The VVC founders welcome us at breakfast, day 2.

The second day of VVC began with a delicious bang, in the form of a “Portland Restaurant Sampler” breakfast, with 15 local food spots all serving up some of their finest dishes. It was awesome and delectable and I’ll write more about it in my “WIAW – VVC Food” post next week. For now, a quick pic:




Breakfast was great but I was nervous again. I skipped the first round of sessions that day, so that I could focus and prep for my panel at 11 am. I was moderating this time, which is something that I’ve never done or even dreamed of doing before, and I couldn’t tell if moderating was more scary or less scary than sitting on a panel. Luckily, I was still high from my successful session the day before, and even though I was truly nervous, I was also just super excited to do it again.




It went so well! The topic was Privacy Lines & Oversharing, and the panelists were all so dynamic, engaged, and different from one another (and from me). There was Susan, who keeps her blog very recipe-centric and reveals very little about herself, and Dreena, who also keeps things mainly food-focused, while sharing a few photos and anecdotes from her daily life (as an at-home mom of three growing girls), and Joanna, who’s been blogging her guts out and letting it fly [mostly] unfiltered since 1995. And then there’s me, somewhere in the middle I guess? I feel like I used to be a lot more guarded, but have recently moved into the realm of a more uncensored blogging style. I’ve had mixed feelings about this transition, which is probably why I proposed this very topic way back when VVC put out the call for speakers.

Anyway, it was a fantastic discussion. We covered everything from blogging about children while trying to respect their own autonomy and future-privacy, decorum around blogging about and posting photos of other individuals (adults), social media stuff (options like private vs public accounts, control over your own image/”brand”, etc), whether to use “checking in” apps like Foursquare (and Facebook and Yelp and many others offer this function now too), and other safety/security issues. The audience really seemed to enjoy it and the questions we got were so great, I just didn’t want it to end!

Dreena and me after the talk. She’s tall too, woo-hoo! (photo by Dreena).

As I was finishing up at the podium, Melisser Elliot sauntered over for a chat. She’s had lots of experience with all the things we’d been talking about, so we commiserated and swapped stories and pretty much immediately began completely over-sharing with each other. Ha!

Melisser is so rad and we have a TON in common, and it’s weird to me that we’ve never really run into each other out there on the internets. Of course I knew of her and she knew of me, but aside from that we just never crossed paths in cyberspace. Seems strange, but I was glad to finally connect at VVC, because we had a great time hanging out and girl-talking all through lunch.

What a babe!

After lunch, I sat in on a session called Finding Balance: Blogging and Personal Life. It was a great discussion, and always such an interesting topic. Balance??! Who has that?

After that I cut out early, to regroup and rest before the Galarama and Silent Auction that would be taking place later in the evening. I rode the bus back to the house where I was staying, and spent the afternoon relaxing and getting ready for the big event.

I was sharing a house with Christy Morgan, Heather Nauta, Allison Rivers Samson, and Miyoko Schinner, but we’d barely had any time to see each other all weekend. Allison and Miyoko were there that evening though, because Miyoko was putting together some artisan vegan cheese plates to serve at the Galarama. Um, yeah. [!!!!!!!]



Before the Galarama, I had plans to meet up with Gena for a little dinner date. It’s weird, this blogging thing. Gena and I have met only a handful of times in real life, but we’ve known each other through our blogs for years. And we knew, the first time we hung out, that we had a lot in common (veganism, a love of science and nutrition, a similar perspective towards food/health/body image, etc). Which is why we made plans to hang out at all, back then.

What we didn’t know was that we would connect in all these other different, and rather unexpected ways. Which is awesome, especially for someone like me who is, well, a pretty complicated person. It’s sort of rare and definitely wonderful to find someone who understands me on multiple levels. And I’m so glad that she’s my friend!




From dinner we cabbed it over to the Galarama. What a party! Hosted by The Sexy Vegan, with Melisser spinning funk records and a whole array of awesome items up for Silent Auction, all mixed up with hundreds of giddy vegan bloggers . . . yes, it was a very good time!

Pretty much as soon as I walked in, the kitchen door swung open and I got a peek of Allison and Miyoko working furiously. On the next swing, Allison reached out, pulled me inside, and showed me this:

Artisan vegan cheese heaven. There was brie you guys. Brie!

Wine, an ice cream sundae bar, vegan liquor tasting, gluten-free cupcakes and artisan cheeses, the auction, a taco truck, great music, lots of dancing. That pretty much captures the essence of the Galarama!




Solo in a red dress. // With the beautiful Ami, who is literally over a foot shorter than me.


Mr. Matt Crawley, looking fly.

The party was open to non-VVC attendants, so my Portland pal Jacqueline came along. When she saw that Isa Chandra-Moskowitz was there, she was like “OH MY GOD! My husband is in love with her, he told me to kiss her for Vegan Brunch!” So of course, we had to make the introduction.


Soooo adorable!

There was also a photo booth:

Getting sassy with Jacqueline and Ami (photo embellished by Ami)


With Joanna. I really got to spend some quality time with her at VVC, and gosh I heart her!


Vegan ice cream + cherry whiskey. Because Jacqueline is a damn genius.

~~~

I think it’s pretty obvious that it was a great party. And when it was all over, I caught a ride home with my housemates. And when we all got home, Miyoko pulled out a bottle of champagne, and Allison was like, “Hey you know there’s a hot tub here?”, and I was like “WORD”.

Miyoko, Christy, Allison, Heather, and moi.


And that, my friends, is a great freakin’ day.

♥

~~~

catch Day 1 here

and Day 3 here