about women and empowerment and change and all the things you might expect to hear a motivational speaker talk about at a thing called Blogher, and I suddenly caught my breath, and I teared up just a bit, and I soaked in the moment… and I was grateful. I was grateful to be a part of all of this, this movement, this time when women DO have so. much. power.

8. Winning the Lowes competition after my team (consisting of Jen, Jenny, Linz and a couple more who I would link to, but it might take a week to locate their business cards in my luggage) created a back-to-school organization center out of a bunch of random supplies handed to us. Jen noted that I have good team management skills and that she was, strangely, okay with me bossing her around.

(Here’s the secret, y’all: Address people as “y’all,” and boss them in a southern accent. It gives me the advantage every time. You should try it… unless you’re from Brooklyn… but that might be funny.)

We each won $100 gift cards, which means that hideous ceiling fan in our living room is about to meet it’s demise.

9. The Romy Raves wine party at McCormick & Schmicks. It was so nice and intimate. I got to hang with Linz and Morgan, and I finally got to meet Jean! The wine was delicious (it was all from Cameron Hughes and affordable), and the little appetizers were the best thing I ate all week. The swag bag was out of this world, too. I got one of these Soiree things and it made my $8 bottle of wine taste… well, like more than $8 last night.

10. Waking twice in one night, rolling out of bed, my feet hitting the floor before I realized that baby that’s crying in the next room that I was going to go feed was not mine.

11. Dropping off over 70 bags of donated breastmilk to a very grateful mother from several of us who pumped at the conference. Yay breastmilk donation! Makes me warm and fuzzy every time. Kim and Jen were awesome for organizing that.

There were many more memories and many more pictures, but I will keep those close to my heart for now. Tomorrow I share my tips for Blogher12, which, in case you haven’t heard, will be back in NYC. Hope to meet more of you there! (And if you didn’t see, I shared some of the things I learned at the conference sessions yesterday.)

Don’t forget to enter to win a $500+ prize package from my Blogher sponsor BornFree. Open to US and Canada residents, even those of you who didn’t go to Blogher. Click here to fill out a quick form. They’re drawing a winner August 22nd.

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6 Things I Learned from Blogher11 Sessions

by Jill
written by Jill

I’ve reduced my Blogher experience to lists because that’s the only way I can process it right now, and to save you all from something like the 3 part series of epically boring proportions I wrote last year. This, again, is a 3 part series, BUT in list form, which helps… I hope?

Note: These  lists are in no particular order. That’s way too much for my brain to take on right now.

Top 5 6, No Wait, Make That 7 Things I Learned From Blogher Sessions

1. “Everyone here wants to be noticed, and YOU have the power to notice them.” One of the panelists (can’t remember which one, probably Liz Strauss) in the Peer Networking session said this, and I loved it. It’s not only true for the conference, but life in general. I quit worrying about who would and wouldn’t recognize me, and focused on recognizing, acknowledging, and just plain ol’ noticing others. It brought a lot of awesome new connections my way.

2. “The quickest way to make a connection is to ask a question.” That was Liz Strauss (I am now stalking her) at the same Peer Networking session. Really want to get to know someone? Don’t wait and wish for them to reach out to you. Engage them!

3. Find out what makes you standout from the crowd (ask others!), accept that & enhance it, focus it to your audience, then redefine and refresh yourself and/or your blog every 2-3 years. (Pathfinder Day Breakfast with personal brand expert Sandra Miley)

3. Come up with a mission statement or an elevator pitch about who you are and what you’re about. As opportunities come to you, see if they match your mission statement. Say no to things that don’t.- Implementing this now! I spread myself too thin all the time. (Also from Sandra Miley)

4. Melissa Ford from Stirrup-Queens.com was one of the Pathfinder Day: My Blog as Book Proposal panelists. I took away so much from this session, but I’m not sure much of it is of interest to the majority of you. That said, if you’re interested in how to get a book published, she has a How To Get A Book Published series of posts, linked in her right sidebar.

5. Blog regularly! (So, so, so guilty of this. You all know that.) In the Your Blog Can Make You A Social Media Marketer session, Melissa Lion made a great point that blogging every day shows a prospective employer that you can and do meet deadlines. Ree Drummond (you may have heard of her little blog The Pioneer Woman) spoke in the My Blog As Media Company Pathfinder session about how important it is to tend to your blog like a garden, to nourish and water it regularly. She also has some other amazing tips in this post here.

6. You are the boss of your blog. This was a note that several touched on. Do what you want! Don’t like an old post? Delete it. Want to blog about different topics? Go for it. I think you want to try to go about these things with a little thought so you don’t leave people confused, unless you want to confuse people. Then confuse them because it’s your blog and you can do what you want. You are the boss of it.

I’ll post my other 2 lists (memories, and notes for next year) tomorrow and Friday. (I was going to post them all here, today, in this one post, and then I remembered the whole “trying to keep things from being epically long and boring” goal. Lookie there! I’m learning.)

BUT WAIT! Don’t forget that BornFree (my awesome Blogher Sponsor) is giving away over $500 of super cool baby gear to ANYONE who enters (from the US or Canada), not just those who went to Blogher. There’s still time to enter if you haven’t yet. Just click here and fill out the info. They draw a winner August 22nd. 

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