Exciting news! I have moved blogs. I am in the process of slowly moving all the posts over. Please join me at MomOffTrack.com.

Today before I do anything else on the internet, read any mail, tweets or any other blogs I want to get my point of view on BlogHer ’09 out of my head and archived for me to read before BlogHer ’10. If you have no idea what BlogHer is, it is the biggest conference of the year of women in blogging.

It is 3 pm on Monday, the day after I arrived home from Chicago. How is it possible that I have not yet read anything else about BlogHer??? I just woke up an hour ago! That is right, I slept until 2 pm the following day. Thank heavens for having older children. When I asked them why they let me sleep so late they both said, “Cause we knew you were so exhausted from BlogHer”. That is an understatement. BlogHer is a marathon not for the weak of heart. Sleep is for the weak! Stock up on your sleep and plan nothing for the few days after you have arrived home. You feel like you have been chewed up and spit out by the biggest tornado of your life.

“Bring another suitcase” was the advice given to me by my veteran BlogHer friends. I want to slap them! One extra suitcase could not even begin to hold the swag from this event. I religiously went through and brought to the recycle swag area stuff I knew I wouldn’t take home. I was still left Sunday morning with two full ‘extra’ bags and enough stuff to fill at least one more. This was stuff I had actually wanted. There are places throughout the conference to help with shipping swag home. I can’t even imagine how much that would have cost me. Next year though, I am going to use this service but to ship to other people. Next year, mom will be getting  a box from me as well as a friend or two. There is so much stuff they would have loved that it makes sense to send some goodies out. High praise to Playskool for shipping me the basket I won from them. I have no idea how I would have gotten it home.

Next year-don’t even consider food money in your budget. Food is everywhere! It is worth getting the full conference pass vs. lobbycon if just for that. One request to Pepsi, please have more diet soda around. Loved getting to taste all the new stuff but I was hard pressed to find diet soda. Advice to me: remember to grab an extra to bring up to your room.

Have a mini sharpie on you (this should really be in the conference bag). Write on someones business card a detail or two to remind you. On the business card note, don’t even think about leaving home with less than a few hundred. I saw people run out all over the place, on the first day! Thank you, thank you, thank you Vista Print for sponsoring my kick butt cards!

Have a few buddies to stick with but break away from them once you are comfortable. Corine and no such person were my go to girls this year we all managed to make some great new friends. On that note, make the time to sit and really talk to people. I met hundreds of people. There are few that I had long conversations with. The ones I managed to though are tattoed in my head and I will be supporting them and vice versa this next year. Those connections were priceless.

On that note. Go to the Expo Hall at off hours. I made some very valuable contacts that way. We were able to really talk about the product and how we could work together. I was amazed at how many of them thanked me for taking the time to talk to them. I guess so many people were just passing by grabbing the free stuff and handing them a card that they really appreciated the bloggers that did take the time to make personal connections. However, this is not possible with thousands of people in there. I gave up a cocktail hour to go and hang out in the Expo. I will absolutely do that next year.

Clothes-I know I was not the only one who was way stressed pre-blogher about their wardrobe. There are exactly three outfits that I remember the  day after, a cute shirt that Lucretia and Military Mama had in common (although Lucretia still says I am nuts and they looked nothing alike) and Jenn Fowlers adorable outfits sponsored by Coldwater Creek. It was so not worth my days of shopping prior to. Wear what you want, be comfortable and don’t get caught up in all that. Besides, I think Naked Jenn made the biggest splash with nothing on.

So, now I am off to read the recaps from everyone else. I had a truly wonderful time and can’t wait til BlogHer’10 in NYC.

Did you write about BlogHer ’09? Leave the link below so we can all hop on over and read about BlogHer ’09 from YOUR POV (point of view):

blogher09