Fabulicious in Blogalicious

I hate myself for running a little late to the Blogalicious brunch this morning. Just a little late. 20 minutes to be exact, but it was long enough to miss the first few minutes that Denene Millner graced everyone with her classy self.

According to Harper Collins site:

“Denene Millner is a columnist for Parenting magazine. She has worked as a senior editor at Honey and as an entertainment and political journalist for the New York Daily News. She is also the author of The Sistahs' Rules and co-author of several books, including the novel A Love Story (with her husband, Nick Chiles), and The Angry Black Woman's Guide to Life, a humor book. Millner lives in Atlanta with her husband and their two daughters.”

But besides her glowing resume of fabulicious-ness, she had me (and everyone in the room) in tears over her beautiful and profound reflection on her Mother . Denene said "I need her". Those words made me want to run and round up my kids around my own mom who has not been in the best of health lately. And when I get back home to Chicago, I am going to do just that.

There is much more to say about Blogalicious, but I will save that for tomorrow. For now, Fabulicious Denene - Thank you for the inspiration!

Oh, and check out Priscilla Renea. She performed for us this morning following Denene. This girl can sing and you can bet I will be buying her CD!

What was I thinking?!

I got back to my hotel room at around 2 am from the first round of cocktail parties to kick-off the Blogalicious Conference - 1st blogging conference for Women of Color and I’m TIRED. Tired but still feeling fabulous. How can I not feel fabulous when I’m surrounded with all this exhilarating group of ladies?!

A few months back when I was asked to join and speak in this Blogalicious Conference, I was very excited BUT at the same time, I’m not too keen with the actual word “blogalicious”. I felt that the word itself takes away the professional career I've built in blogging. It bothered me so much that I actually almost turned down what I am calling now a pretty fabulous event.

If you google “Asian” or “Filipina” you will find that the first pull are most probably of sexual nature (or on mail order brides). So you can imagine that using the word “blogalicious” in my blog may make it even more attractive to those who are looking for just that. So yeah, I had a rough time with the word.

The date got closer and I knew I had to decide if I wanted to go. Hotel and airfare rates are going up, and sponsors are tapping on someone else’s shoulder if I don’t grab what I can. One day a girlfriend of mine who happens to be Asian-American herself said, “Why didn’t you want to go again? About the word “Blogalicious”? GET OVER IT already!” And so I did.

Now I’m livin’ it up here in the beautiful W in Atlanta, and I cannot believe that I almost passed up this opportunity. I’m not sure if I’m completely sold with the word yet, but with all these powerful Social Media women around me including the 3 mama lawyers (founders of Blogalicious), I am actually ok with it. I'm hanging out with my favorite blogger Carol - NYCityMama.com and I even got to rub elbows with a Hollywood celebrity Kim Coles at the Clever Girls Collective partay! AGAIN - I can’t believe I almost passed this up! What was I thinking?!

More on blogalicious soon. Oooh, and go check out SunkissedMommy.com site. This social networking site is built for Mommies just like me :-)

Bringing Blogging Mojo Back

Yes, I'm really back! What to do? Where to start? Accck! Is anyone even reading here still? The last time I wrote was in July. A complete blog sabbatical and I hope that it will never happen again. What happened? My mojo went on a tangent. I focused on other web projects that have taken off and I was left uninspired to continue this personal blog of mine. The ironic thing is, a few months ago a girlfriend started blogging and I straight out told her that she needs to blog more if she wants to see more traffic. Hah! I should've been listening to my own advice.

So I'm here in Atlanta for the very 1st Blogging Conference for Women of Color (Yay!) called Blogalicious, and so I decided if I'm going to a "blogging" conference I may as well...uhhh..."blog". Ok - not only am I just attending, I'm actually one of the speakers. How's that for inspiration? Thankfully, I have other sites to show instead.

Oh, and Lookee! I even videoblogged today! And yes, I plan to blog tomorrow, the day after, and the day after that. I'm baaaaaack!

I lost my blogging mojo

Blogging was supposed to be fun, but lately this feels like work. And I have enough work, so this blog has been sitting and collecting dust lately. Darn, I hate that! I miss the feeling of excitement in blogging and I seem to be missing that lately. For now I'm giving myself a little bit of time to just do what I need to do. Like get the kids ready for school again (in 2 weeks, yikes!), finish the launching of a couple sites I have in my plate, and then maybe I'll get my mojo up and going again.

The thing is, I have lots of exciting things going on that I'd love to share...but I'm also exhausted beyond excitement and by the time I get to sit down at the end of the day to tell you my story, all I want to do is rest.

Here's another attempt to get caught up:

• I hosted a Chicagonista Social Media Soiree that was sponsored by GM / Chevy. It was the most wonderful night with a a roomful of fun folks. Check out the videos and photos here.
  

• My baby Chicagonista was mentioned in Fox News during the Blogher Conference that took place here in Chicago. This made my day. Heck - it made my week, and will be dragged on for awhile until the next big traditional media exposure comes along.
  

• NYMetropolista.com will be launching in a few weeks.

• I was a speaker at the Social Media Club in Chicago and it with me were the most exciting group of panelists that I've ever shared some great ideas and thoughts.

And many more....really....so many things happening that I'm trying to slow down so I can enjoy every single moment.

As always, my Twitter and my Facebook are updated if you are interested in knowing what else I'm up with lately.

So ----- Ciao for now! Who knows when I will get my mojo back. Hopefully soon.

My Rachel Wanna-Be Ray Moment

Here is a video I did at the Kraft Headquarters for Oscar Mayer in Madison Wisconsin. I'll be writing more about this shortly.