Change is good.

Actually, I'm a blonde with green eyes. Always have been. 

Not one of those Hollywood goddesses silky blondes. More the blonde of a stray dog, that has had fun in some mud puddles. You get the idea. Every once in the while I pimped my hair color with some golden/honey highlights. Hoping I would look like one of those goddesses. 

Well, I'm a little further away from that goal than I would like to be. See? 

Anyway, secretly I have wanted to be a brunett for the longest time. My hair dresser though has been telling me I should stay away from brown. My skin color is too light and it would make me look sick. I listened and dreamed on.

And then some things changed in the last part of 2012. I got rid of some demons (aka an ex boyfriend and (knock on wood) the female stalker that I got because of him!) and made some changes in my career path. Apparently it is true, that when a woman gets rid of a man, she changes her hair.

One day not too long ago, I went to a different hair dresser and went for it. Told her I wanted to go from blondish to brunett. 

Three hours later...Boom!

I love it! I will stay a brunett for some time now. 

If you wanna see my face with it, come see me at The Hive - the European blog conference in Berlin. 

Online - Offline

I'm the first to admit, that I am a geeky nerd! I love everything digital and online. 

Internet? Can't live without it! 

New apps? Where can I download?

Last thing in my hands before I go to bed is the ipad? Guilty as charged! 

I have made so many friends online. And the best part of this, is meeting all these wonderful people offline. 

The best place where I can get to know all these people is The Hive - The European blog conference. 

I founded this conference together with Peggy of Paula et Paula. And it will take place again in 10 days in Berlin. Last year it took place for the first time and we were beyond thrilled that so many bloggers from all over Europe came to learn, share, network and have fun. Many of these bloggers will return this year. It is like a high school reunion. 

I was thrilled to meet the wonderful, talented, kind and über creative bloggers behind

Anne's Kitchen

 I wanted Anne to hold a food photography workshop. I have followed her blog for such a long time and I was thrilled she accepted my invitation. She sure rocked the workshop. It is save to say, that Anne and I have become friends! Together with another friend, we spend some time together in Amsterdam visiting Peggy. She will return to The Hive. It will be epic!

Design Mom

Gabrielle aka Design Mom sure doesn't need an introduction! When I contacted her to be a speaker at the first The Hive, I was flabbergasted that she said "yes, sure". Her presentation was one, with the most insights. Gabrielle gave great advice and gave numbers, which we loved. This is what The Hive is supposed to be all about.

Anya Adores

 I discovered Anyas blog when her name popped up in my mailbox that she had bought a ticket to the conference last year. I loved it ever since. And Anya happens to be such a great and kind person! She will return to The Hive. I sure hope we will have time for a glas of bubbly water!

Color Living

 I also found Tinas blog through the attendee list. She was the one who asked great questions thoughout the conference. I do love me a smart woman! Not only is she that, but also very helpful. She took the unofficial kick off get together under her wing! Thanks Tina.

The House that Lars Built

 Brittanys blog I have been following along for quite some time. So imagine my surprise, when she said she would come to The Hive. Her business cards were one of the best last year! And she accidently started a tradition at the conference with a simple sewing kit.

Fräulein Klein

Fräulein Kleins name is also Yvonne just like mine, so we are partner in crime. She came to The Hive to also hold a photography workshop.  Have you seen her photos? Perfect match!
I love that I know how the private woman behind this blog looks like.

Seven

I always wanted a dog growing up. I wanted a big dog, a kind and friendly one. A dog that would be a great childhood friend to me.
I never had one. My mother is scarred of dogs. I had a rabbit. But that is another story.

Seven years ago I decided I had waited long enough for a dog. Seven years ago, on May 11th, 2006 my trusted companion was born.

Here is Superdog, when I picked him up. He was nine weeks old that day. Please ignore the out of shape woman (aka me) that adores the puppy. 

And here is my Superdog yesterday on his 7th birthday. Happy Birthday, big boy. You are so loved.

We celebrated with raw meat. And did all the things he enjoys doing: Swimming, rolling in mud, playing with a ball, eating and sleeping. 

Dear 2012,

this is it. Another year has passed oh so quickly and I find myself writing another open letter.

I call you concrete year. At first not a very pleasant name. But it actually is. You are the year in which I poured the concrete for many great projects and plans to come true in 2013.
It already stared great. together with Peggy I foundet the European blog conference The Hive, we brought it to Berlin within four months and it turned out to be a success. Lucky us!
Unfortunantelly I totally neglected my own blog and I'm sorry about this. I will work on that and if I'm correct, than there will be a lot to blog about in the next 12 months. So please bear with me!
Thank you if you did these past months.

Link

2012 you were good to me. Your catastrophies and bad luck never caught on with me and for that I'm thankful. But there is still lots of room for more.
You let me plan, you slowly but surley revealed the way for me, I have tried to find for so long.
I'm not standing firmly on this way, but I will pull my second leg up, dust off and move right along.

There are plans I haven't given up yet. My dream job for example. I just cannot let go. Not because I think I would be good at that (I do believe it though) but because I don't know if I'm NOT good at it.
The concrete is poured, further planing is on the way. But contrary to the last year, I'm in no hurry.
Yes, I learned to be patient. I'm still not liking it though.
New plans have been added to the mix. Like in what direction do we want The Hive to go.

I found wonderful new friends in 2012 and I realized I can lean on my old friends too. But I also find out that I canbe so very lazy! Oh, the things I could do, if I put my mind to it. I just happened to be the queen of procrastination.

This coming year has the potential to be a great one: professionally and personally.
I have left some big baggage behind. The old ghost of a relationship passed, that held me tightly in its grip for far too long, has been shaken off. I really hate that you can't just move on.
The only way out of a bad situation is always THROUGH! Not around, don't stop, just through.
Sometimes I had to crawl, sometimes I skipped like a little school girl. But I am through.
My problem with the female stalker has been over and done for me for a long time. Unfortunantelly not for her. Oh well, I accept it, smile about it and keep going.





I have thrown old ideas for my life over board. I still don't have any children. But I still would like to have kids. Do I want to be 44 years old, when I give birth to my first one? No! But I could be! That's actually a comfort to know.

Saying yes more often than no. Just because. Things could happen you know?!
Finally accepting, really accepting, that the pieces fall where they should. A little more effortlessness, when appropriate.

Oh, 2012, what a relief you have given me!


This is it, dear 2012. You have been important to me. I appreciate you now more in retrospect. Like an old friend who has given you advice and it only makes sense when this friend is gone.

I will remember you, concrete year. I hope that I have laid a strong foundation with you. I hope you carry my plans and I can built on you.

I raise my glass to you.


Yours with love,
Yvonne

Sometimes dreams do come true.

Do you remember that I applied for a job with my dream company? I blogged about that here.
And do you also remember that they didn't answer me? You can read about my heartbreak here.

I have never really given up on them.
Right now, I'm writing a thesis about social media and sports. My dream company is NASCAR.
So I combine my love for social media and everything digital with my love for fast cars.
Because of the thesis I contacted NASCAR again. This time I was more strategic. I made a power point presentation with mood photos, what I want to do and what the benefit is.

It worked!
NASCAR not only answered me, but they also supported me, by posting a link to a survey I conducted on their Facebook channel for 2,9 million fans to see.

One lucky fan indeed! That was and still is me. 

Happy, doesn't nearly describe how I felt.

The thesis will be done soon. Let's see where it takes me.

The Hive 2012

Did you know Peggy and I have our own blog conference? Yes, me. The one who has a blog, but doesn't blog for months. Perfect, right?

Well, this past weekend it was time for the very first The Hive - the European blog conference in Berlin.

All the endless e-mails, sleepless night and hectic hours paid off. Peggy and I were talking via text one day in November 2011. Our timelines had been filled with tweets about bloggers, who planed to go to Alt Summit. Then she texted this:

Translation: We should organize a cool blogger meet up. With keynotes and speakers. I asked her "like Alt Summit in Eurpe? I'm on board!".

Two days later I told Peggy that when I think about a blog conference a beehive comes to my mind. She liked the name and The Hive was born.

We did your research and couldn't find a blog conference that was similar to what we planed. How sad. So we were very sure, we had a good thing going on.
But if you have nothing to show for, how do you convince speakers to tie their name to our conference? How can you convince bloggers to pay 85€ for a ticket? How do you get sponsors?
The speakers were quite easy. Easier than we thought.
Radostina, Peggy and I come from different areas of blogging and different interests. We just contacted the bloggers we have been fans of and asked them to come speak.
Thankfully and to our joy, almost everybody we asked was game. Have a sponsor like 9flats, helped us to accomodate some of our speakers. No one was paid any money. We just tried to help out with either travel costs or a place to stay.

I'm not gonna lie, ticket sales were slow and worried us every once in a while. But I totally understand, for reasons already mentioned. In the end we had 155 people with tickets (sponsors, press and friends included) plus our great speakers. Check all our speakers out on our webpage. 

I arrived in Berlin on Friday and Peggy, Radostina and I spend the evening at the betahaus, our location, to get it ready for the next day.

The Hive took place on the 4th floor. A lot of stairs! I'm sorry, you guys!

 Photo taken by Little Pink Cakes

Saturday we opened the doors at 8am and everybody came.
I was not nervous. Just thrilled. I really wanted The Hive to start.

Peggy and I welcomed the crowd. Radostina was still at the entrance making sure all the late guests could get in.

 Photo taken by The Ex Expat

And then the keynotes started. Bloggers had to decide which one they wanted to attend. We always offered two at the same time. Check the schedule here for details. 

There were few keynotes we made available for everybody to listen to at the same time, because we knew they would be popular.

We were thrilled to welcome Gabrielle, Design Mom

Photo taken by Hidden Blossom

I have been a fan of Gabrielle for some time. Her blog was one of the first ones I started reading. And even though my taste in blogs has changed, hers stayed in my reader.
As many of you know she lives in France. When we started planing The Hive, plans for Gabrielle and her family were to return to the US in 2012.
One day I just took a chance and wrote her an e-mail. Introducing myself and asking in a very lengthy mail if you would consider coming to Berlin and speak at our conference. Less than 24 hours laters, she said yes. I told eeevvveerrryyyboooddyyy. Even though most of my friends are neither bloggers nor know who Gabrielle was.

I had my doubts if you would accept my invitation. Having met her now and having written numerous mails forth and back, I can honestly tell you that she is such a kind and wonderful person. She said that The Hive had such an "amazing energy" and she was right.

We also had Jeanette of the gorgeous magazine Fryd&Design come speak.
Another one I wasn't sure would accept our invitation. But she came and gave a keynote about online magazines.

 Photo taken by Kiezlage

There were also so many more wonderful speakers, who shared their knowledge and experience.
If you have time, take a moment and google The Hive. You will find many recaps.

Besides blogger we also had some companies and agencies there who wanted to get in contact  and learn how to work with bloggers. I truly hope we pushed a door open for that. Next year we want to provide more possibilities for getting in contact and opening up communication. Most of the bloggers who came were women. Blogging about design and lifestyle is indeed a field in which you find more women than men. And also our design was probably more appealing to women.

But let me tell you, that there were such great women at The Hive. Nothing cliche about them. We're talking about media savvy professionals here: journalists, photographers, bloggers who deserve to be taken seriously.

Look:

 Photos taken by Currystrumpet

 

We will make some changes next year to ensure that. Because that is a point very dear to my heart.

Besides keynotes we also offered workshops.
Now, we knew we would have over 150 people there. In order for participants to enjoy the workshop there could only be a limited number. We had three photography workshops and one practical workshop. Screenprinting tea towels. Which yours truly really got into.

 

 Photo taken by Smil

Here is Anne of Annes Kitchen who held a food photography workshop. I had followed her blog for some time, but never got involved. I was extremely happy she accepted my invitation to come. 

 Photo taken by Little pink cakes

For the people who couldn't get into the workshops, we offered more keynotes. We just got back some feedback on that and some people were bumped they missed some keynotes while being in the workshops. We wanted to keep everybody busy, but the route we took might not have been the best one.
We listen to feedback and will make changes here, too.
We also had two speakers who reached out to us and asked for a speaker slot, we could provide that and Emily and Anne rocked.

So if you have something you want to add to The Hive, come on forward and reach out to us. We can't promise anything but we will listen to your ideas. 

Looking back I can say, organizing The Hive was a lot of work. Like A LOT! But so so rewarding. During the keynotes I looked around and watched bloggers from all over Europe listening, networking and engaging in conversations.

I'm very happy that we provided a place where big and small bloggers spend two great days together.

Thank you all for coming. Hoping to see you next year.
All photos can be seen on our Flickr page: The Hive 2012

The Hive - Behind the scenes

When Peggy and I met with Radostina in Prague, we already had worked on our blog conference The Hive for some time and via the internet only.

This time in Prague was our first time that we met and could discuss details about speakers and how we want the conference to go.

That's right, we ate delicious food at a place with free wifi and discussed the conference on the iPad for like 3 hours. Welcome to the digital age. 

We wanted to take some photos for our webpage and so Radostina acted as make up artist and photographer.

Dog Sam was very unimpressed and still wanted to be around.

Fine result, don't you think? 

Prague or how I lost a tooth

Because I'm the princess of procrasting you get to read about my trip to Prague, during which my two blogging friends and I planed The Hive - the first European blog conference, more than 6 weeks later.

But now I'm on track.

I went to Prague in January. I had hoped to have somebody sitting next to me on the short plane ride. Because I have a problem with the take off. I really, really need somebody holding my hand. There was nobody. Not next to me. Not in the row before or behind me.
I survived alright. But barely!

 

Prague is indeed gorgeous. Cold but really gorgeous. Take a look. 

I spend my weekend with these two lovely ladies. Peggy in front, Radostina behind her. Thanks to Radostina, we didn't have to look for a hotel, but could stay with her, her husband and dog Sam.

 

And this is said dog. This is Sam. He is awefully cute. And he snores a lot. That's cute, too.

On our first night together we went out to dinner and ordered glorious food. I had the traditional Svíčková (for you not fluent in czech: rast sirloin in creamy sauce).

 

And we had cocktails. 

And we had bread. That's when it happened. You see those little mason jars? Wonderful stuff was in there to put onto bread and enjoy. We also enjoyed the fries with cheese you see in the background.
I took a bite of my piece of bread, not even hard bread, and I chewed. Chewed some more until I realized I had something hard in my mouth. I thought there was something in the spread.
I had broken off my corner tooth. Right there on a Friday night in Prague. No dentist sitting at the next table.

Peggy and I shortly after I broke off the tooth. No wonder I keep my mouth closed.

The next night we went to a bar that played all the good 90ies music and served big cocktails. Our kind of place.

The bar is called Black Door and the special eyecatcher is BD the iguana. (Get it? Black Door - BD). She is very observant and pays close attention what happens right outside her glass cage. Everybody passes her on the way to the bathroom.

Prague, I hope I see you again. It was nice catching a glimpse of you.