Stephanie

August 5, 2013

Unpacking from BlogHer

I am back home and back to some sort of routine. I am listening to the news and heating water on the stove for morning cups of herbal tea while I pour cereal into a bowl. There is still a suitcase in the corner of my bedroom that clothing and swag and all these ziploc bags I used for packing are slowly seeping out of.

I have a bad habit of taking a long time to unpack. Sometimes a really long time. I promised Phillip I wouldn’t take so long this time, and then I remembered I couldn’t. I’ll be repacking that suitcase soon for our Colorado trip.

But it is taking longer than I thought for everything I brought back from the conference to find its place here at home. It will. For now, I’m still figuring out where it all goes. I’ll find a way to make it work and get ready for my next trip.

Even though it’s causing a bit of a time crunch, I’m so glad I went to the conference. It gave me exactly the answers I was looking for.

The night before I bought my last-minute ticket from my friend Mona, when I was still considering whether to say yes, I wrote a note for Phillip. He was already asleep, and I wanted to talk it all over with him. I knew I couldn’t count on my night-owl self to have a single coherent thought in the morning, so I wrote it all down.

Maybe instead of waiting to figure out what I’m doing, I should see if this blog to book thing could work for me.

So I went. I took a lot of notes (and a few photos), met a lot of wonderful people, listened.

I came back with answers, including another big yes.

Instead of thinking that I maybe want to write a book, I now plan to write a book. Maybe a series. (Yikes.) I have other ideas for this blog and for writing and traveling and crafting too.

I’m still trying to figure out where exactly this fits with the rest of my life. I know I’ll find a place for it all. I’ll find a way to make it work and get ready for what’s next.

August 1, 2013

Snapshots from Chicago (Whirlwindy City Photo Hunt results)

3 days.

16 sessions/keynotes.

5 Friday night parties. (Yes, 5.)

A whole pile o’ business cards exchanged.

With a super busy BlogHer conference schedule, I didn’t have time to see ~~all~~ much of Chicago.* But, the key question: Did I finish the Whirlwindy City Photo Hunt?

Oh, yes, I did.

Here is what I captured for each of the 10 Chicagoey items on my photo scavenger hunt list:

1. Windy city

2. Sears (Willis) Tower

3. Chicago hot dogs

Saw this stand after dinner…

…and got an actual Chicago dog at the airport and ate it at a phone charging station. It was surprisingly good, even though I usually don’t put yellow mustard on hot dogs. Or onions. Or unidentified diced peppers approximately the color of green jello. Somehow, it all worked.

4. Lincoln (Park)

Lincoln parked at O’Hare, waiting for his flight. Hope he gets a seat with extra leg room.

5. Wrigley field and the Chicago Cubs.

This is as close as I got to Wrigley Field (and most of those sites).

It’s hard to tell, but the girl in the background is wearing a Cubs hoodie. And struggling to carry like 4 mega-packs of toilet paper around the hotel lobby. Not sure why. It was a nice hotel. They provided toilet paper.

6. L Train

L Train as viewed from el shuttle.

7. Art institute(d)

Passed by the actual Art Institute in a cab but did do an art project at BlogHer’s Fly DIY party.

8. Lake Michigan

Now I’ve seen one of the Great Lakes! My friend asked if that was on my bucket list. I hadn’t thought of it that way. Maybe more like part of my duty as an American. Or something.

9. …And all that jazz.

Queen Latifah, known in Chicago as Mama Morton, emceed the Voices of the Year readings.

10. One more thing: Chicago River

It was really beautiful just sitting out by the river at night, watching the boats and feeling the breeze.

Melissa Lanz of The Fresh 20 found this on her Whirlwindy Photo Hunt:

Navy Pier.

…And there you have it! The #whirlwindyphotohunt!

The conference itself was amazing. And exhausting. I have a lot I want to write (and have started writing), but I am still processing it all. I’m also getting ready for our Colorado trip, which is just around the corner. So, with all these thoughts and ideas in my head, I’m not sure what will be ready to post next. I guess it’ll be a surprise for all of us.

*Just to warn you: Before you say “Awww, you didn’t get to see/go to _____?!”, you should know that there’s also a post in the works about just those types of comments.

July 24, 2013December 12, 2017

Whirlwindy City Photo Hunt

I am writing this from seat 12D, en route to Chicago to attend the BlogHer blogging/writing conference. In the past, I’ve driven by Chicago and had a layover at O’Hare, but I’ve never really been to Chicago.

Since the BlogHer conference agenda is so packed, I’m not going to have a lot of time for sightseeing while I’m there this time either. I’ll be staying right by Museum Campus, but there’s a good chance I won’t be able to visit any of the museums. Or go to the top of the ~~Sears~~ Willis Tower. Or see a taping of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.

So I thought it’d be fun to make a list of Chicagoey things to photograph, whether I get to visit the actual site or not. I know I’ll see Lake Michigan, for example. But will I get a chance to go up to Lincoln Park? If I make it there, I’ll Instagram it. If I don’t, I’ll Instagram a more broad interpretation – maybe a penny face-up in some other park or a Lincoln in a parking lot. See where I’m going with this? So I’ll hopefully capture everything on my Chicago list in one form or another.

It’s a whirlwind tour of the windy city in photo scavenger hunt form. I’m calling this my Whirlwindy Photo Hunt.

If you’re going to BlogHer, maybe you’d like to join in. See how many things on the list below you can find, whether you interpret it literally or get creative. Tag your Instagram or Flickr* photos with #whirlwindyphotohunt and the item’s hashtag (#lincoln, for example). That way, you can check out everyone’s Lincoln photos or everything from the photo hunt.

Windy city #windycity
Sears Tower, technically now called “Willis tower,” but even Siri still calls it Sears Tower. #searstower
Chicago hot dogs #chicagodog
Lincoln Park #lincoln
Wrigley field – Sneak in Cubs (or Blues Brothers) references here, if you’d like. #wrigleyfield
L train #ltrain
Art institute #AI
Lake Michigan #greatlake
…And all that jazz – this could refer to Jazz music or Chicago the musical. #allthatjazz
Something else awesome that is quintessentially Chicago but not on the list. #1morething

Bonus points for reenacting anything from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. #bueller

*If you’re not on Instagram or Flickr, just do a blog post next week with your shots and you can still link to the #whirlwindyphotohunt wrap up post.

[photo of me with suitcase by Phillip.]

July 16, 2013July 16, 2013

The most complicated part of travel arrangements

Can you relate to this?

Meeting up with a friend who lives near you:

1. Contact

2. Schedule a time and place.

3. Meet.

Meeting up with a friend when traveling:

1. Contact.

2. All hell breaks loose.

Okay. Maybe all hell doesn’t break loose.

But arranging to see people is 5-10 times harder when one of you will be coming in from out of town.

Yes, that is a made up number for something there’s no tangible way to measure.

The point is that, despite the fact that you have tons of options for contacting people near or far instantly and for free, the communication somehow breaks down beyond your metro area.

Before her trip to Phoenix, my friend Janell mentioned it was challenging making plans to see her friends here. I was surprised at first, but then I realized I’ve run into the same problems when I’m getting ready to travel. (Janell did get it worked out.) (But it was 5-10 times harder. Probably.)

Phillip and I are going to visit family and friends in Colorado next month. We haven’t set the details our agenda yet, so that makes me really want to get this figured out before things get wacky.

Is it harder to schedule because you are less familiar with your out-of-town friends’ schedules? Sometimes it’s hard to even predict your own schedule when you’re traveling. Do we put too much pressure on everything being perfect when we’re meeting up with someone we don’t get to see regularly? Does it just feel like more work to contact someone who’s far away (even though it’s really not)?

What do you think it is? Have you figured out a way to make this a little easier?

July 15, 2013July 15, 2013

Looks like I’m going to Chicago!

I had totally talked myself out of going to Chicago for BlogHer.

Going to a national blogging conference seemed like a big commitment for a blog that (at the time) hadn’t officially launched yet. I had planned on reconsidering next year.

But, last week Tuesday, my friend Mona tweeted that she had an extra discounted conference ticket, and it got me taking another look at the conference website. The agenda was a great fit with the goals and dreams I had for my now 8-posts-old blog. Maybe it’d be better to figure this stuff out now, at the beginning, and start off on the right foot.

I decided to say yes.

Mona took care of the ticket transfer. I booked my flight and hotel, and then started figuring out what to pack and whether I’d have time to see anything in Chicago besides the conference center.

So the next couple weeks there will be some Chicago stuff and some conference stuff mixed in with what I already had planned. I had also been thinking of experimenting with the format – going with shorter/more frequent posts instead of weekly mega posts. I think this is a great time to try that out.

Let’s see how this all goes!