Blissdom 10 - Part 1: Of Bliss, Bio Domes and Magic Fairies

If you have been following my blog for any length of time it comes as no surprise that I just spent four glorious day at the premiere blogging conference of the year, Blissdom '10, in Nashville, Tennessee, at the Gaylord Opryland Resort. Five hundred geeked-out women with laptops and iPhones, twittering, facebooking and socially interfacing placed me smack in the center of virtual heaven. IT WAS F.A.N.T.A.S.T.I.C. !!!!!!!

Once registered, I received a really cool swag bag made especially for Blissdom from Land's End brimming full of groovy items. Little did I know, the swag bag was the smallest of all the surprises in store for the weekend. Blissdom is known for coordinators Allison Worthington at Blissfully Domestic and Barbara Jones at One to One, who are marketing experts and queens of public relations. They secured amazing sponsors who went over-the-top in making this conference the best in the country. Wow! Wow! Wow! Does not even begin to cover it.

And then there was the Gaylord Opryland Resort.....a city unto itself. A large, tropical Bio dome, self-contained at a constant 72 degrees and magic fairies to anticipate my every need. Better than Disney World since it is caters especially to adults, I did not have to think, clean or even look for food because it was all at my fingertips. Bottled water was magically left in my room and I swear a Muslim delivered a Holy Bible to my door.

Having never attended a Blogging Conference before, I did not know what to expect. Also, not personally knowing anyone who would be attending and walking into a room of 500 women by myself was somewhat intimidating for this small town girl. One the other hand, no one knew me either, so I could be myself. And so I was! Thursday evening, I girded by loins for battle with Spanx to make me feel sexy, threw back my shoulders with a Cacique bra, held up my sagging chin with glue behind my ears and gracefully tripped into the opening meet and greet party at the Jack Daniel's Saloon while wearing 3" black heels. Talk about making an entrance! This led to immediate kinship from gaping mouthed women who saw the whole thing, ran to my rescue, and began to laugh with me until I spoke of course, in my Northeast Tennessee accent. Their countenance immediately changed into, "why this poor thing has just been let off the farm," kind of look.

All of this, eventually led to my meeting Megan from Sweet Sadie Marie who recognized me from my What to Wear? Post; Mendy from Printing My Savings who obviously was meant to become my friend due to our bumping in to each other at every turn; Amy at Selfish Mom who was as mesmerized by my Tennessee accent as I was by her Brooklyn accent; Cathe from Just Something I Made, who, prior to the conference inspired me to bring along my hole punch and Cathe's friend Selena at Apron Thrift Girl (both of these ladies from California); Sommer at Green and Clean Mom who lives in Minnesota, Susan the Garlic Girl (a food scientist, no less) from Iowa (blog in construction), and Sweetie Berry from She's So There who is a blog/business/life strategist from Alabama. All very cool women from different places, backgrounds, cultures, beliefs, gathered together for the common interest of blogging.

Part II Coming Soon.....

Thanks for reading, Rosie.