Taking off over Minneapolis at 7 am

But it sure can feel like it.

I had a great time at The Creative Connection & have a zillion pictures to share & some gorgeous pretty things to show you. Everyone at the conference was unbelievably nice and approachable and down-to-earth and willing to chat with a friendless blogger lost in the craft world. I didn’t feel lonely for even one second of the event.

AFTER the event I might have had a teeny tiny breakdown. First it was a cab driver who got totally lost and argued with me and my new friend (and fellow winner) Kerrie about whether or not he would adjust the fare to make up for it. 30 seconds after he pulled away to take Kerrie to her hotel on the other side of the airport the front desk guy informed me there was a mix-up somewhere and I was at the wrong Residence Inn. My room was at the other one. On the other side of the airport. And their shuttle was busy picking people up elsewhere so no, I could not get a ride but he could call me a cab. Then THAT cab driver managed to make what Google assured me was only a 5 minute drive into a $30 ride. And then…well, and then it was 9:30 at night and I’d been up since 6 and the only thing I’d eaten since noon was a cupcake and my crotch felt like it was being stabbed with a giant pointy stick and I had just spent ALL my cash on two cab rides and as soon as E picked up the phone I started sobbing and just totally couldn’t stop. I was a snotty, pregnant, exhausted mess. But every time I opened my mouth to complain I felt like the most ungrateful douche-canoe in the whole world. I am INCREDIBLY lucky to have had the whole experience and appreciate every single minute of the time I had. All I can say is Pregnant Hormonal Woman is Pregnant and Hormonal and really, really, really hates people who refuse to go an inch out of their own way to help someone obviously lost and vulnerable and struggling.

But now it’s all over and I’m just SO GLAD to be home with my wonderful, patient, awesome husband and my adorable loving Baby Evan.

Who may be just a little bit mad about my leaving.

I think E let him watch too many episodes of Family Guy

Thank you again to Lark Crafts and Where Women Create! You are all the most inspiring, kind, creative people ever!

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.

I owe a major apology to everyone I made fun of or rolled my eyes at when they started talking about BlogHer’10 AGAIN. Like, GOD, come ON, it’s just ONE WEEKEND out of your life, WHY do you need to KEEP talking about it ALL THE TIME? I now realize the error of my ways. Going places and doing things is fun, even if you do spend the entire week before waking up at 5 am in a panic that you will forget your camera or the hotel will have lost your reservation or that every single person you meet will give you the “pregnant or fat” once over and decide “no, just fat”. It’s exhausting and totally thought-consuming and I am smack dab in the middle of it.

Right now I am probably hauling my pregnant butt through an airport somewhere, pinching myself and trying to comprehend just what it was that fooled ANYONE into thinking I deserved to attend a conference as cool as The Creative Connection. I will be making sparkly things and listening to some of the most amazing women speak and sweating through my shirt with nervousness and generally having a totally amazing time. I may even get up the courage to hand out a business card or two, although it’s probably better if none of the super-talented, cool, artsy people ever find there way over HERE.

It would have been even better if I didn’t put the word “crap” on my business cards.

Or the words “bodily fluids”. But hey, hindsight is 20/20 right?

And just because my mom asked me to post it, here’s the 250 word essay that won me my scholarship:

How will attending the Creative Connection Event impact your creativity and/or creative business?

Creativity has always been something I thought was innate. Either you were a creative person or you weren’t – and I definitely wasn’t. I can’t draw to save my life, my poetry sounds like “There once was a man from Nantucket”, my paintings look like they were done by a first grader and as far as style goes…let’s just say I fall somewhere between a 5 -year-old and my grandmother.

But then I did create something, the most amazing something ever, the kind of something that changes your whole life from the second you see those two pink lines. After my son was born in April 2009 I realized creativity isn’t about talent, it’s about the love of making things, whether those things are stories or clothes or art or music or feelings. I stopped being afraid to create and took up knitting and photography and cooking and writing and loved every second of my triumphs and laughed over my mistakes. I learned when you create things you also create joy.

Attending the Creative Connections Conference would be an amazing opportunity to expand my creativity and learn new ways to be joyful. The chance to network with so many amazing and talented women would be a great opportunity for me as a blogger and as a person learning more about her creative side, as untalented as that side might be.