BlogHer'09 Recap #2

Opening night

Ragu sponsored lunch that was very, very yummy!







Saturday began with a march down to breakfast after a little more shut-eye than the previous day. Filling our bellies with oatmeal, Kelly and I settled in to watch Dave Lieberman
do a very quick cooking demonstration. The night before at the Pepsico sponsored cocktail party he was supposed to do a demo but with what was going on...he couldn't compete. I saw him sitting and watching...what was going on and got Kelly to take our picture. Well, as you can see the pic is not here yet as it is on Kelly's camera. I'll post it later. What was going on was a karoke night. The funniest part was the Sobe gecko lizard and a Mrs. Potato Head dancing to "I Like Big Butts!" Absolutely hysterical...and again will have to wait for the pics. We laughed ourselves silly from the bad singing and Mrs. Potato Head shaking her "eyes".

Back to Saturday and more sessions. I actually bowed out of the morning sessions as they were geared to the Vaginally Challenged Bloggers, Blogging as a Homeschooling Tool, Business of You, Travel Bloggers and Mommy Blogging, to name a few. I just didn't find one to suit me and really, I'm not sure where I fit in. I am a personal blogger and as Kelly says, a storyteller. I do some cooking, some artwork, some very amateur photography so I'm kind of on the outside of it all. They also had Geek Lab stuff to help with the computer aspects of it all, and that is really not me. I'm very basic but I think that really helped a lot of bloggers. I did attend a last session called "Identity/Passions: Enough About You...Who's Reading You?" It was very interesting.

Lunch time I knew that Paula Deen was giving a cooking demo at the Walmart sponsor booth so I made sure I was seated right in the front row, ready for my closeup! The area of very few chairs filled quickly and the stacks of people behind started getting a little claustrophobic while we waited. We waited and waited to be told that her plane was late. Sweet Kelly who had come to sit with me when a lady got up, not to wait anymore, quickly went to the lunch area and filled two plates of food and we ate while we waited. Our chairs were right in front. I got to have my picture taken with her but her nervous travel planner guy of Paula's was taking the pic and moved so my picture was awful. I was not a happy camper at all.
I also got some far away snaps of Tim Gunn from Project Runway, another sponsor of the BowlHer that night.

Most of the evenings after the cocktail parties, sponsored by BlogHer and their sponsors, we went to the individual parties from fellow bloggers with their own little sponsors. The prizes from these parties for the first few, let's say 100 or so were what is called SWAG. I had no idea and Kelly warned me about the SWAG! Wow, Wow, and Wow!
And here is what the SWAG came in, grocery like bags for the Green in all of us.My bag was so stuffed full we had to leave a few things behind, recycled so to speak. The lady at the airport just knew my bag was over the limit but thankfully it was 45 pounds, absolutely stuffed and ready to pop open!

A little incident happened at just one of those parties. I only RSVP'd at one, which I didn't get SWAG but this one Kelly RSVP'd too and said it was a plus one so I was a shoe-in in the door. All the other parties were RSVP too but that was not honored, believe me. This one apparantly did honor the system. When Kelly checked in and proceeded through the door I followed to have the checker-in lady put her arm out and physically stop me. Hey, is this Hollywood or something. I was PISSED. Kelly came back and tried to explain that it was plus one but the lady would have none of it. I turned on my heal and marched away yelling, "NEVER MIND!", well, in my head I said that. I was so angry and embarassed. Kelly went in for just a sec but came back. I told her to go in for awhile and check it out but she said she would leave her friend. Awwwe...that's my friend! We went to Chibar, had dinner and lots of wine...oh my aching head at 3 am.

These were the only two things I actually purchased to bring home. The pullover for me and the Cubs cap for B2 (the son-in-law cause he loves the Cubs).

Funny little side note...while I was waiting for the session to be over, I was hand journaling and a lady yelled at me from across two escalators, "Are you Meg Ryan's mother." Now tell me do you see a resemblance...I don't think so!