The Irony and the Ecstasy
In the last two months, my little blog here has won two social media awards. Yes! But… the awards incidentally coincided with my longest ever blog hiatus. No time to blog about my blog awards – oh, the irony.
I blame it on work. As in, my two jobs that pay the bills. Lip Smacking is ad-free by choice, so I don’t make any money doing this.* My attempts to post more than once per month are often derailed by changing work schedules and the daily grind of kids’ activities/family meals/self care. The last two months were the worst ever, which I didn’t believe I would ever say after this time. And this time.
I whine about this too much already, though, so enough.
I am THRILLED that Lip Smacking has won these awards! Look at this:
- Gold in Best in the City
- Silver in Eat Magazine’s Exceptional Eats Awards!
- (My cooking classes also won in the Eat Mag awards!)
These are both people’s choice awards, which means more people read my blog than I had hoped. Knowing how many wonderful local blogs there are here on Vancouver Island, I consider it a huge honour to win these awards. Thank you, THANK YOU, for voting for me!
This kind of thing gives me more courage to face all the other amazing bloggers I will be meeting at the upcoming International Food Bloggers Conference in Seattle.
It will be my first blogger conference. I’m both very excited and terribly nervous. I would probably be less nervous if I had had time to book my accommodations, travel plans, and conference activities. See, another thing that has been derailed in the last two months!
The conference looks GREAT.
Our keynote speaker is Dorie Greenspan!!! Conference sessions are hosted by a variety experts, from the New York Times food photographer Andrew Scrivani and writer Kathleen Flinn, to food industry experts, chefs, and digital marketers. And (get this – I am SO excited) a theater improv session to help with better story-writing!!!
There will also be culinary expos every day. And a chance to meet a bunch of like-minded foodies. It’s like my personal version of heaven.
Stay tuned for details when I am at the conference. That is, if I remember to book accommodations. And manage to get there :)
Now, to finish up my whirlwind two months, I’m off to Quadra Island tomorrow for a 3-day culinary and yoga retreat at Taku Resort. During the retreat, I’ll be running two Indian-inspired cooking classes using local ingredients… and enjoying some island life: beachcombing, kayaking, yoga… Well, I’m taking this as one of the perks of being terminally over-committed.
And, thank goodness, I’ll be back to blogging recipes next week.
* My Ad-free stance may change soon – I’m thinking of adding a choice few related and vetted-by-Chef-Heidi ads. Thoughts, my readers?
I have no objection to ads unless they are those horribly, horribly, horribly annoying ones that keep infernally popping up from the bottom of the page and will not cease and desist no matter how many times you hit the X in the corner. I refuse to continue to follow blogs that use those type ads.
Melanie – duly noted! I HATE those kinds of ads as well. If I do go with ads, they will be small ones in the sidebar, only advertising things that I myself would buy.
Thanks for your feedback!
Heidi
So happy about those awards. You definitely deserve them. And if ads are the necessary evil
to have your blog exist, so be it. Have to agree abut the pop-ups, however. Please please, please don’t do that to us!
aw, thanks, Heidi!
And, don’t worry, I will never put annoying ads of any kind on my blog. I’m still debating about even the non-annoying ones.
H
Congrats on the well deserved awards.
No objections to ads if they help you keep on keeping on.
And good luck/have fun in Seattle!
Cheers from Ruth
congrats Heidi. Well deserved awards. Enjoy the weekend away and have fun.
Congrats Heidi. I think in this day and age, if a few ads bring in a few bucks for you, why not. You give a lot of value away already. I agree with Melanie though about those pesky pop up ads.
I’m with the others, if it means it brings in some much needed $, then I’m all for the non-annoying/non-pop-up ads for sure.
So nice to meet you at IFBC this weekend!
Now…the real question is…what are those gorgeous dishes at the top of this post??
YUM!
Erina – I’m glad somebody asked :) Those are roasted vegetables that were done in a wood-fired pizza oven in my friend’s backyard :)
I love your blog Heidi and as anyone who’s done any writing knows it can be very time consuming. Your time is valuable and if you can be paid for it without compromising what makes your blog so readable then you absolutely deserve to be. Keep up the great work!
Thank you, Anita!