hey, i made it!

Of all the Alt Summit videos that have been circulating I have not been in a single one...that is what I get for being an introvert. HOWEVER one that I received in my email box today has a lovely few second segment of myself and the fabulous Michael Doxey at the Girls With Glasses Parisian party! We show up about 1:58. Enjoy.

What Alt Summit feels like. from ALT Summit on Vimeo.

(me) guest posting - yuppie love

OH EM GEE, spontaneous guest post, Batman! I am so bummed I missed seeing the fabulous Kait post this, so it's sliiiightly late, but alas, here is where she posted some of my essentials for Alt Summit this week.


The amazing KAIT.

Head on over here and see what's up.

I will probably have a lot of "alt" in my posts for at least the next few days. It was just such a thrilling experience that I have to document it. And in light of meeting fun people and gaining awesome inspiration, I rubbed off on my bff forever Michael Doxey and HE started a blog. He plays a huge part in my 2012 plans so head over to his awesome, glittery blog and show him love.

Have a fantastic Monday night, y'all.

alt design summit: night party i forced michael doxey to attend with me

Okay so I'll admit, I was pretty nervous to go to these parties. I don't know anyone here. I've made an ass out of myself virtually stalking bloggers I love only to creep them out. BUT, my husband Zack and our friend Kramer told me I NEEDED to go to these parties, mainly because they knew I'd regret not going. So I went.

As for the preview last night, I forced my dear Michael Doxey to attend with me. Why? Because he is fabulous. I hung around a bit with Jess, Chelsey and Robin and Jensie which ruled, I've admired them and they're blogs for quite a while. It was nice to see how rad they were in person.



We wandered around to several parties, got some S.W.A.G. I got to stalk Bri Emery amd Erin Lochner a few more times. Michael and I grabbed some ice cream, made some necklaces and partied the night away.




Last day today, OMG. So stoked!

alt design summit: day two

Wow, yet another day under my belt at Alt Summit and I have to say I have learned so much from today's session. Again, I skipped out a bit early due to the fact that one: I was beat and two: I'd gained so much information that I have to rejuvenate myself for tonight.

The day began with a round table on Journalism for Bloggers, hosted by the FANTASTIC Jaimee Rose of The Arizona Republic and USA Today. She gave some amazing tips, most of which I will hopefully be incorporating into my blog going forward. Mostly, more of a structured posting style. I will probably not be implementing this until Monday. Oy with the vey.

After that I attended a panel of very talented bloggers on Growing Your Readership. I feel a lot of collaborations coming up in the future so if anyone would like to do a guest post feel FREE to ask! I can be reached at thatjordangirl@gmail.com or follow me on twitter @thatjordangirl. It would be so fun to work with some of the amazing bloggers I've met so far.




During lunch I sat with some fabulous ladies. Taylor Kalander, Lili Zarghami of HGTV, and Valerie Rasmussen of Utah Bride & Groom to name a few. The Keynote speaker of today was Ben Silbermann, the founder of Pinterest who was absolutely amazing. He gave quite an inspirational speech I must say.



The final highlight I have of today is meeting one of my blogging idols, Bri Emery. We talked for a few and she was kind enough to snap a photo with me. Oh how I will treasure it forever!



On tonight's agenda I will be attending several of the mini parties being held in hotel suites. This should make for an interesting evening.

what is to come

Michael Doxey and I had a fantastic evening at the Alt Summit night parties. SO much to post about tomorrow I cannot stand it. I will leave you with the funnest photo EVER.

alt design summit: day one

Ah, here we are, day one of the festivities. I got up at seven this morning, about an hour later than I'd planned. I got my coffee in my to go mug and Zack drove me the 15ish miles to the lovely Grand America Hotel. One thing really nice about Alt Summit is that it isn't a huge commute for me. This makes me very happy.

Once there I received my fancy name badge and my S.W.A.G. (for you that aren't aware, this stands for Stuff We All Get, duh). I'll probably end up doing a separate post on the S.W.A.G. once Ive had a chance to actually look/use/play with it all. I was still pretty stoked to have my own name badge, I honestly felt pretty important.



Then I was on my way to my first panel of the day. It was on Successful Collaborations, and the fantastic, amazing and wonderful BRI EMERY was one of the panelists, along with Josyln Taylor, Victoria Smith and Danielle Krysa. It was highly informative and really makes me excited to incorporate some more guest posts into my blog for 2012. Plus, I got a little re-tweet from Bri herself, which may have been one of the biggest thrills of my life. No, seriously.



After that panel I went to another on how to incorporate ads and build relationships with sponsors. I'll be honest, I've never really wanted to have sponsors on my blog, but I would be open to the idea if it came about. I just have been to so many blogs where I'm overwhelmed with sponsors and giveaways and things like that and I'll be honest, I'm not a fan. Once in a while it's okay but the reason I read your blog is to read about YOU not about who you sponsor. Meh, I may be alone in that.

Then there was lunch and I have to say, the (what I think was a) pot pie was entirely toooooo good. Toooooo good to be a pot pie, yet, it was.



Third panel was something that I have been looking forward to since it went up on the schedule. From Blog To Book. Oh man, all I want to do is write and I figured I could gain a lot of perspective from this. There were many amazing panelists but the lovely Grace Bonney from Design*Sponge was the moderator. She gave a lot of good advice on how to work with publishers and agents should they tickle your fancy. It was my favorite part of the day. So much, in fact, that I took notes.





After that I was shot. None of the final panels really appealed to what I needed so I had Zack pick me up early. And I'm being a bad blogger gal by not attending the Winter Wonderland party. I'm so drained and shy, I know that's not excuse but I will be attending the sparkly parties tomorrow. Oh two more days of this. I wish I could do this every day. I've met a few very fun people, there are some I still haven't met and some I feel like are going to get creeped out I'm such a fangirl for them. I really wish I could do this every day (yep, that's twice now).

Thanks again to those who support!!

alt dinner where we got crafty

So I must say I was extremely nervous to attend my ALT Design Summit dinner. I get very anxious when I am in a group with people I don't know, but I was encouraged to go by my husband and some friends so alas, I made the trek to Roth Distributing to meet up with some fantastic ladies. It was hosted by Kelly Wilkinson of Make Grow Gather and Sarah Flotard an amazing food photographer.

I was the first to arrive and it was such a relief considering I thought I'd be late. The first thing they offered me was a sparkling wine and grapefruit cocktail. Oh the joys of that. Usually I don't believe sparkling and wine mix, but I was proven very wrong with this concoction. Add a little blood orange and you're there.

I got a chance to mingle with Sarah and Kelly as others arrived and once we'd all made ourselves acquainted we went into a distribution showroom to make napkins! This is where I got to show off my less than artistic skills. Seriously I would love to point out that I failed first grade paint 101 and my sad little napkin will probably never see the light of day after this post.




Afterward we headed to the dining area and had a meal so fantastic I can't even describe it. A white salad, duck, squash. It was oh so yummy, and the girls were kind enough to give us some of the recipes in our gift bags.



The highlights? I did some networking, passed out my business cards (ooh aren't I fancy) and received some as well.

The lowlights? I fell on my ass. I seriously cannot wear heels. And I know what you're thinking...whoa how many of those sparkly cocktails did you have? I HAD ONE. And then a half a glass of dry reisling. Seriously, not enough to warrant a fall, I assure you. I wish I could have at least blamed the cocktails.

Next post? Day 1! Oy with the poodles already.

alt summit preparations

Since I'm going to be attending Alt Summit for the next few days I thought I'd post a little here about what I'm looking forward to and where I'm going to be in case anyone wants to be friends. I absolutely know no one there so I'm open to friends who want to sit at lunch with me since I'm going to be timid and shy. There is so much going on this year that I cannot wait to experience.

Dinner With...
I am attending the Dinner With Make Grow Gather and Sarah Flotard". I cannot wait for this!!

Day 1

9a-10a - Successful Collaborations
Mostly this is an excuse for me to hear Bri Emery talk for an hour, but I figure it'll give me some insight in case I decide to collaborate.

10:30a-11:30a - Work Life Balance
I was torn here, because I really want to hear Erin Loechner speak, but I'm not really looking to work with sponsors right now, so I figure learning how to balance work and life and writing will be a good fit for me.

Keynote Speakers - Pilar Guzman of Martha Stewart Living and Maxwell Ryan of Apartment Therapy, to name a few. EEEEE.

2:30p-3:30p - From Blog To Book
Clearly this speaks to me.

4p-5p - Blogging Ethics & Ediquette
I figure any little bit of this can help.

Evening - Winter Wonderland party
I haven't decided if I am going to this yet...I'm kind of anti-social. We'll see how the day goes.

Day 2

Okay so today we have roundtables. I'm again, torn. As a writer I want to find the topic that will best help me with that so I'm trying to decide between: Journalism for Bloggers, Bit Bloggers and How To Quit Your Day Job. Hmmm, probably the first choice, but we shall see.

Keynote Speakers - Ben from Pinterest. I cannot wait to hear him speak!

2:30p-3:30p - Building a personal brand
None of the panels this hour really speak to me heavily so why not figure out who I am?

Day 3

Okay so I'm more excited for this day than anything. I have no idea what it's going to entail and I'm pretty nervous for the interaction but hey, whats not fun about stepping out of your comfort zone, right?

9:30a-11:29a (no, really this is what my itinerary says...) - How to style for a photo shoot
I truthfully signed up for this just so I could have fun. I'm not a fashion blogger, I don't want to be a fashion blogger, but the tips may be fun for when I actually want to get out of sweats.

12:30p-2:30p - Photoshop for Bloggers
I'm going to try this for real, I swear.

3p-5p - Creating webisodes
Okay I really want to do webisodes eventually whether its for the blog or the podcast. The Girls With Glasses Show will be hosting and I find them to be adorable.

There may be adjustments to this but it's where I'm heading now. I hope to meet people, learn from them and get excited about writing again.

lifestyles of the emo and jordan

A few days ago someone commented to me that they read my blog and I always seem sad. I didn't take this as necessarily a bad thing, but it made me think. One thing I try to do is be real on my blog. I read so many blogs and everyone seems to have the perfect life. Blogs usually portray that. No one wants to post the hard stuff, and why would you? That would just bring you down. I'm not going to post details of my life and what I go through but it's not always peachy. Sometimes life is just plain hard. I struggle like everyone else in this world and if I'm having a particularily low day I can't pretend that I'm not. I have never been good at hiding my emotions. Friday night I was sad and I'm still not sure why. I think the stress of the entire week was weighing on me and I just wanted to cry. Zack sat with me and made me laugh even though I was the snot-nosiest, emotional, gross thing in the world at that point. But he let me cry and carry on because that's what you do when you're wife is being an irrational basketcase? And I would do the same for him. Why? Because people are allowed to be ridiculous and thats why they have people that love them, to be there for them when no one gets it. I still am not sure why I had a cryfest but it felt better once it was done. So sometimes I may be sad on my blog and sometimes I may be entirely too happy. I may be scared, I may be crass and vulgar and I may be proud. That's just how it goes.

I have learned a few things this weekend:

After basically eating rabbit food for weeks on end don't try and eat a burger, it will not sit well.
When you take memorabilia from a serial killers house that is no longer there you will have scary dreams.
King Of The Hill cures most sadness.
Soy milk from the dollar store is not goo.

Hope everyone has a great week. Monday brought us a lot of snow here and I'm slightly scared to drive home. I have Alt Summit this week and I'm more nervous than I can possibly say, mostly because I only blog so I can write. Hmm.

2012 thus far

This song first came to my attention a few years ago when the company I used to dance for used it in one of their competition pieces. It's amazing.

So far 2012 has brought me mostly health, joy and happy! I guess we're off to a good start. I haven't eaten anything from a drive thru window, with the exception of last night I've only eaten something bad while at a restaurant once...and last night was a special occasion. I've been to the gym multiple times and I'm on the 3rd book of my 35 book goal for this year. I haven't written more but I feel I've written more from my heart. All in all I'm highly content with how this year is shaping up.

I have too much tv in my life, I wish I could cut back but it's just so good.

I want to find local places that teach writing workshops so if anyone has any insight please point me in the right direction. I want to start work on some form of a book/fiction, I have a few ideas but none that have come to fruition. I could always pick up one of the billion books I've started but they just never seemed to be something I could invest in and I think that's essential for a writer.

I'm very nervous/excited for Alt Summit next week but I definitely feel underqualified. I am hoping to make good contacts and meet new friends who share my interests in writing/blogging/etc. It's a huge step away from my comfort zone.

I can't not be optimistic about this year. Even with some of the things I'm nervous about, I can tell it's going to be amazing!

i talk about alt summit a LOT

I was pretty stoked to participate in one of the Alt Summit chats this morning and I have to say I learned a lot. I cannot wait to meet some of the people/sponsors that will be attending. Soon to come, a post about some of the fantastic people I've already connected with. It's going to be great!


Discussion with Erin Loechner from Design for Mankind.

YAY ALT SUMMIT

Finally picked out my courses for Alt Summit and I seriously cannot wait! I was able to get into most of the classes that I wanted, and the forums are going to be even better! Eep!