How Many Bloggers Does It Take to Screw in a Lightbulb?

None!

They light up a room all by themselves:)

Sharon, Cammy, Michele and me

My blogger meet-up weekend in Little Rock was fabulous.  Filled with fabulous women who happen to be fabulous bloggers and are, not surprisingly, fabulous conversationalists while also fabulously fun and funny and now fabulous friends.

We talked about blogging.  We talked about technology, blogging and not.  We talked about subscriptions and how often we post and why we read the blogs we read and why we stop reading certain blogs.  We talked about which bloggers we’d first discovered or who had first discovered us, and which bloggers have seemingly vanished. We talked about social media:  the good, the bad, the ugly, and the confusing.  And at one point we sat in a room with four laptops on four laps and shared photos and blog analytics and I was amazed at the wonder of it all.

We talked about the names of our current blogs.  And our “other” blogs and non-blog writing projects that we we were working on in the past, present or future.  And we talked about sharing our real names in the blog world and the pros and cons of anonymity.  We talked about blog readership and blog monetizing and blog comments.

We talked about weight loss and regain and maintaining and what worked for each of us and what didn’t work.  What we’d tried in the past.  What we might try in the future.  We talked weight loss plans and “non-plans” and about calories and protein and fiber.  We talked about exercise and what we did and how long we did it and what we wanted to try and what we didn’t want to try and what we would love to do “someday” when we got together again and had bikes and beautiful weather.

We talked about cupcakes.  And we laughed uproariously at our common technique for eating candy corn.

We talked about “womanly things” that would make men cringe.  We talked about men readers.  And men bloggers.  And just plain men.

And yes, we did talk about the weather.  And the city.  And and where we each call home.  And one of us even talked about baseball.

We talked about our careers – past, present and future.  We talked about our ages.  We laughed about our ages.  We lamented and commiserated about aging.  And all the while, I, for one, felt young at heart.

We talked about our struggles and our successes. And then we talked about our struggles some more.  And the “whys” and what to do about it all.  How to change things.  We talked about our emotions and emotional eating.  We talked about our challenges.  And wondered why some things came so easy to some of us but not to others.  And wondered why some foods trigger so many of us but not others.

We talked about ourselves and each other and other people, some in our lives and some in the media and some in cyberspace and some in our imaginations and some in our dreams.

We talked about serious stuff and inconsequential stuff; meaningful stuff and meaningless fluff.  And then we talked some more.  We talked “on topic” and we bounced all over the place.  We talked fast and loud and all at one time; we talked quietly, seriously with rapt attention.  We talked in the car and next to the car and waiting for a car.  We talked non-stop except when we didn’t… and we were comfortable not talking too.

We talked about animal encounters: real and to be avoided.  We talked about people encounters:  real and to be avoided.  We talked about the amazing talent of riding a bike while videotaping.  We talked about finding a bathroom.  And peeing in the woods.  And talking on the phone in public restrooms.  And texting.  And not texting.  And frugality and our wardrobes (or lack thereof) and country music and Broadway shows and restaurants we’d visited on the road.  We talked about Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods and Panera.  We talked about fro-yo.  We talked about fro-yo some more.

We talked about health insurance and healthy eating and “healthy living” as a blog theme and we talked about healthy life/blog balance.

We talked about what we eat for breakfast.  We talked about what we eat for lunch.  We talked about how we snack or don’t snack; what we do and don’t eat.  We talked about social eating and how, for most of us, our associations with food and family or food and celebration started at a very young age.

We talked about things familiar to us and thing unfamiliar to us.  We talked about things we’d never tried and things we wanted to try.  We had light bulb moments.  We had great ideas for future blog posts.

We laughed.  A lot.  Sometimes at the craziest of things.

We talked about road trips.  And our cars.  And meeting other cyber-friends.

We talked about our pasts, our presents, and our futures.

There were hugs.  And laughter.  And even a few tears.

And above all, there was an amazing familiarity with each other and that great sense or comfort that comes from being oneself in the company of others who seemingly know everything about you and still like you:)  There was admiration.  And empathy.  And understanding despite differences in lives and beliefs.  And tolerance and acceptance.  And a great balance of planning versus spontaneity.

We discovered ways we are very much the same and ways we are very different.  We confirmed that our impressions of each other from the written world held true in real life.  Authenticity shined through.

We talked and talked and talked some more.

It was wonderful.

This post is dedicated to my blog friends, those I’ve met and those I have yet to meet.  Read more about the weekend and get to know my blog friends at their respective blogs:

Cammy@ The Tippy Toe Diet

Michele @ Healthy Cultivations

Sharon @ Gains and Losses: Life through Sharon’s Eyes