I’m still here in Minnesota, but that’s not going to stop me from posting eight zillion thoughts about my experience so far. I should be sleeping – tired pregnant woman is TIRED – but the hotel room alarm clock is possessed. It must be auto-set to go off at 6:30 (maybe all the tall, hardy Scandinavians in Minnesota get up and to group stretches or something before going off to milk the cows and dazzle people with their straight, white teeth) and once it started beeping it refused to turn off. I pushed every button on the clock and all I managed to do is anger it into beeping louder and louder and LOUDER as I started franticly scrambling to find the switch and oh no I’m going to wake up the whole hotel with this alarm where is the frackin off switch ok FINE I’ll just pull out the battery! Crap, where’s the battery??? Wait, there IS no battery!!!

I think my in ability to master an alarm clock cements my total failure as a functioning human being out in public. Add it to my giant swollen feet and ankles (because why WOULDN’T I wear high heels for 12 hours when traveling?), the extreme case of inner thigh rub that’s threatening to spread all the way down to my calves (note to self: PANTS. LEGGINGS. SPANX. All good things), and the sweatiest palms in the history of the world and I should just be locked in my house forever. At least there I don’t get hand sweat all over The Pioneer Woman.

Even with my epic failure as a Professional Grown Up Business Type Person I am having a fantastic time. Everyone is SO SO SO nice and even the busiest most important organizers and authors and bloggers will stop and talk to you. They WANT to talk to you. And then they ask for your business card and you die dead right on the floor.

Now I have to go take a shower and stuff my feet into my largest shoes and run a whole stick of antiperspirant on my hands and go down to the blogging panel (the ONLY place I really belong this weekend) and pretend I’m not still totally star struck and speechless at…everything.

Remember I’m boring everyone live in real time on Twitter. That is, if I don’t break my iPhone with the tropical rainforest I call my hands.

P.S. Ok, here’s one story I can’t wait to tell. Last night I was trying to take pictures of the speakers (MaryJane Butters and Amy Butler) but there was this head of red hair in all my shots. I was all JEEZ can’t I get one picture without that head in it? And then I realized that head was The Pioneer Woman.

Tags: lark crafts, the creative connection, things I love, travel, vacation