I Survived

I survived BlogHer09 and my blog might just be better for it, lol.  Last week I attended a HUGE blogging conference in Chicago.  Sitting at the airport on my way to Chicago I began to have second…ok third thoughts about attending such a conference.

Heathen Homeschoolers started out as something I wanted to do just for me.  I really didn’t think too much about the geek side of blogging because quite honestly I didn’t know if anyone would ever actually read my blog.  Imagine my surprise when fellow Heathen Homeschoolers starting to visit my blog!  Sitting there at the airport I kept thinking that my blog was just too small to warrant my attendance at such a large event.  Good thing the Heathen family dropped me off – I didn’t have a chance to chicken out of leaving for Chicago.

On the plane to Chicago I had visions of people laughing about my little blog and asking why I was at BlogHer.  When I walking through O’Hare to baggage claim I decided I was insane for agreeing to share a limo with a group of women I had never really met.  I mean come on, I had been reading some of their blogs for awhile.  I considered all of them higher up the blog food chain compared to me.  I found the group of ladies at baggage claim and was welcomed.  I felt like the new kid in school being invited to sit at the “cool kids” table at lunch, lol!

The stretch suv limo was just a great way to kick off my first trip to BlogHer.  We were all able to chat on our way downtown.  I spent more time with some of the limo girls throughout the weekend.

I thought the odds of anyone recognizing my name or blog were slim to none.  I had decided that I would be fine with that because after all I was there to learn and was far from an a-list blog star.  Words cannot express how excited I was when someone was excited to meet Heathen Mom.  We were in the elevator and she said “Hi Andrea” as she read the rest of my name tag.  She then squealed and yelled “OMG you are Heathen Mom.  I love your blog”.  I was so elated that someone really had heard of my blog.  This one moment helped me feel more at ease about the weekend ahead.  For the life of me, I cannot remember the person who helped me stop feeling like I was going to hurl – so thank you to that blogger.

In addition to the parties and meeting other bloggers there was this little thing called a conference going on.  As with all conferences, some sessions were great, some just ok and others that quite frankly sucked.  I think I enjoyed the geek sessions better than a lot of the other workshops that I attended.  Shhhh, don’t tell Heathen Dad or he will think his geekness is rubbing off on me, lol!  Some of the geek sessions helped with with ideas for my site that my readers will notice, other changes will be more behind the scene geek work – but all of changes will be good for Heathen Homeschoolers.   I am going to start doing more with the online community as well.  I can’t wait to implement some of the new geeky changes.

I attended a session about blogging as a homeschoooling tool.  That session is going to be covered in another post later this week.  It was great to meet other homeschool bloggers.  I am looking forward to visiting some new homeschool mom blogs.

So why has it taken me till Thursday to post this?  Well as you know there was a massive internet failure at the cafe I was at yesterday or it would have been posted on Wednesday.  The reason why it has taken so long is because I underestimated the increased amount of time the kids would want after I returned.  This week has been crazy with my son at science camp each morning and my daughter at dance camp each evening.  It seems like every free moment they have wanted to make up for the lost mommy play time.  Things are starting to get back to normal around here so I will have time to blog again.  Good thing, I would have hated to find ways to improve my blog and then never get to implement them, lol.  Summer is great, but I am looking forward to fall so our schedule will slow down just a bit.