Last week I attended my a blog summit in Birmingham. To be perfectly truthful I hadn’t a clue what to expect as I had never before attended one run by tots 100 and with the conference being free I wasn’t sure of the speakers or the experience that was going to be offer.

Now I don’t wish that to sound so snobby ( as I’m sure it does)but i can be rather cynical and believe in life you tend to get what you pay for.

Well I was so wrong, from the moment I found the venue I was surprised by the quality of the summit.

The venue itself was stunning and they had coffee on the go which anyone who knows me will relate when I say good coffee can make or break a day for me.

The agenda was packed with a variety of sessions that I was excited to attend. So many in fact that I was seriously wishing I could split myself in two.

The first session I attended was the Grill Section, this was a chance to grill more experienced bloggers. Chrissie from Mediocre Mum (I was super excited to meet Chrissie as we have been tweeting on twitter for a while)., Helen from Fuss Free Flavours, Ruth from Geek Mummy and Sally from Who’s the Mummy and Tots100 All were happy to answer questions on anything blog related. I asked about changing your blog voice,my blog is featuring less posts about my children because now as teenagers they require more discretion on my part. Spoilsports.

The advice I received was really helpful and I left the session with pages full of notes. A big thank you to the bloggers under the grill.

Also in this session to Sally from tots100 even gave us a run down on how the metrics work. I confess I still haven’t a clue but that’s down to my lacking brain not Sally’s explanation.

My 2nd session was on advanced SEO being run by Judith Lewis and I’m sure it was super informative to many but five minutes in my head was spinning so I escaped to grab a coffee and some pain killers and took some time out before lunch.

Ooh talking of lunch it was simply yummy. A great selection on offer.
I ate well that day. To quote Oliver Twist “more please sir”.

The third session I attended was run by Cathy from nurture store. It was all about getting the most out of Facebook. This was a really informative session and I’ve already been using some of the advice we were given.

My fourth and final chosen session was run by John Arnold on outdoor photography. It was really interesting and John is a great teacher as he makes it accessible for all at whatever level they are at. He also convinced me I needed a new lens for my DSLR, well that’s what I told the hubby.

After another break and more coffee the day came to an end with perhaps the most inspiring part of the whole event. A talk by Andy Cope the author of How to be Brilliant and other books including our family favourites The Spy Dog.

My youngest wasn’t at all impressed that I didn’t come home with a signed book from him. Of course my fault entirely I know I should learn to carry books around with me in case I meet her favourite writers. Lesson learned.

Anyway Andy brought home to me something that I had forgotten for a while. He told us that happiness is a choice. We have too remind ourselves each morning that each day is a gift and to live it happy. That we could be a lot worse, we could have toothache. There was off course a lot more to Andy’s talk including percentages and oranges but for me it really hit home.

As it reminded me of Livvy, and when learned of her condition and that we may not have forever. We had to make the decision to make each day count. To seize each day and live it to the best we could. To create those memories.

In summary Blog Summit was pretty awesome. I really encourage any new bloggers or older longer standing ones to check them out.

It was informative and at times hilarious. Well worth attending.

Personally I had a great day I got to meet some new friends and catch up with old ones.

I got to enjoy lovely coffee while listening to speakers that really knew their stuff.

I left happy and with a notebook packed full of ideas and helpful advice.

A really fanatic day and a big thank you to tots 100 for organising it.

So my only question is

When’s the next one???