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A Week Later, Many Words and Pictures On #HLS13

Published on September 23, 2013 By Emily. Updated on September 23, 2013

I’m a Healthy Living Summit veteran; I’ve attended four of the five summits,  every one since 2010.  For the first couple years, I always debated at the end whether I’d make the trip to the next one (and there always seemed to be debate among the organizers whether there would even be a next one), but when it came time to purchase tickets, the decision seemed like a no-brainer.  How could I miss it?

This year’s summit was unique in a number of ways.  It was held in the Midwest for only the second time, in the lovely city of Minneapolis.  This year’s summit was the first one to not include any of the original founding members.  Nevertheless, Julie and Heather and the rest of the Dream Team did an amazing job organizing a wonderful, jam-packed, fun and educational weekend.  However, even though the summit was super organized, I was not.  If you know me well, you know I live for lists and planning ahead.  But with this year’s event happening in September instead of August, I was so involved with school starting I didn’t have a chance to research things to do in Minneapolis, check out the attendees’ blogs, make sure my site looked perfect or even make a packing list for myself.  I wrote my mini-demo the night before and barely got my live blog preview up before I left.  I have never been so unprepared for HLS (or much of anything else, for that matter).

Still, I made it to Minneapolis without any problems.  The light rail trip from the airport to the hotel was one of the easiest and most pleasant public transportation journeys I’ve ever made with luggage.  I had just enough time to settle into my hotel room and meet one of my roommates, Stephanie, before heading to Chino Latino for dinner with a mix of 13 old and soon-to-be-new blogging friends.  As I mentioned in last Tuesday’s post, the food there was amazing and it was so great to be in the presence of some of my favorite people again.

Minneapolis sights collage

One of the drawbacks of HLS being held in September is that I didn’t get to explore Minneapolis as much as I ordinarily would’ve in the summer.  Even though I flew out on Thursday, HLS-related events were in full swing by the time I arrived.  I did enjoy wandering the area near the hotel; Target headquarters and the biggest Target store I’ve ever seen were just around the corner. How could I resist?  Shocking, I left the store without spending a dime, but that was mostly because I wanted to make sure I had room in my suitcase for all the summit swag I was going to be bringing home.  Seeing the Mary Tyler Moore statue was really neat, especially since I stumbled upon it accidentally.  On Friday afternoon, following my mini-demo and a lunch from Panera, a small group of bloggers and myself ventured to Fulton Brewery, which allowed us a view of some parts of the city that were farther away from the hotel.  The folks at the brewery were super nice to us, even after we all whipped out our cameras the instant the beer samples hit the bar.  I was the only HLS veteran in the group and it was really encouraging to share a few hours with bloggers who were newer to the community.

Fulton Brewery Collage

The summit itself was awesome.  My Friday mini-demonstration on IFTTT went really well, though it became very apparent that when given extra time I am prone to ramble.  I think it’s the teacher in me; trying to make the class last until the bell rings.  Regardless, it seemed that many of the 15 or so who attended the mini-demo session had never heard of IFTTT and I was so glad to be able to share it with them.  I also really enjoyed Katie from Peace Love and Oats’ presentation on PicMonkey – I think I’ll be making a lot of use of that site in the future (including excessively in this post).  The cocktail party venue was beautiful and though I initially arrived feeling physically not awesome, I found myself quickly feeling better and had a really great time meeting the other attendees.  A “find your match” ice breaker game forced us to talk to new people; I had to find the person assigned the “George” card that went with my assignment of “Martha”.  I made the most of the photo booth (which I infamously hated at 2010’s summit) even though squeezing myself, Stephanie and my other two roommates, Stephanie and Katie, into the booth was quite a feat.  And no, that wasn’t a typo, I had two roommates named Stephanie.  Saturday’s sessions were great.  I attended talks on growing my own food, using my blog to get my “dream job” (even though I love my job) and soaked up info about adding videos to my site.  Live blogging Katie and Mary’s session on Blogging with a Cause went better than I ever expected and I’m still thinking about some of the ideas they shared.

HLS 2013 collage

Sunday morning was a little more rushed than usual, as I was flying out of Minneapolis at 1:30 that afternoon.  Still, I made it to the 5k fun run/walk which culminated at the the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, home of the famous spoon and cherry sculpture.  The route was pleasant and I enjoyed that a large portion of it was through parks.  Upon my return to the hotel, I enjoyed yet another delicious meal (the food this year was awesome!) and helped myself to a chair massage provided by the Minneapolis School of Business.  Before long, it was time to stuff the last of my free goodies into my suitcase and get back on the light rail to the airport.

me in sculpture garden

The sponsors at HLS 2013 were the most generous of any I recall from past summits.  They came with tons of free products to sample and take home.  I don’t know if it was the quality of the sponsors this year or my personal journey with seeking advertisers for this blog, but I had some really great discussions about site sponsorships and getting involved with brands I love.  Special thanks to Wild Harvest, Musselman’s, Sargento, Ninja, Blue Diamond, Driscoll’s, CocoaVia and 360 Public Relations for being especially wonderful.

HLS 2013 sponsors collage

My weekend in Minneapolis reminded me of the importance of taking care of myself.  For whatever reason, I didn’t feel great for most of the weekend.  I don’t know if it was the amount of water I was (or wasn’t) consuming, the food I was eating, the level of stress (I was presenting and live blogging for the first time!) or the start of school exhaustion, but I just did not feel like myself.  I made it a priority to take it easy, make smart choices about what to do with my time and put into my body.  By the time I returned home, I felt fine on the digestion front, though I did quickly contract a cold from my students/husband.

I have made a lot of real life blogging friends through the Healthy Living Summit, but this year’s event was attended by more new (to me and to blogging) bloggers than I recall other summits having.  At first, this scared me a little.  Finding myself as an “old” blogger and veteran of HLS still seems odd to me and I knew HLS wouldn’t be the same without many of the usual suspects.  But in the end, it didn’t matter.  It’s so inspirational to meet people who are new to the blogging scene; they ask good questions and have creative new ideas and don’t carry around some of the baggage related to some of the drama that has occurred in the healthy living blogging community over the past five years.  It’s so exciting to be part of an event that has grown and changed over the past five years.  The bloggers behind HLS never seem to be satisfied with what they’ve done before and it just keeps getting better as a result.

Even though September summit’s make me a little crazy (and put me so behind that it takes over a week to get a recap of the event up…and I still haven’t caught up on grading), I’m definitely planning to be in attendance at HLS 2014.  For the first time ever I’ve even brainstormed a couple session ideas I’m thinking about pitching to the folks in charge.  The dates and location for the next event were announced at breakfast on Sunday: September 11-14, 2014 in Madison, WI.  Will I see you there?

As last week was super busy (catching up on things at work + meetings every night of the week) and I’ve just gotten rid of that cold, I still haven’t gotten a chance to read the recaps of the sessions or visit the blogs of the new friends I made.  I haven’t even made the time to look at the to do list I created during HLS as  I was inspired during the sessions.  Maybe now that I’ve finally gotten this post written and things seem to be getting back to the regular routine, I can start to tackle that to do list, follow the blogs of my new friends and get back to work on this site.

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Filed Under: events Tagged With: Healthy Living Summit

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Comments

  1. Katie says

    September 24, 2013 at 10:44 am

    I have been loosely following the healthy living summit for over 3 years, and last year I said that no matter what I would be attending in 2013. It was a fluke that it ended up being in Minneapolis (I live 3 hours north). I really noticed the difference in attendees, and haven’t had a conversation with any of the dream team, but it seems like HLS is going through an identity change, that I think it very positive. It seemed to be mostly new bloggers and I loved how eager everyone was. I didn’t meet one person who didn’t want to be a friend. I’m glad you are going to HLS14! I’m not sure what I’ll volunteer to help with (I led a few mingles this year) but I know it will be another success!

    • Heather says

      October 8, 2013 at 8:43 pm

      this comment makes me smile so big. xo

  2. Amanda @ Diary of a Semi-Health Nut says

    September 26, 2013 at 10:40 pm

    I’m still working on my recaps, so you’re not the only one! I might try to do my session recaps tonight, though!

    It was really great to meet you and I’m glad you were my Martha! :)

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Last week Brian and I finally got around to hiring Last week Brian and I finally got around to hiring a sitter for a rare night out. We went to dinner at @publicna and took advantage of the opportunity with drinks, appetizers and dessert.

Pictured:
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It was no surprise that Public was close to full on a Wednesday night - everything was so good. 

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New year, new theme word! This year's word is "enr New year, new theme word!
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It's not New Year's Eve without a Top 9 post. It's It's not New Year's Eve without a Top 9 post.
It's almost all #Berkshires content this year, which is great.
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2. A reel from North Carolina where I could have watched birds all day.
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New on the blog: My 2022 reflections on last year' New on the blog: My 2022 reflections on last year's theme word - resume. 

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New on the blog: My Favorite Recipes of 2022. For New on the blog: My Favorite Recipes of 2022.

For the fourth year, I've recapped the best new (to me) recipes I made this year in the hope that they'll give you some new dishes to try. This year's list is short, but delicious. It includes @budgetbytes My Favorite Recipes of 2022
Published on December 30, 2022 By Emily. Updated on December 30, 2022

It’s hard to believe that 2022 is basically behind us. Though overall this year found me getting back to the person I want to be (post-babies and “post”-pandemic), I did not try nearly as many new recipes this year as I used to. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I’d made note of any new-to-me recipes I wanted to share in this post. This year’s list is short, but delicious. It includes recipes from @budgetbytes, @smittenkitchen and @howsweeteats.
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@coastalmainebotanicalgardens continues to be one @coastalmainebotanicalgardens continues to be one of the highlights of all my return trips to Boothbay and their annual Gardens Aglow event continues to impress. It was great to be back to walking the gardens instead of the pandemic drive through and there seemed to be more lights than ever.  I'm already looking forward to next year.
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It has been a while, but there is finally a new CS It has been a while, but there is finally a new CSA menu plan on the blog! Visit the link below or in my profile to see how I plan to make use of some of the @mightyfoodfarm produce seen here.
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Fall in the Berkshires is always incredible, but t Fall in the Berkshires is always incredible, but this year we've had weather that has also been outstanding. The past 2 weekends have included time at Jaeschke Orchards, the Greylock Glen, and the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail as well as stopping to photograph any random foliage I see. 
Check out the last slide for video of some feathered friends we saw on a walk.
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@freshgrassfestival continues to be one of my favo @freshgrassfestival continues to be one of my favorite events each year, and it doesn't hurt that it's just minutes away from home. Enjoying the festival with my kids is definitely a different experience than without, but it's still a good time. The weather was especially cooperative today which was great for all the laps I did around the @massmoca campus pushing a stroller. I'm already looking forward to next year.
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