Hey there! I’m at the airport for the day. I’ve had a blast here in Baltimore, but it’s raining now and I’m incredibly ready to be home. I seriously lucked out with the weather though! It was gorgeous in Baltimore up until today (it’s raining now) and crappy in Oklahoma up until today (it snowed!). Supposedly it’s going to be sunny and 72 tomorrow in OKC. Color me lucky, right?!
It’s a good thing too, because I have to hit the ground running when I get back. I don’t get in until late evening and then it’s to bed, to work, and back to work – since I’m starting my new part-time gig tomorrow. I’m really excited about it though, so it will be fun.
Okay, so let’s get into Day 2 of Fitbloggin’ shall we?
That morning, there was a 5K and a 1 mile fun run sponsored by New Balance. Unfortunately I felt way too sick that morning to participate. I actually woke up and tried to find a flight home ASAP because I felt so terrible. (Yes, I was being a huge baby.)
However, all the flights were completely sold out. I took this as a sign that I needed to just suck it up so I got dressed and went downstairs to join the festivities. I missed out on the oatmeal breakfast, sponsored by Quaker, so I had an Odwalla bar in the room.
The duration of the actual conference was probably when I felt the worst the whole trip, but I’m still really glad I made it to the sessions. I attended the following:
This session covered SEO (Search Engine Optimization), which is something I’ve always been a little fuzzy about. It was very informative, but at this point I hadn’t taken any medication so I may not have retained as much of it as I should have.
The Getting Noticed: How to Pitch to Traditional Media session was also really interesting. To be honest, I don’t consider my blog to be anything close to a journalistic endeavor. However, having majored in Journalism, I definitely think that blogging has its place in traditional media. Bloggers are often at the forefront of the news scene, mostly because they have no limitations on what they can write about. It got me thinking about some things I could possibly do in the future…
I believe we broke for lunch after that session was over. It was a pretty tasty lunch too!
It was a great spread! I had some of the spinach and beet salad, some roasted veggies, a roasted veggie sandwich and another mozzarella/ham (maybe?) sandwich. There was fresh fruit and jello for dessert, but I was pretty full so I passed.
I made up for it later with a delicious cookie, courtesy of Jacquie.
After lunch we headed back into more sessions. I hit up Beyond the Blog: Getting Published. In much the same way that I don’t see my blog as a journalistic endeavor, I also don’t see it as the platform for a future book. For me, blogging is an outlet and and a way of connecting with like-minded people who inform me about things I’m truly interested in.
Still, I wouldn’t mind writing a book one day (not one bit), so I was pretty fascinated by the lecture. There are a lot of avenues you can take to get published!
The fourth and final session we attended was Making Money From Your Blog: Could You? Should You? How? And hey… I’m totally not against bloggers making money from their blog. However, the session raised a lot of interesting questions about what is considered “selling out” and what are legitimate ways of monetizing your blog. All very fascinating.
If you are interested in more info about the session, the wonderful Whit apparently has some very detailed notes and I’m sure she’d be happy to share them!n That girl is organized! And beautiful and sweet, with the cutest Southern accent of all time.
A lot of girls went out for a nice dinner after the conference, but my dinner dates and I didn’t feel like shelling out too much money, so we hit up Whole Foods. Yes, I went twice in two days.
This time I got some mac ‘n cheese, plantains, cabbage slaw and who knows what else. For dessert, i had a whole wheat pumpkin and cream cheese muffin.
We ate by the harbor and enjoyed some purdy views.
My company included the following:
Jess, Caitlin, (Me), Melissa, Julie (and Abby, who took this photo, thanks girl!)
After dinner we all went out and tore up the town yet again. Except my sickness kind of made me a party pooper and I headed home at around 11:30. I was glad I did though, because by Sunday morning I was feeling a little bit better.
Sunday was a really fun day also! But that post shall come at a later date. These recaps are hella long, huh? Just too much fun to cram into one post I tell you!
My flight still doesn’t board for about two hours, so I think I shall catch up on some blog reading for awhile. I’m really scared about the flight because I know it’s going to eff my sinuses up again. Blah.
I hope your Monday is going as well as humanly possible!
