SLJ Leadership Summit! Day One

I am in Nashville for the first time attending the School Library Journal Leadership Summit for the first time. And I am quite excited about FINALLY getting to one! I learned the hard way that I cannot wait to register for the amazing conferences SLJ puts together. 

I arrived late Thursday evening hoping to get a little sightseeing in on Friday, before the afternoon focus group I was scheduled to attend. My roommate learned of a hot breakfast place called Biscuit Love, known for its chocolate gravy covered biscuits so we hoofed it over on a gorgeous morning. There was a line, but we were assured that it was short by Biscuit Love standards so we chatted and caught up with each other while we waited. Once we got in, I resisted the amazing merch - mugs, tee shirts, cookbooks, jars of jam and honey and just ordered.

I decided on those biscuits with chocolate gravy and added a side of sautéd mushrooms and something they call chronic bacon - spicy, sweet, thick-cut bacon. 

Dee. Lish. Us!

After that, we met our third roommate and visited the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum. It's a beautiful space and it turns out I know more about country music than I thought!

My pals trekked off to visit some family and I wandered up and down "Music Row" checking out the scene. The windows of all the bars and honky-tonks were flung open and all the live bands competed with one another. The street was crowded and the afternoon was gorgeous. Crammed in among the competing live music venues were a bunch of stores selling boots. Now, my boot collection is not as extensive as my collection of cons, but I suddenly felt I should've worn boots instead. Lots of booted gals (and guys) were about. The stores were crammed and the boots were expensive! 

I joined a focus group with the folks from Gale. I sat with three librarians and listened to two separate presentations about changes being made to an existing product and a possible new product. We were shown dummies of possible layouts and asked for our opinions. I've never done this before. It was fascinating. 

Then, there was a cocktail party (Thank you Capstone!) on a deck as the sun set on a gorgeous day. I saw Javaka Steptoe in conversation with on of my SLJ editors and said hello. I spied a fellow focus group member and we chatted. It turns out she was invited to the same dinner I was, so we strolled over to that restaurant together.

Dinner, thanks to Mackin, was at a restaurant called Kitchen Notes. The wall decor was arrangements of recipe cards blown up and framed and the food was quite tasty - crab cakes, fried green tomatoes and a choice of three entrees. 

I was so tired and full at the end of a long day that I could not blog about it. I started this post on Saturday, but couldn't get Internet access at the meeting and was too tired Saturday night to blog. So-o, here it is Sunday morning and I'm scrambling like a middle schooler to catch up. My post will probably be filled with typos and bad grammar, but there you have it.

Fun times!