About 100 Healthy Living Summit recaps have gone up since the event started last Friday…which might make you wonder why mine has taken nearly a week to emerge or maybe you were praying you wouldn’t have to read another one?
The truth is that while I was fully focused on enjoying the experience. As bloggers, I feel like we often miss out on being present because we are excited or feel compelled to share things. Instead I embraced all of those moments making new friends, meeting long time blogger friends, speaking, running, laughing, eating and all that jazz!
OUTSTANDING HOTEL SERVICE
First up I have to give major kudos to the Hyatt Regency Cambridge. I have never seen such amazing service during a conference at anything I’ve attended. Not only were they amazingly helpful while we were setting up and breaking down, but they delivered some pretty sweet “thank you” trays to each of the staff rooms! 
HEALTHY FOOD OPTIONS
Foodie/healthy bloggers have to be one of the most difficult groups of people to feed. There are restrictions from Vegan to Gluten Free and the HLS team with Hyatt navigated the waters like champs. Normally heading to a conference means I need to find a local store and try to stock up on food so I have things to eat that won’t leave me feeling gross when I leave.
Not this conference!! I was able to enjoy amazing egg dishes both mornings and even a lentil stew option for lunch one day. Saturday was extra special because it was a dish created by Cupcake Kelly as part of the Wild Harvest challenge! They sent all attendees a box of goodies prior to the conference and she developed the winning dish which was so amazing after my long run to refuel.
Here is her winning greek eggs recipe.
RUNNING
Theo, Alex and I had 15.5 miles to get to know each other…unlike sitting around a table for 2.5 hours you find that during a run you can talk about anything. I’m not sure there could be any better way to REALLY get to know a person. Alex shared an amazing store about her inspirational mom (you better check out her site) which gave me a boost far beyond the run.
I realize most people don’t go to a conference to run, but then I’m not most people. One of my favorite things about traveling is running in new areas and this time I got to do it while making friends.
Sunday morning was a group fun run 5K and luckily due to the weather my legs were happy to enjoy this second run along the Charles River.
FRIENDLY FACES
Making friends was impossible NOT to do in this group! I wasn't surprised at making friends, but more about the fact that while I like my alone time I was completely happy to be surrounded constantly by this group of women. First up was my roomie Heather whom I’d been reading since we joined the planning committee and was super excited to get to know….but the fun extended every where I turned. Everyone was genuinely interested in learning more about each other and of course the conversation topics were easy!
Mary, Heather (my roomie), Me. Phyllis (the kindest person ever, but more on that later), Me.
Meg, Me. Theo and Elizabeth. Not only did we get a chance to hang out but it was in a variety of situations from group chats, dressy dinners, Whole Foods lunch runs to workouts.
LET LOOSE
Maybe it’s because I am finally free of my job, but I simply felt like I could be exactly myself all weekend. I am not a drinker, but a few others may have been imbibing and thus I figured they wouldn’t notice my cheezeball activities anyhow.
As it turned out I wasn’t the only one who simply let go…most folks realized that even with hundreds of cameras around the weekend was about enjoying yourself and sometimes that means acting like a kid again.
There has been a request for details from my talk, so those will be coming soon. But today I wanted to focus on all the reasons why it was worth every penny to attend this event. I have held out for years thinking I wouldn’t get that much from it, but I was wrong!
Have you hoped on the blogger conference bandwagon? Which one do you really want to attend but haven’t?
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Gratitude Journal
Aug 27
I am grateful that Tropical Storm Isaac left south Florida with only moderate damage and everyone remains safe and sound.
