Those of you who know me personally know there are many reasons I dislike living in the DC Metro area; however, today, I’m focusing on one very important reason I am THANKFUL to be living here; namely, a newly developed networking group called Femworking founded by the beautiful Kelley Sanabria. In just THREE months, she and her BBF, Nicole Dash of Connecting Authentically, organized what was one of THE BEST conferences I’ve ever attended. They brought together 130 female small business owners and bloggers into one room for a jam-packed day full of amazing insights and advice. #femcon13 was a smashing success!

Femworking was founded on the principal of giving and from the awareness that we are better advocates for each other’s businesses than our own. It is a warm and fuzzy group with no judgement, no condescension and no competition. We’re all in this together, so let’s help each other out. One of my favorite quotes of the day came from Katie Morton of The Monarch Company, who said, “If you wore one of those sucker-upper thingies, go in the bathroom on the next break and take it off. We don’t care!” Truer words have never been spoken.

Truthfully, I’ve always had more male than female friends, for many reasons I won’t bore you with now, but Saturday was one of the first days I felt 100% comfortable amongst a room full of women. The amount of awesomeness in that room was unbelievable. As Nicole said, “It was magical.” I got to meet Jill Smokler, AKA Scary Mommy, who was perfectly lovely and not scary at all. I heard an amazing presentation by the entrepreneurial master, Holly Hamann of TapInfluence. Each and every presenter, panelist and attendee was so down-to-earth, easy to approach and easy to talk to. I’ve never experienced anything like it.

For all you bloggers and small business owners in the DC area, consider joining this stellar group of women as you grow your blog and/or small biz. other areas of the country, fingers crossed for Kelley having larger plans to expand nationwide!