ltdLive 2012

Pasadena Convention Center

Is it just me or is your calendar suddenly full, too? Yesterday morning I went to a seminar. In the evening I attended a meeting. Today I'm working and I have a meeting, and tomorrow there's more to come. Many events want my attention and some of them I'm even interested in. I think it's partly exuberance in the new year, partly a need to get something going in a tough economy.

Worth checking out at the Pasadena Convention Center on February 1st and 2nd: ltdLive 2012, a Conference for Entrepreneurial Women. ltdLive was created by Pasadena author and entrepreneur Nada Jones for "women who live at the intersection where business and life converge." Meaning, perhaps you're stuck at home with three kids and perhaps you'd like to occupy your brain with something else and make some money in the process. Or perhaps you're already an entrepreneur, and you're ready to take your business to the next level. Dance atop the glass ceiling in your glass slippers, as it were.

We used Nada's book, Sixteen Weeks to Your Dream Business, as a jumping off point for the Business Builders' Boot Camp in which I participated--goodness--two years ago. Nada came to our final session and helped critique business plan presentations. She's friendly and approachable, not to mention a smart business person who knows how to motivate others to stop sitting around dreaming and start doing the thing they've been dreaming about doing.

I was going to call her a sharp cookie but then I thought, that doesn't sound appetizing at all.

Visit ltdlive.com for details and to sign up. This might be your year.

Cut Your Grass

Apparently I'm not the only one in Pasadena who wants to kill my grass. The big room at the Pasadena Convention Center was packed last Saturday for Pasadena Water and Power's "Cut Your Grass" workshop. The morning was led by the energetic Tim Wheeler, horticulturalist extraordinaire, who I remembered from an irrigation workshop I attended a couple of years ago.

Well, damn. Two years. It's been that long and I still have the most terrifying back yard on the block.

Tim can keep a crowd interested for three full hours. He's knowledgeable, dynamic and fun. He can answer almost any (relevant) question you put to him. It was a fascinating workshop and they're going to have another one August 20th (keep your eyes on Pasadena In Focus). And watch PWP's website August first for information about financial incentives for killing your grass.

But I'll never make it by August first. I'm beginning to think I won't make it at all. Yes, I want to kill my grass--which is not grass, but weeds--but once I do that I have to remove the dead stuff, and once I do that I can't just leave the dirt, I have to plant something, or put in a hardscape or a pergola or something, and it's a big yard, and all that takes planning and effort and labor and moneymoneymoney and I'm just overwhelmed. I have no idea where to start.

I want someone else to do it.

Too Popped to Pot

I attended an event at the Pasadena Convention Center last Sunday--a seminar called POP! Your Book, Brand, Business and Career.

On the lower level, the Los Angeles Pottery Show was happening. We had this great view coming and going from the conference room, as we crossed over the lower level on bridges set with tables and chairs.

All that colorful pottery was tempting. I thought I might check it out after the seminar was over.

Once inside the packed room I forgot about pots. The POP! seminar was absorbing before it even started, because the speakers came early to network with participants.

I was there to learn, not to blog, so I didn't take photos. I listened, scribbled notes, laughed and scribbled more notes. The organizer, business writer Karen E. Klein, did a nice write-up of the event and posted shots of speakers Sam Horn and Lilli Cloud on her blog, Financially inKleined.

The two brilliant branding/marketing experts kept us riveted for three hours. You can see by their websites that they're tops in their field. We were lucky to have them together.

When we came out, the pottery show was closing down.

Ah, well. I got what I came for. I didn't need pots. I needed to pop!