They gave to me {takeaways from #allume}

Allume is such a giving community. The people involved give – over and over and over.

I’ve shared some of this already:
How she gave me her time and encouragement.
How she gave me a 6-second hug.
How she gave me a necklace.
How they gave me a t-shirt and a guest-post spot on their website.

But that’s only the beginning of the blessings I received from community that is Allume.

Jacque Watkins sought me out at 11:30PM to talk to me about marriage stuff, share her story in more depth, answer my probing questions, and pray for me and my husband. For our marriage. For our finances. For our son. Her prayers for me ended just after midnight. Don’t mind how exhausted we look.

Besides picking my favorite song to sing for worship, Tyrus Morgan listened to a nutshell version of my story and why it was my favorite song, and gave me a free CD in return.

Holley Gerth had lunch with me, and sat with me in the (in)courage lounge listening to me ramble for a good 20 minutes. This girl is a great listener! My only regret is that I didn’t let her do more of the talking!

For this next one, I have to thank Logan Wolfram, conference coordinator. As someone with severe food allergies, I was prepared to be sorely disappointed in the food options. In fact, I packed a huge bag of snacks and drinks for myself, simply so I wouldn’t go hungry:

Amazingly enough – I barely touched my stash the entire time because the food was just. that. good. The gluten free options (at every meal!) were simply amazing and so scrumptious. This breakfast was (a lot of) bacon, eggs with ham and chive cream cheese, and greek yogurt with blueberries. Protein lovers heaven!

I have to give a HUGE thanks to Allume sponsor, Everyday Icing! Back in September, there was an Allume Twitter party so people going to Allume could connect before the conference. There were conference related discussions questions…and GIVEAWAYS! That evening I won a $50 gift card to Everyday Icing. I was so excited to get some jewelry to spice up my wardrobe before the conference. I waited and waited –  but it never arrived. Finally I contacted Sarah Mae about it and she took down my information (again). More waiting and I never did receive the gift card.

So, when I saw their table at Allume, I stopped by and told them who I was and what I had won – and they graced me with multiple apologies for the miscommunications and told me to pick out whatever I wanted from the merchandise they had there.

I picked up 3 infinity scarves, $15 each. And told them to keep the change.

No deal. They told me I HAD to pick out one more thing. So I picked out at $16 necklace, one of the lowest-priced items there.

In other words, I got $61 dollars of free merchandise for answering a question on Twitter. Like I said, these people love to give!! And P.S. I LOVE these scarves! It was DEFINITELY worth the wait!

Wow. Between the sponsors, my roommates, the speakers, the gal I picked up at the airport, and the sponsor table drawings – I walked away with this:

Seriously…the worth of these items HAS to be darn near equatable to my ticket price for the conference.

So again, a huge thank you to all of the Allume contributors, sponsors, and attendees that poured into me while I was at Allume!

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To read more about my Allume experience, please check out my conference landing page: