I spent Friday and Saturday attending She’s Geeky – Twin Cities at the Science Museum of Minnesota (one of my happy places in the Twin Cities which helps with the whole being an introvert at a conference thing). I’ve been to a fair share of conferences – regimented, maybe you learn something, but mostly you don’t. I’d never been to an unconference. She’s Geeky felt more interactive, comfortable, and relevant. It felt like a much needed personal development weekend.

I spent two days surrounded by an amazingly diverse group of wonderfully geeky women. On Friday, I admit, I left exhausted and having some pangs of inadequacy. Here were all these great, smart, successful geeks and did I really measure up? I left wondering if I actually knew enough and had the right skills to call myself a real geek.

As I headed to She’s Geeky on Saturday morning, I made my usual drive-to-work morning phone call to my Mom. I talked to her about the conference and admitted that I was feeling unsettled.  Within a few minutes, she reminded me that I have an amazing geek for a mother and that degrees and programming skills aren’t all that makes a geek.

I hit the conference with a motherly-induced spark of self-confidence and spent an amazing day with a wondrous group of geeky women – learning, commiserating, being inspired, and benefiting from their knowledge and experience (and fashion sense). I was reminded of exactly why I love being a geek and that geeky women are fabulous company. They also gave me quite a few good ideas (including a few that are already in process).

Thank you, She’s Geeky, and all the amazing women that I met this weekend. I can’t wait to get to know my new geeky pals better and I’m already excited for the 2011 She’s Geeky – Twin Cities!

In the myriad of wedding blogs that I’m reading, I see so often that people have someone in the wedding party who is a florist or decorator or wedding planner or just downright craftastic. I am not craftastic. My wedding is in another state so even if I happened to be craftastic, the notion of hauling a ton of anything to Colorado is daunting. My wedding party, also not local to the wedding venue, is not craftastic. My Mom and sister-in-law, who are local, are both scrapbooking sorts but after looking at the cost to make invitations vs. buying them… buying.

Seeing all the amazing and lovely DIY wedding bits and pieces certainly makes me want to be crafty, but alas, I am not. Well, I made a scarf last winter, but rather than trying to be magically and suddenly crafty, I’m investing my energies (and injuries which I typed instead of typing energies and I find amusing) in finding unique and wonderful creations by others. I’m also quite intentionally seeking extra creative license enabled input from those who are creating the variety of crafty things that a wedding entails. Granted, that means I’ve been extremely thoughtful when selecting vendors; I’m placing a lot of trust in their judgement.

So, while I won’t have the wonderful homey creative air that DIY can bring. I will have fostered creative inspiration and given myself room to breathe (and not worry about getting various projects done at the last minute). I think the breathing room is more important to me right now.