Baby's First BlogHer: Day 2

Today was even crazier than the first day! I met Guy Kawasaki and BlogHer president Jory Des Jardins, won a bunch of prizes and neat free samples, and most importantly, I was re-inspired and re-invigorated to write my blog and serve my community.

7:45am Kim and I leave our room at the Marriott to go join friends who've already seated themselves for breakfast

8:15am We get to the breakfast keynote and see Jenny Lawson, aka The Blogess, up close and personal!



9:30am Breakout sessions! I jumped from "Building Lean-In Circles" to "Page Views vs. Community" to "Becoming a Vlogger" before heading to the Expo, invigorated by the salient points I'd picked up.

11:45am I won a $60 gift card to Game Stop from the Chuck E. Cheese booth!

12:30pm Lunch with Tig Notaro! She unexpectedly (unexpectedly to me, anyway) did a short set in addition to an interview:

Not only is Tig Notaro speaking at #BlogHer14 she's gonna do a set!! Ohhh yeah :) pic.twitter.com/zDtTZ1Vk2X
— Helen Laroche (@SaysHelen) July 25, 2014

2:30pm Break and phone re-charging time ... and oh. By the way. The Canadian Lentil group had cupcakes brought to our room that were made of lentils. I was most of the way through the cupcake before I even noticed:

@SaysHelen lovin this cupcake from @cdnlentils (Canadian Lentils) pic.twitter.com/h5dI1fiVcj
— Kim Rohrer (@kimskitchensink) July 25, 2014

4:30pm Pictures with Guy Kawasaki at the Canva station:

NBD, just meeting @GuyKawasaki with @SaysHelen at the @canva booth at #blogher14 today. pic.twitter.com/LlsxwsSdAj
— Kim Rohrer (@kimskitchensink) July 26, 2014

6:00pm The BlogHer Voices and Photos of the Year event: wow. Lots of tears and laughs, and a couple new must-read blogs!

7:30pm Kim and I are sitting around at the Voices and Photos of the Year reception, chowing down on our appetizers and drinking free champagne, and I really look around. I've been feeling a certain way for a while, and the feeling finally catalyzes into words: first of all, I don't think I've ever been around so many women before in my life, much less women who are so supportive of one another. But what also strikes me is, there are so many manifestations of womanhood here -- shapes, colors, interests, genders, orientations -- and it's really inspiring. It really brought to mind something Jenni Chiu said earlier today about speaking your truth: "You're not going to look or sound like anyone else, and that's why you should do it."