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By Aimee, January 31, 2012

In a fun stroke of luck I won a ticket to Altitude Summit thanks to the people at Minted. I was excited to get a chance to go again this year, especially since I didn’t get a ticket and the conference sold out. The conference was actually the 19-21st of January, and was going to be during a huge snow storm. Luckily for me the (since I was driving back and forth to the conference) the snow stayed away until Saturday, which was a day for people to ski, go to the Sundance Film Festival, or take classes at the hotel.

Since it was pretty last minute that I was going I missed some of the events because they were sold out already (such as the classes on Saturday and the Dinner With). The parts that I did get to attend were awesome though! An amazing gift box was waiting for each attendee at the registration desk. It was full of some seriously fun items (I will share soon). We were also surprised at the first keynote lunch when we walked in to find gifts at each place setting from Cargoh. In an amazing stroke of luck my gift was something that had been on my wish list for years (an air plant in a hanging glass globe)!

Gretchen Rubin of the Happiness Project was one of the speakers, as was Ben of Pinterest fame. You can see above that I met Gretchen, which was fun because I actually got to review her book when it first came out and I was happy to be able to thank her for that in person. She was just as charming in person as in her book and on her site, and she had my favorite keynote of the entire event. Ben’s keynote was also very inspiring and interesting as well.

And of course, ALT wouldn’t be ALT without the mini-parties! This year was even better than last, with each room having a different theme. My friend Tammy had the cutest room by far for Wilsonart, and her room had Petite Fours so that won my heart. And since I was stuck at the hotel for a good hour or so while waiting for parties to start, I got one of the coveted Girls With Glasses and Pinhole Press gift bags.

It’s always fun socializing and meeting so many great people. Oh yes, one thing that was mentioned and that I have found to be very true since taking notice of it? Blog names matching URLs. Seems pretty simple, but this one actually never matched, and now that it has been on my mind I have noticed other blogs that don’t match (making it hard for people to find). So you will notice that I have renamed the blog to match it’s URL.

Have you gone to conferences before? What do you like most about them?

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By Aimee, January 5, 2012

Love, love, love! <3

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By Aimee, December 14, 2011

One of my favorite things about the holidays is the excuse to make and eat cookies. So I was really happy to share this great campaign that Allrecipes launched to help give back to the community! Cookies Across America is asking bakers to take the pledge to “bake a difference” in the month of December by baking and sharing cookies with those less fortunate.

Will you join in and take the pledge on the Cookies Across America Facebook page and show your support on your own blog?

If you want to have even more fun, host a Cookie Exchange with your friends! Ask everyone to bring a few dozen holiday cookies, add icing and festive touches. Then wrap them up for donation and give them to a local food pantry, emergency shelter, senior center, lunch program, or other community agency. Wouldn’t that be a fun way to share some love this holiday season?

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By Aimee, November 22, 2011

This is the story of a blogger who decided to join the challenge known as NaNoWriMo. If you aren’t familiar with it, basically it means writing an entire 50,000 word novel in just one month, the month of November. Tonight I finished mine at 50,170 words.

We cracked open a bottle of sparkling cider in celebration, and right now I am pretty sure my husband is in the other room reading my book!

Meanwhile at home chores piled up, blog posts went unwritten, the little projects and decorative things I was planning for Thanksgiving didn’t get done, and very little of anything else happened.

The story has a happy ending though, as I finished just in time for our Thanksgiving week of fun, with three Thanksgiving dinners. Luckily not all on the same day (we are not the Gilmore’s after all).

The process was a lot of fun, and it was so interesting to just write and let the story develop without much input from me and my idea of how it should go. I think that NaNoWriMo is like a marathon for your brain! I feel a bit exhausted mentally, but also pretty great.