Bloggers Unplugged

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April has definitely been the month of bloggers unplugged, or in other words I was able to hang out with a lot of my blogging buddies in real life … no computers attached, no reading a post that had spent countless hours under the microscope as one agonized over what word or phrase best painted the picture. Some of these people I knew before blogging was ever a part of my vocabulary and others I met because I have become addicted to the blogosphere.

The month began with a visit from our favorite giant friends, Minerva of Making Bread and Nerd Boy of It’s Cloudy Up Here. We originally met them back in our BYU days and we have been hooked on them ever since. We can get together and chat for hours on end. Even the the two men can jabber on and on. They brought along their two “bucketheads” for the occasion, JuJu and Lucille, and Keri and Cory had a blast playing with them. Even though we only live about 10 miles away from each other, we don’t get together very often since gallons of water separate our two residences. Who would have thought 10 miles equated to an hour and a half? Welcome to Western Washington.

Next on the agenda was a Girls Night Out with Becky of The Cornwall’s, “Liza” of My Ice Cream Diary, Lucy of The Doctor Is In and 2 other “bluggles” (non blogging people) “Faith” and “Jessie.” We all know each other because we used to live in the same ward (Church) boundaries, but some of them had to up and leave the area. We met up at a local mall, ate good Mexican food and then wandered around the shops like a bunch of giddy teenagers. After the window shopping, some of us went over to Jessie’s house to play games and chat until we were a bit loopy from the late hour.

A few days later Cricket of Fantastic Five and her family headed our direction and we had a delightful gathering with a bunch more bluggles whom we had the privilege of meeting about four years ago. Great food and conversation dominated the evening and even though the adults were outnumbered by the ten children all 6 and under, we still had a pleasant time. The kids slept well that night.

And finally, just this past weekend, I attended a Bloggly Lunch (we told the hostess at the restaurant we were a Women’s Convention) in Western Washington where I had the rare opportunity to meet 10 other bloggers in real life! All of them have remarkable blogs, but meeting them live and in person was just phenomenal. My favorite thing was being able to put a face, a voice and a personality with these people who I have gotten to know through reading their online musings.

The first one I met was Kim of Temporary? Insanity who drove 8 hours from Canada to meet at my house – we had to be each others walking-in buddy so we carpooled together to the lunch. Little did Kim know that I would be so smitten with meeting her in person that I would accidentally turn onto a one way street … driving the wrong way. Luckily I quickly pulled into a gravel lot and flipped around and no one knew any better. I have never been in an accident and I have never been pulled over and I am grateful it stayed that way. Kim is a darling individual with an extremely compassionate, genuine and warm personality. Everyone should get to know her. She even came back to my place after the lunch and no one could have guessed we had just met each other. Even our husbands were chatting up a storm.

The other 9 blogging chicks I had the honor of meeting were Kathryn of Daring Young Mom, Eve of Good Enough, Millie of Thoroughly Mormon Millie, Bella of Rain On Tulips, Jenny of Absolutely Bananas, No Cool Story of More Cowbell, Carrie of Carronin’s Do’s and Don’ts, Annie of Hot Fruita Moms and Carrot Jello of Oinkle Doinkle. (Starting at the head of the table then proceeding clockwise, we have Millie, Bella, Kim, Jenny, No Cool Story, Carrie, Annie, Carrot Jello, Me, Kathryn and Eve.)

Kathryn started the lunch off with an “Identity” game where we had to write our answers with a pen. Since I sat next to her it was fun to see the handwriting of all these type happy people. And in case you were wondering, Kathryn is as hilarious and captivating in person as she is on her blog. She also seems to have an enormous amount of energy!

Millie sat at the head of our table and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know her better. She has a great sense of humor, which is easily evident on her blog, and it definitely carries over into her sweet and gracious personality. She is incredibly kind and thoughtful and she made sure everyone was enjoying themselves. Even though we have never met before, she seemed so familiar. I swear I have seen her somewhere before.

Eve and I hit it off as we quickly realized we both had Southern California roots. It was fun reminiscing of The Promenade in Santa Monica and other places we both knew. She is funny, cute and very easy to talk to.

Since we sat at a long rectangular table, I didn’t get the chance to get to know Bella very well. However, she has the most melodic talking voice I have ever heard and she is a first class person because she is raising seven remarkable kids.

In case you were wondering, No Cool Story has much better teeth than pictured on her blog. She is simply charming and she was a pure delight to meet. She is very calm, humble, considerate and good-hearted. Apparently she has been lurking at my blog for a little while, but I am glad she has finally worked up the courage to leave a couple of comments.

Carrie and Annie are sisters who flew all the way from Colorado for this Bloggy Lunch and I am glad they came and helped instigate this whole event. They added an energy and spark to the lunch and it was fun to discover more of their personality.

Jenny was yet another fun blogger to meet. She has a witty sense of humor which I loved! I also enjoyed meeting her husband and her four year old little boy who was darling, even if he did like poking me in the back.

Carrot Jello is a saint for even coming to the lunch since she is going to have a baby this very week. Being 9 months pregnant would make any woman uncomfortable and grouchy, but she was super sweet and patient with all of us. She is also left handed and I am impressed we never once bumped elbows … or maybe we did, but she was too polite to tell me to keep my arms in my own personal space.

So there you have it. If you would like a different version of the story and more pictures of the nearly 5 hour lunch “convention,” then make sure you visit the other blogging chicks I have listed.

And when and where is our next get together going to be? We really don’t live all that far from each other.

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