I just got back from my longest road trip as a blogger and I am exhausted and exhilarated!  My journey began last Thursday when I departed for Nashville to attend Blissdom.

I was so excited to go back to the place where it all began for me, Blissdom.  Blissdom is where  I met my bloggy friends in real life for the first time just 3 short months into blogging.  Although I have seen these fantastic women throughout the last year at other events, attending Blissdom was like coming back home and having a big family reunion.  Barbara, Allie and Paula really know how to throw a party!  The keynotes, the wisdom workshops, the sessions, the parties, and of course all of the fantastic sponsors were all very top notch and well planned out.  I have decided to tell my story with photos rather than a ton of words, I hope you enjoy it.

On Thursday there were a series of specialized Wisdom Workshops available and I decided to take the Photography workshop.  It was conducted by Dawn Camp, Mishelle Lane, Angie Arthur, and Deanna Garretson .  I learned a good bit from these fabulous ladies about using my camera more effectively, I could have stayed in this session all day!

Thursday night there was a great welcome reception at the Jack Daniels Salon in the hotel.  I didn’t take any photos there, not sure why, I guess I was too busy catching up with everyone!

Friday started off with the keynote  speech “Bringing Fun and Passion to Your Work…and Life”  by Kevin Carroll.  He told a very inspiring and heartfelt story about his childhood and how he learned at an early age that play should be a part of everyone’s day.  He was fantastic!   If you haven’t heard of him you should really check him out.  His blog is Kevin Carroll Katalyst and his twitter is @KCKatalyst.

After the awesome talk from Kevin Carroll we had a surprise visit from chef George Duran from Food Network’s “Ham on the Street” and TLC’s new show “Ultimate Cake Off.” George is also doing work with Hunts and gave a quick cooking demo of a great recipe for Eggplant Parm Rolls, which we had for lunch that day and they were awesome!  I also won an autographed copy of his book “Take This Dish and Twist It” I can’t wait to try some more of his recipes.

I went to the afternoon session ” Connecting with Your Community of Readers” and learned some great tips from Amy Clark, Stephanie Precourt, Melinda Roberts, and Laurie Turk about how to build my own community.  Some questions you need to ask about yourself to take your blog to the next level are:

• What is your community and niche
• Where do your readers also hang out?
• How do you currently engage your readers?
• In what other ways can you show off what you are good at and your passions?
• What bloggers would you love to work with and build an alliance?
• Can you combine several posts in an eBook or product to download? Would readers buy it?

After the session Cover Girl was in the lobby doing makeovers with their new Smoky Eye Look kits to help everyone get ready for the party that night at Fuse with Harry Connick Jr.  Here is my after photo

Friday night was much anticipated party with Harry Connick Jr.  He was scheduled for Saturday but after he got asked to goto the Superbowl, instead of cancelling on Blissdom, he said he could come on Friday for a short performance.  He came and talked about his work in the Musicians Village in New Orleans and then sang a few songs for us with his band. Two of the guys are are residents of the Musicians Village and they were all amazing musicians.

After the performance we we able to go in groups and get our photo taken with Harry.  This photo was taken by Darcy@m3b’s in the photo are Rebecca and her sweet little girl, Sandy, Flat Becca, Harry, Me, and Beth.

After the Harry concert we headed to the US Potato Board Tastemaker 2k10 Blissdom Showdown.  It was a lot of fun to watch everyone come up with recipes on the spot for baked potatoes, mashed potatoes or potato salad.  They also had an awesome mashed potato bar and yummy potato vodka drinks.  The winner of the showdown was Rachel from A Southern Fairytale.

Saturday brought more great speakers and sessions as well as a powerful closing keynote from Holly Hamann, Jennifer McKinney and Wendy Scherer.  The conference closed with pizza, a movie, games and karaoke.  The perfect end to a fantastic conference!

I want to thank Barbara, Allie and Paula for a fantastic conference and a great time.   When I attended Blissdom last year I never imagined where I would be just one short year later.  No matter where I go from here I know I will always go home to Blissdom each year in February.  Thank you ladies for this wonderful feeling.  By the way, the Opryland was the perfect place for Blissdom, it is so peaceful and beautiful there.

Finally I would like to thank the sponsors!  Did you hear that the price they charged for the conference ticket barely covered the cost of the food?  Without the sponsors there is no way they ever could have pulled off this conference.   The representatives from the sponsors were fantastic, the listened, they talked, they gave advice, they made us laugh, they made us cry (thanks Hallmark lol), they fed us snacks, but most of all they supported us.  THANK YOU!

ConAgra Foods

Intuit

Kraft Bagelfuls

Arnold

Blue Bunny

iRobot

Soles 4 Souls

Hanes

P & G

Hallmark

Lifetime Moms

Invisalign

Land’s End

Weight Watchers

Cover Girl

Red Plum

Whrrl

The Blog Frog

Blissfully Domestic

One2One Network

Hershey’s Bliss

Mam

You can see more of my photos from Blissdom in my Facebook albums 1 and 2.  You can also search Flickr for Blissdom to see everyone else’s photos.

 

Tags: blissdom, food network, george duran, ham on the street, harry connick jr, karaoke, kevin carroll katalyst, nashville, opryland, photography workshop, tastemaker, ultimate cake