It’s my last day in Utah & I’m ready to go home. The Alt conference was AMAZING, absolutely stellar, but I learned something about myself this weekend. My brain has a maximum capacity level & when it hits that level it shuts down. No matter how persistent or dedicated I tried to be after too much stimulation I just had to put myself to bed. It’s not the way I want it to be but that’s ok, it’s me.

(getting grumpy by end of day, so glad Susan decided to capture the moment, she then promptly sent me to my room)

I learned that from listening to Gretchen Rubin speak. That sounds bad, she didn’t make me feel like I had to go to sleep, she taught me to accept who I am. She wrote “The Happiness Project“, have you heard of it? It’s sounds wonderful & I’m totally going to buy it in the airport bookstore. She talked about all the little changes we can make in our everyday lives to achieve happiness. One of which being recognize who you really are & accept it. If you don’t like to journal or listen to music, fine, don’t force yourself to be something your not. Good tips…

By far the most fantastic part of my trip was I won a computer! I’m sure I should say the best experience was everything I learned or bonding with other creative women but no, it was definitely winning a free computer.HP had a design contest with Anya, season 9 Project Runway winner. You had to design a dress that could be part of her “Carribean Chic” collection using their HP touchscreen computer & the Art Rage software, she then narrowed it down to 12 finalists & then picked the winner. Somehow, I’m still not sure how, I actually won!!SO. FREAKING. EXCITED. And honestly, I’m absolutely thrilled about the computer but the part that makes me smile while typing this is that someone so talented & creative actually thought what I designed was worth something. I’m sorry but that type of validation feels great. Also my roomie Susan was one of the finalists! Perhaps it was something in our water…

Next best part of the trip? Meeting the actual human beings that write some of my favorite blogs. Despite some of my suspicions they really are people & not robots. Every single one of them was so sweet. We chit chatted forever & I loved every second.The amazing Heather Armstrong from Dooce, she also wrote this book which, quite literally, saved my life.

Jenny from Little Green Notebook, my favorite design blog

Dana from MADE, seriously, such a sweetheart

Susan, aka my roommate & possibly a robot, from Crafterhours

Susan & the infamous Amy Butler

And yes, I actually did learn a lot from the conference too. There were courses on utilizing social media, photography workshops, vlogging seminars & advertising tips. People like Maxwell from Apartment Therapy & Ben from Pinterest spoke about how they started their fantastic (& ridiculously successful) websites. It was so reaffirming to hear how some of their first ideas didn’t take off. Or that each one of them hit a slump where they were completely burned out on blogging.

Speaking of Apartment Therapy I cannot believe my castered crates were featured by them this past week! I went up to Maxwell & thanked him personally for still recognizing little bloggers like me. Their post has sent me a huge amount of traffic. THANK YOU AT!!

So here I am, sitting in a lovely hotel lobby, sipping coffee that’s actually hot & typing away, uninterrupted on my laptop. I should be soaking up every second of this but all I can think about are these two faces…

Makes me tear up a bit. In fact I’d better leave it at that. People are starting to stare.

Miss you all & happy to be home!