Blissdom Blogging Conference 2013

T-minus 28 days until Miss E and I will be attending Blissdom 2013 in Dallas, Tx!

I know, right- going to a blogging conference when I haven't blogged in a solid 4 months, or even consistently for the past few years to begin with...?  Ehhh, what can you do.  Let's just call it a much needed, diaper-free girls' weekend where you're surrounded by people who don't think you're crazy for meeting many of your best friends over the Internet.

The last time I attended a blogging conference was BlogHer 2010 in New York City (stealing the post link to our trip from Erin because apparently I never wrote about it... shocker) with a couple of my main gals Miss E, Erin, and Mojito Maven.  The trip was everything I could have hoped for in a girls trip- great food, tons of laughs, and more than a few inside jokes created along the way.

I'll be honest and admit that the actual blogging conference bit didn't quite jive with me at the time...  I felt way out of my element in some of the sessions, listening to women explain how agonizing it was to draft and re-draft blog posts for hours on end until they felt they had gotten things just right.  I just kept thinking to myself "Um.... I just blabber on about whatever is going on in my life at the moment, and post poor quality pictures of it."  I realized that many of the women attending this conference considered themselves writers, publishing small snippets of their lives like short stories on their blogs.  Sooooo not my mindset.  BlogHer is a great conference all around, but I just didn't find what I was looking for at the time.

I decided to give Blissdom a go after reading many of the amazing reviews other friends and  bloggers had written over the last few years.  The biggest tipping point was the conference's move this year from Nashville to Dallas, where my parents live (hello, free child care!)  A few of my very close friends (again, all originally met through blogging... sensing a theme here) are DFW natives so add in some much-craved friend visits and it was really a no brainer.

One thing I'm loving about the Blissdom conference agenda is that there are different tracks for different interests.  Want to improve your writing skills? Awesome.  Looking to take your photography to the next step?  Come on board.  Time to grow your blog's business brand?  They have that too.  And, for bloggers like me that may not quite fit any of those paths at the moment, there's the Life Development path.

From Blissdom's website:

"Life Development is about living your own life better. About finding your true path and navigating it in a way that fulfills you and broadens your horizons.  These sessions have been carefully chosen and are honed to help us live our lives deliberately. As creative people, without understanding our “Why”, we are prone to burnout and misdirection.

This year, through the Life Development track, we will ignite (or reignite) our fires. We’ll have presenters who will help us assess our paths, seek our happiness, and identify any need for course correction so we can surge forward."

I don't know about you, but I feel like this is the kind of conference topic any blogger can get into.  Getting a little extra inspiration, hopefully meeting more amazing Internet-turned-real-life friends, and eating a lot of good food?  Count me in.  And who knows- I may just get my act together enough to write about how the conference went this time around. :)

Are you going to Blissdom this year, or know anyone that is?