Where in the world is the VBG?

This week, I finally got my itinerant wings back  and I'm in Vegas, baby! 

This is my first time being out west.  In fact I never even considered traveling to  Las Vegas until I saw  The Hangover, truly one of funniest movies ever!

My very first blog post as Voluptuous Brown Gurl focused on my new lifestyle choice to become vegan.  I know right? Shortly after I started blogging "the struggle" to eat meat or even define meat (fish is flesh therefore it is meat) set in and I all but abandoned it. Soon after, my blog evolved into what it is today - an offshoot of my journal, the written expression of  my joys, trials and frustrations. It has proven to be especially therapeutic with the losses that ensued over the 6 months following my first post.

When I lost the job that I’d despised for most of 9 years I spent there, I knew right away it was a blessing, even if it came disguised as the challenge of securing steady income. I knew FINALLY that I was being dragged, kicking and screaming almost, toward finding my bliss in the world of work. I'd had the luxury of working from home 2-3 days a week (which partly explains why I stayed so long) soknew there was just no way trekking to the conventional brick and mortar “office”, working a  conventional 40 hr/9 to 5 schedule, and allowing my earning potential to be determined by well paid panagers were gonna cut it for me....again. I knew this time it had to different, I didn’t have time nor desire for yet another decade long detour. My daughter will be college-bound in less than 3 years, my recently widowed mother desires to make her home among active seniors like herself and I have got a world of traveling to do.  The world of work that I was accustomed to would never support all that, so I can't go back to that - not for good anyway.

At the beginning of this year I committed to immersing myself into the whole blogger experience. I love writing and for years I have fantasized about memorializing my thoughts in ink and paper but just had no idea where to start. Thank God for the internet and those determined souls with something to say. Only a three years ago I heard a journalist make disparaging remarks about bloggers saying real writers never write for free - well many bloggers don't anymore. Blogging is bonafide business, nearly every company with an internet presence also has a blog.  Like a new cosmetic product? Have a favorite cereal? Favorite brand of shoe? I can almost guarantee they all have blogs. In fact, tere are 173 million blogs in existence now. The most widely read blogger in the world is Han Han, a Chinese race car driver who gets a million visits a day! So that why I am here in Las Vegas to attend the 4th annual Blogalicious conference to learn how to do this thing right.  The Blogalicious brand caters to blogging women of diverse backgrounds so it seemed the perfect place to start. Admittedly I am slightly intimidated by the company I'm about to keep but more than that I am really excited to be sitting at the feet of masters (or rather mistresses). These women are powerful, progressive, passionate professionals who are successfully bloggers - they enjoy wide readership, are well paid,  have created respected brands, LOVE what they do and most of them look like me. What better way to up my game than surround myself with the cream of the crop? Heck there will even be an Emmy award winning TV show host among the speakers, Mario Armstrong, who I actually worked with back in the day. Hopefully I'll also get to meet Angry Black Bitch (yes, you read that right) who ranks as one of the 50 most powerful bloggers in the world. 

Just as I instinctively knew after just one visit that moving to this tiny town on the edge of the PA/MD border was the right move forward for the wunderkind and I -  it has born itself out in so many wonderful ways especially where she is concerned, once again I am trusting providence (aka God) that this conference is exactly where I am supposed to be as Fall 2012 rolls in- in spite of the fact that financially it is a hardship right now. For years I've heard over and over "do what you love and the money will follow". For once I'm listening. Do I expect to be on the 50 most influential bloggers list next year? Heck no but I do know that my blog does speak to a certain segment - a voluptuous brown segment - of the population entrenched in their middle years :)  and I want to engage many more readers,  to learn, share and grow from the exchanges between blogger and followers and those of my soon to be new friends in the blogosphere. Though I can't see the whole road right now, I know that neither being unemployed nor underemployed are the kisses of death most think them to be.  Sure they are catalytic events but what kills the soul and eventually its host is spending day after precious day at a job one detests that is neither a calling nor fruitful use of time and talents. I know with every fiber of my beingthat if I just dare to take a few steps away from the oft trodden course that hasn't lead me anywhere near my bliss, I could very well stumble onto the path that will. 

 So there will be no live blogging from Las Vegas, at least not from me. I will not take my laptop - it's ust too cumbersome and I don't yet own a tablet. I'm here to learn and to have a phenomenal time in the process - this is Vegas after all! There are only so many hours in a day and when I'm not at conference functions, I intend to absorb, inhale, embody the experience that is Las Vegas. I can sleep and write when I get home. So bring it on Blogacious and Las Vegas -  VBG is here and oh so ready to paint this town the loveliest ,most voluptuous shade of brown!  See y'all next week...