Life in Beta

Yesterday, I got a blog comment from the lovely Cynthia of A Shimmy In My Spirit asking me if I was attending the Blissdom Conference.

Um. Excuse me … what what?! What’s this you speak of?!

I promptly had to google that shiz … and come to find out, it’s … well … let me just copy/paste the description from their site:

Blissdom is the premiere conference for women who find and express their bliss by publishing online. Blissdom ‘10, our third conference, is a welcoming oasis in the ever-changing blogging world. Speakers and panels featuring the best blogging, public relations and social media pros will be gathering to mentor new and old friends alike.

This is Blissdom’s most exciting year, with even more incredible content, events, networking and surprises scheduled than ever before. The size of our conference is perfect–full of synergy and opportunity, but intimate enough to get personally benefit from the professional development and personally fulfilling agenda options.

[More]

In other words … paradise for a geek of the female persuasion. So, okay yah, SOLD!

I quickly checked my bank account balance, scrutinized my budget spreadsheet, and counted on my fingers and toes … and ultimately decided to register for the Saturday sessions. You can read about the sessions here or on the agenda page.

Saturday’s sessions include both a business track and a writing track. I’m leaning toward primarily the business track, which includes:

• Leveraging Social Media to Build Your Business
• Evolving into a Professional Blogger — Paths to Success
• Niche Blogging — Experts Talk About Blogging Your Passions and Expertise
• The Wizard of Ads- Pulling Back the Curtain on Online Advertising.

I’m considering swapping out the Niche Blogging session to jump ship over to the writing track and pick up Content is Queen – Communicating Your Brilliance through High Quality Writing. I haven’t decided yet. All the sessions look super fun and interesting. Makes me wish I could be in two places at once.

So… any of ya’ll going? If so, be sure to look for me and come introduce yourself!

Wow, look at this! Can I just tell ya how special I feel?

Given to me by Alexandra at The Tell Tale Blog (thanks!!)

The rules:

1. Thank the person who nominated me for this award
2. Copy the award & place it on my blog
3. Link to the person who nominated me for this award
4. Share 7 interesting things about myself
5. Nominate 7 other bloggers (I’m going to be a rebel and name 5 instead…)

Seven interesting facts about yours truly

(Mostly taken from my 100 Things list because I’m feeling too brain-dead at the moment to come up with anything new or different.)

1. I’m not a big concert-goer, but I love going to see stand-up comedians. In the last couple years, I’ve seen Robin Williams, Eddie Izzard, Broken Lizard and Hal Sparks (twice).
2. I’m allergic to orchard grass and ragweed. I also have a mild allergy to cats, but I just don’t care about that because I adore my kitties anyway. Zyrtec is my best friend.
3. I liked vampires way back before it was cool to like them. (Wanna make something of it!?) I was totally in love with Ben Cross when he played Barnabas Collins in the 1991 revival series of “Dark Shadows”.
4. I never leave home without my Blackberry, a point-and-shoot digital camera, and my Flip HD camcorder. (At a minimum. Sometimes throw my dSLR into the mix.) I’m a one-woman a/v club.
5. If (when?) I have a midlife crisis and change careers, I’d love to be a certified nurse-midwife or labor and delivery nurse.
6. I love fishies and at one point I had about 8 aquariums (fresh and salt water) all going at the same time. I’d love to have aquariums like that again some day!
7. I always, always wear a hematite ring on my thumb. I’m superstitious about it, actually. Hematite is supposed to absorb any negative energy around you. Once it has absorbed too much, it will shatter and you need to replace it. I haven’t shattered one yet, so I guess I’m blessed to be surrounded by mostly-positive energy. But I will tell you — on the rare days that I forget my ring, I nearly always have a very bad day.

And the nominees are…

(Several great gals I’ve recently found via 20SB and SITS! …)

1. Sarah at SillyGrrl
2. LiLu at Live It, Love It
3. Date Girl at The Date Girl Diaries
4. Amanda at Martinis or Diaper-Genies
5. Mel at Life, Liberty & Pursuit of Your Boyfriend

How sweet is this?! My friend Natalie over at Hope Springs Eternal gave me this sweet blog-award!

By the way…  if ya’ll have time, please go vote for Natalie for the Mom2Be Blog Awards. Today is the last day of voting!! Congrats, Natalie! Thanks to everyone who voted and helped her out!

RULES FOR HAPPY 101 AWARD

List 10 things that make you happy, try to do at least one of them today, and tag 10 bloggers that brighten your day. For those 10 bloggers who get the award, you then link back to my blog and create your makes you happy list.

THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY:

1. My family and friends (cliché but true!)
2. Snuggling with Gracie (my dog) and Stuart (my cat)
3. Knitting with friends at TNKS (and then going out for 2-for-1 wine at Chilli’s!)
4. Driving around the peninsula back home in Erie
5. Taking pictures
6. Snuggling up to read a good book
7. Random weekdays off work (yay trashy daytime TV!)
8. Amazon.com and Amazon Prime … saving me beaucoup trips to the store
9. Waking up to sunshine streaming in the windows
10. A good cup of coffee!

TEN BLOGGERS I PASS THIS AWARD ON TO:

1. Tia at Clever Girl Goes Blog
2. Erica at Junepath.com
3. Amanda at Mandajuice
4. Lauren at Salt Says
5. Sara at Sara Without an H
6. Miss Dot at Saving the World One Cupcake at a Time
7. Rachel at Scientific Nature of the Whammy
8. That Girl Blogs
9. Alex at Whoa-Mumma!
10. Trish at Write or Wrong