#ausblogcon2011

Lots has been said and written about the Aussie Bloggers Conference that took place this weekend. I am home on the post travel high, with the offspring having rapidly made good use of the contents of my swag bag. Thank you to the organisers who did a terrific job.
It's been an extraordinary few days.
I am sleep deprived and cannot write in sentences, so please forgive the use of bullet points.
Highlights:

Meeting with my boss at Kimberly Clarke. Always a pleasure.

Lunch with Mia Freedman and Christie, SquiggleMum, Edenland, Mrs Woog and Wanderlust. Learning about the Vicks Road to Relief programme and being alternately horrified at the fact 2 million children die each year from pneumonia and inspired by the fact that Vicks are funding a programme that will see vulnerable kids immunised. All we need to do is buy a pack of Vicks and it pays for a child to be immunised. If you don't like their Facebook page then you should. Really.




Meeting my roomie Annie face to face.


Meeting Lucy and Nomie


Dinner with Di Dovic, Nicky Lavigne, Jo Foster, Linda, Fi and Annie


The conference itself was great. I met Jayne who was my mentor when I started writing properly. She's well, she's just wonderful.

Meeting Allison Tait. She also taught me a valuable lesson about NOT colouring ones hair a few days out from a conference.

My panel crew were fantastic. Thank you so much Nicole, Yvette, Mark and Nikki.

Lunch with a group of people I call "my tribe."

Meeting Megan Blandford. The woman is GORGEOUS. A class act.

Meeting and gushing over Rick and The NDM. (you can actually see me gushing in this photo can't you?)


Dinner with my brothers.

Breakfast with Di, Bern, Annie, Jo and Jayne


Spending the day in Kerri Sackville's office playing with lego. When I wasn't in the pod.


Coming home to my gorgeous family.

*If I missed you I am so sorry. I am extremely tired and wrote this post with my eyes closing. I love youse all*

· Aussie bloggers conference

Did I party with Guns n Roses?

I woke up this morning with my friend, associate and social media strategist SawHole in my hotel bed. Which is not the first time in our 20 year friendship, but the first time in a long time. We had been partying and playing at the first ever Australian Bloggers Conference since Friday night. When we woke, and after SawHole complained about my incessant farting and snoring all night, we surveyed our room and wondered whether we had partied with Axel Rose the night before.

Then SawHole went down to the State Library and came back with this information which not only confirmed our suspicions that we were extremely average at everything, but we were also supporting a well known statistic.

While we all know women do more housework at home, it seems their good habits fly out of the window and onto the floor in hotels, with Novotel housekeepers confirming that female guests are more likely to leave their rooms in a shambles than men (69 per cent) and are more likely to flood the bathroom (72 per cent). Women are also more likely to ‘souvenir’ items from their rooms with shampoos and toiletries being the most popularly pilfered items (which are acceptable), but extending to bathrobes, hairdryers, cushions and even toilet paper (not acceptable). From http://www.hotelmanagement.com.au/

On reading these findings, I went and removed all the toilet paper I had stashed in my bag. (not acceptable)

It was good to know we were not the only ones who could totally filth up a perfectly nice hotel room in 2 days. There was evidence suggesting that one night, I demanded SawHole test nibble on an entire box of Darrell Lea chocolates until she found me a peppermint cream. (I hate it when you bite into a chocolate with gusto only to discover it is a coconutty one, or even worse a turkish delight) There was also evidence to support my haphazard views I have on hanging clothes back up or putting them away once they have been worn.


We were literally living in our own filth

Were we becoming hoarders? Can that happen in 48 hours?


I will remember this every time I yell at Mr Woog for leaving wet towels on the floor

Yes, I really did need that much face crap.
So this morning we had to face it. We were pigs. And after 48 hours of talking, blogging, kissing bloggers, dancing, listening, speaking, drinking, laughing, Watching SawHole mopping the dance floor with a Rubbermaid mop, laughing and drinking, the party was over.

SawHole pointing out to Nikki from Styling You where all the famous people lived. There was Russell Crowes place and Alan Jones place. And she told her with some authority that the Wiggles lived at the Opera House.

So apart from discovering that I am a totally festy hotel guest, the other thing I learnt this weekend was that Mr Woog and the Woogettes could survive without me for 2 days. This is actually going to be an ongoing study. Stay tuned for more findings.









· Aussie bloggers conference, messy hotel rooms, sawhole

Evacuate the Dancefloor

I have woken up this morning with an enormous zit on my chin. Which is a sure sign I have a big event coming up. At least it is not a cold sore, as I am going to be doing a lot of kissing this weekend.


I plan to kiss each of the 150 bloggers going. Just a peck though. No tongue.
Mr Woog has got the kids all weekend and at the moment they are tres feral. They boys are a bit sceptical and I am selling the whole idea of Boys Weekend to them which Jack is horrified at. Then I told them they would probably have McDonalds for every meal so they seem quite pleased that Mum is pissing off for the weekend to learn to be a better blogger.
I am hoping to learn more about blogging. And margarita ingredients. I will be looking for a partner to do a duet on stage with. At this point I am thinking Elton and Kiki's "Don't Go Breaking my Heart"
I am hoping no one will notice this zit.
And I will be doing a whole lot of this!

Can I save you a dance?

· Aussie bloggers conference

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