Central Florida Bloggers Conference

My first blogging conference speaking gig is in the books!

I cannot say enough good things about the Central Florida Bloggers Conference. But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

Several months ago, Katy put out a call for speakers for this year’s #CFLBlogCon. I know I’m in the minority of the world when I say this, but I actually enjoy public speaking! I have really wanted to  start speaking at blogging conferences and this seemed like a perfect opportunity to get my feet wet. Katy and I worked together to figure out my speaking topic – and settled on a presentation focusing on media kits. The title of my session ended up being “Marketing Yourself: How to Build Your Media Kit.”

Apparently a lot of people wanted to learn about media kits!

My session ended up being standing room only – I had no idea it would be so popular! Especially since I found myself up against a session titled “Make Money from Your Blog.” It certainly didn’t hurt my attendance numbers when the third session offered at that time got cancelled at the last minute, and the keynote speaker (who spoke right before I did) mentioned the need for having a media kit!

I’m planning to share the information from my presentation with all of you in the near future, but I want to say a big THANK YOU to all of you who attended my session! And that brings me to my favorite part of #CFLBlogCon – the people!!!

First of all, I have to say thank you to my mom for tagging along with me. As many of you know, my mom is a blogger too and I love that we share this passion. Neither of us had ever been to a blogging conference before this one, but we’re already trying to decide which one we’ll go to next!

Thanks also to my mom for letting me use her as an example for pretty much every point of my presentation. I hope she didn’t mind me picking on her so much.

I also loved meeting all of YOU!

I cannot tell you how much I loved finally putting faces with all of you who I talk to on Twitter or who comment here on my blog. YOU are the reason I keep blogging and meeting so many of you in person only renewed my passion for this blog. Thank you for coming up to me and saying hi – thank you for telling me you read my blog! It means more to me than you know!

Speaking of passion, I absolutely loved the keynote speaker, Lou Mongello, and felt so inspired by his remarks. He is all about encouraging people to pursue their passion – and I love that he is a “recovering lawyer” like me! I

After my session, I ran into this lovely lady – the beautiful Katy Widrick!

Katy is one of those people I’ve “known” through blogging for years, but have never met in real life. I love when you finally meet people like that and they are just as wonderful as you always imagined them to be. She was one of the main organizers of CFLBlogCon and did a fantastic job! We’re both pregnant with baby girls – but she’ll be welcoming her little one much sooner than me. She’s already 37 weeks pregnant! She looks fantastic, doesn’t she?

After my session, I enjoyed hearing from some lovely ladies as they presented about “Fitting Blogging Into Your Life.” And then, sadly, we had to hit the road. My husband is turning 30 tomorrow and chose yesterday afternoon to have his 30th birthday party. There’s nothing he’d rather do than watch college football with his friends!

Saturday ranks right up there as one of the most full days I have in a long time, but one of the best too. Thanks to everyone who made it so wonderful, both in Orlando and back here at home. I feel truly blessed!