Alt Summit SLC

So I will be off and on this week as I'm attending the Alt Summit in Salt Lake City for a fantastic blogging conference. I hope this year not to be so much a deer in the headlights, but more of a participant.

After last years conference I was motivated, I got my site and branding together, created a beginners editorial calendar and tried to stick to a more regular schedule of posting. I saw what worked and what didn't. I attended a few follow-up classes with Alt that really helped. My fellow bloggers and myself were able to host a really fun event which was spurred on by a class with Natalie Bowman from Bing on "How to Work with Brands." She's repeating this class so if you haven't gone you should, so practical.

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My biggest accomplishment was getting my site together, if it's not functional it drives me nutz. Above is what it looked like before, You can see how much cleaner it looks now. While I moonlight as a blogger I also work as a project manager for a tech company on marketing campaign sites, so I have a lot to say about functional nice design.

One thing for sure is my mom said it's easier for her to find things on my new site, and we all know we blog for our mothers, don't we. Even today I told her, "I have a recipe for you, go to my site you'll see the link."

I hope to share some nuggets with you after a week of filling my mind with creative ideas and meeting some amazing people and brands. Enjoy!

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2013 Retrospect

This year I feel like I've grown so much, I think the ALT Summit really kicked it off in January. What an inspiring 3 days with such supportive bloggers. I was inspired and it really pushed me this year. I'm excited to go back next month and see where it takes me in 2014. While I am certainly looking forward below are a few of my favorite projects this past year.

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Meeting Kei & Molly. Their story and work was really inspiring to pursue what you love.

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Hosting our Fall Tasting. This idea was spurred on by a class I took with Bing and AltSummit. It was an online class and well it gave me this idea, which Felicia and Deborah were on board with.  I think we'll be doing this again soon.

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Part of this was hosting a Coffee Tasting, this was super fun and great working with Stumptown Coffee, I can't wait till the next one.

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I finally got to write about some of my Italian adventures from forever ago here.

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I loved my weekly visits to the Santa Monica Farmers Market and was inspired to make new things just by what was in season.

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Oh and this Gluten Free Chocolate Almond Cake....wow I love this cake.

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I loved this trip this year to California Lake Country. I am so in for doing this again. Was a beautiful place to visit.

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These Peanut Butter Chocolate Kiss Cookies got a lot of mileage on Pinterest this year.

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I had a great time learning to make Candied Orange Peels, I can't wait to try this with a few other citrus fruits.

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Seriously I am almost finished with the Cuba tale. This is one of my favorite posts, Cuba a Bittersweet Tale, on this trip, because it was all about my Dad. I still cry when I read it, so does he.

Those are a few of my favorite things from 2013. I'm looking forward to new adventures next year and hope to check off a few things from my goals list. Enjoy!

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Diana Vreeland

This is a video week for me. Finally catching up on a few things I've been dying to read and watch. Not to mention being slightly distracted by all the JFK conspiracy videos and Slate articles I've read. Fifty years ago today. Still makes you sad to watch that footage, let alone if you were alive when it happened. Heart still goes out to that family, even after all these years.

On another less grim note, I have seen a few people talk about this documentary on Diana Vreeland (pronounced DeeAnna), so I finally queued it up on Netflix and got to watching. This is one of those inspirational people that you hear about for so long, but don't really know much about. Diana was WAY ahead of her time and lived in a world of her own making. She was a the creative force behind Harpers Baazar and the Editor in Chief of Vogue, before the days of Anna Wintour. This is the kind of movie I loved talking about with my friend Efren, we would so dissect every line and there were so many great ones in this documentary. George Plimpton who interviewed her to write her memoirs asks about her childhood.

Diana answers:  "Where do I begin? Well the first thing to do, my love, is arrange to be born in Paris after that everything follows quite naturally."

She was fabulous and used words like "Mad about..." before that was even fashionable. It's the stylish way to say "that's Banana's." I so wish I could have met this woman. She inspired a character in Funny Face and I swear Audrey Hepburn stole some of her lines in Charade, not to mention the Devil Wears Prada. If you love fashion and creativity, you have to watch this movie. I am just "mad about it."

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Foodies

Not sure how I feel about this film. Granted it's only the trailer and anyone can cut anything to change the intent or meaning. But it's the same film makers that produced Jiro Dreams of Sushi which is supposedly a good thing. Jury is still out on that.

To me my Foodie's definition is not just about appreciating good food. Who doesn't want to experience good food with good friends, great conversation and an amazing local. It is part of the whole experience. Trailer is a bit pretentious and lonely to me. What do you think?

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