BlogHer Day 1/2: Lessons To Date

First and foremost, holy crimeoly! Take fourteen hundred women and put them in a hotel, and wow is the estrogen flowing. Fortunately, there are a few guys, too, so that does help to balance it out. I obviously have a fairly narrow ummm genre of people that I hang out with. You forget how many different people are out there, and it's so fun!

In the last day, I learned quite a bit -- it being my whole first BlogHer and everything. I am quite happy that I did at least skim the packet and have it beaten into my brain that I have to bring an extra suitcase for all the swag we were going to get.

On the downside, no one mentioned that if you want the swag, make sure you get to the parties early. We didn't get back from the Ford event (more on that to come)until 4 -- wahh! -- and the SocialLuxe Lounge began at 3. I made the mistake of going to the room to change and freshen up before heading to another party that began at four and then wandering over to the Hyatt for the lounge party later.

No swag bags were left. I saw plenty of those bags, of course. And I drooled. They were the size of a Bloomingdales Big Bag. At least. They had Crocs, which granted, I could have lived without. And a Kodak video camera. And a bottle of wine. And... and... ok, so I sorta got stuck on those two and didn't want to hear more.

What an awesomely cool bag! And lesson learned. I have my plan for tonight of where I'm going when. We also missed out on the swag from the 704 party because we had to catch a train out last night, but we saw some of what was in the bags and ... they were fun. Adult type fun, in fact. Then again, maybe I shouldn't worry about not getting that one!

I'll later put up a picture of my normal purse so you can oooo and ahhhh over it. And also a picture of the purse that I bought for BlogHer so that you can see how much fun it is -- and by extension, how much fun I am, right?

Now, picture having to -- and yes, here it truly is having to pick up swag from all the vendors we're seeing everywhere. And store it in a teensy, tiny purse that no self-respecting mommy would carry. Not gonna happen. I'm really happy that I brought the bigger purse.

However, I don't know how to pack a bigger purse. You'll notice that I have no pictures whatsoever from the events last night. My camera was buried at the bottom of my purse, somewhere, along with other important things like my lipstick. Oh, and my wallet. Today, I've fixed that and know how I'm going to keep things organized. And yay (or boo, depending on your POV), I'll have pictures going forward.

So when I was packing, I wanted to try to minimize what I was brining while being sure to have everything I needed. That meant calling Melisa to see if she'd have a hair dryer at her house for our sleepover. And deciding that the toiletries at the hotel would suffice. And packing only three pairs of (comfortable!) shoes.

And debating over bringing an umbrella or not. At home on Wednesday, it was raining. Not hard, but still raining. I wanted to get a small umbrella to take with me and decided to pick it up after I finished running my last minute errands. By the time I did this, of course, it had stopped raining. And I was going to Chicago where I'd be inside all weekend. I decided I didn't need an umbrella after all.

When I arrived in the city, the sun was shining. Yay! Yesterday, it was sunny and delightful and not humid -- this is not normal Chicago weather, but whoo! Remember getting back at 4pm from the Ford event? Dawn and I looked at each other and asked if that was rain drops we felt. Nahhh, we decided. By the time I made it to the SocialLuxe Lounge which was held at another hotel before I walked to Giordano's for dinner, it was raining. Really raining. As in I could hear thunder and lightning. So I found that Walgreens across the streeet and bought one. And slipped and slid into and out of my mules all the way to the hotel and then all the way to the restaurant. Just a little extra exercise, right?

I'm making progress though. I was smart enough to register last night and this morning picked up my tote bag from BlogHer when we arrived at the hotel insted of after breakfast. You don't want to know what the lines looked like, but I'll let it suffice to say that I'm pretty sure there are a few people who missed out on breakfast. And I'm not patient enough to stand in line, which is a whole 'nother issue.

Oh, and I also learned (stop laughing) that you don't have to Twitter from just your phone. Ahem. Soooo this morning, some friends finally convinced me to sign up for it. I'm not quite sure how to do it yet -- but there's a Twitter 101 session later today! -- but you can find me on Twitter now as honestandtruly.

Wish my luck today! I can't wait to see what else I lern the hard way....