Where Do I Even Begin to Describe my time in Portland?!
The entire trip was surreal!
Yes, I know I’ve done this before. I worked for Kim’s company,
twice before. My first time was in Tulsa back in August of last year. And I can assure you that Kim had no idea before I showed up to work in her booth that I would soon become a permanent fixture!! But, I am so happy that it has all worked out like how it has!!
Kim and I really mesh well together. She’s a completely different personality than me, but somehow we seem to relate pretty well to each other. The things I like about her are her high business ethics, her generosity and her willingness to accept me, for both my strengths and my weaknesses. Believe me, she is seeing all sides of me. When we go to these conventions, we all see the best and worst of each other. Why? Part of it is the incredible amount of time we spend together. We are up at the crack of dawn, so we are ready to work at no later than 8am, usually and we work until 10pm. This is very hard and tedious work. There are so many things that have to mesh perfectly to execute putting together and dismantling this booth, and also the sales days in the middle. In a word, it’s exhausting. But, I loved every darn minute of it. (well, except for when a very full and very heavy box fell on my head!!)
But, aside from that, IT WAS FABULOUS!!!!
Here are some of the highlights for me:
~ Got to see my girlie, Kara! And the sweet thing brought me that cutie-cute scarf.
Although, she did sell it off me. TWICE. And I came home with no scarf.
I think I'm going to be forced to charge her commission for being a walking advertisement!
Ha ha! J/K, Kara.
~ “Officially started my employment with the awesome Scrapbooks ‘n Stickers team!” There’s no “I” in “Team!” Right, Kim?!!? (This woman is unstoppable! She runs her online store, homeschools her 3 kids & is a very busy “baseball mom.” She organizes her design team and store blog, manages her business for her online store and also, travels an incredible amount of days a year to run her booth and teach her classes. She even has an injury right now that should prevent her from lifting heavy stuff, but she insists in doing it, saying “she won’t ask me to do anything that she won’t do herself.” Including lifting the boxes she is not supposed to be lifting!! (she’s real stubborn!) But, for the record, I prevented her from lifting boxes every single time I could!!
Now all of this must seem inconsequential, but when you consider how often people suffer in jobs that they hate. Jobs that make them miserable. Finding this job like this makes me so happy!!!! I love it and plan to do this for a good long time! I am really a lucky girl!!
~I met Lain Ehmann,
Contributing Editor for
Simple Scrapbooks magazine, as I already mentioned in my last blog post. But she’s such a sweetie, decided to mention her again! (I even ran into her this morning at the airport…) And I'll be doing a *TAG* that Lain gave me very soon!! Hi Lain! Glad I met you Lain! You are so sweet and so cool! I hope I get to know you better and better!!
~While working in the booth, I was doing some “make ‘n takes” and I looked up and there was Ali Edwards! Yep, THIS Ali Edwards. (see book below)
As Griffin would say, “Oh. My. Hotdog!!” (oh my, that sure made me miss him!) Anyway, Ali Edwards was watching me work and doggone it, I was so busy I didn’t even get to meet her and get a picture with her this time. (but, there’s plenty of opportunity to do that later!)
Hee Hee Hee......Hey, Ali Edwards, can I show you the Bind-It-All? How about the Glue Glider Max? LOL!! Yeah, right? As if she doesn't probably have every single cool scrapbooking tool known to creation already?!?! I mean, c'mon, it's Ali Edwards, for goodness sake!!!!!!
And, then last night, we were eating dinner at the hotel and she came in. She was staying at our Marriott! (And Lain was, too!) Welcome to Scrap-Celeb central!!!!!
~Speaking of Bind-It-All’s….holy moly, I love this thing!!
I have thought of about a thousand things I could bind up with the nifty tool!
Bind-It -ALL!!!!
I got one of those and a Glue Glider Max to bring home with me! I brought so much stuff home with me! In fact, I had to bring another suitcase home and my original suitcase's weight was so over limit, I had to empty some of it out when I tried to check it!
Which leads me to my sad, sad story from my trip.
So, when I showed up at the airport, I had taken things out of my big suitcase to make sure it's below the weight. I knew it was close, but thought maybe it was under. Nope. Over by 3.6lbs. Bummer!
So, the lady asked if there was anything I could take out to make it below the 50lb. limit.
I was a bit stressed, as I didn't want to pay a dime to send the suitcase home. And the huge line of around 75 people were impatiently waiting behind me to check in, as well. So, I hastily grabbed out my super-cool, hot pink WorldWin Design Team bag and slung it over my shoulder, I wanted people to see it anyway because it is so, so cool. I was planning to shove my purse in it to only have 2 carry on items in security. So, she weighed my bag again and it was now 49. 8lbs. Boy, I barely made it........
Then, I was to go from there and deliver my bags onto a separate screening area to get them checked in to head to the airplane. This was taking so long, I was starting to stress, as I only had 40 minutes to get thru security and get to the gate.
So, I ran to security and stood in the huge lines over there. I was s.t.r.e.s.s.i.n.g.
So, it finally is my turning, I'm ripping off my shoes. Taking off my sweater. Taking the laptop out of the laptop bag. Laying my hot pink bag up there. I walk thru the metal detector and it goes fine. So, I go to the end of the belt and begin redressing. Well, I look over and see my pink bag being put back thru the x-ray machine a 2nd time, then, a 3rd time.
And all of the sudden I realize what the problem is.
When I flew out, I checked this bag because it had Fiskars soft-touch scissors in it.
And a CutterBee Retractible Craft Knife.
And a Making Memories Paper Piercer Deluxe.
And in my haste to hurry and get through there not to miss my flight,
I completely forgot they were in that hot pink bag.
Well, apparently in the eyes of the TSA, these are the tools of someone up to no good.
And the TSA doesn't like them one bit.
So, they confiscated them.
She did apologize to me.
But, it hurt no less.
I felt like an idiot.
I was upset.
I just told her to do what she had to do.
But, I didn't watch. I couldn't.
But, I had no time to do anything different.
It sucked.
And by the time the "security fiasco" was over....
I ran to the gate where they were already loading my flight.
I flew into Tulsa to pick up my 2 youngest children.
I was so tired.
I passed out.
Then, I was to drive home on Monday morning.
And I woke up to sleet and snow.
So the drive home was slower than I had anticipated. But, I made it home at 4:06pm, just 2 minutes before my oldest child gets off the school bus and only 20 minutes before I pick #2 child up from tutoring after school. It was busy......but I was glad to see all of them.
Monday night, hubs and I went to bed early. We were both exhausted.
I missed him terribly. Him holding me was well-received by me.
Tuesday was my slug day. I unpacked part of my stuff. I laid around a bunch.
And today, I had a meeting at the school for child #2 and unpacked some more.
I gotta get my booty in gear and get my scrap work done.
I really want to do it, but I feel guilty doing that before my "house" work is done.
So...tomorrow, I hope to do that while doing laundry!! :)
Missed all of you!!
And I leave again in a week.....
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