Getting Ready for CHA

I am off to the Craft and Hobby Association trade show this weekend. It's a big show with aisles and aisles of cake decorating gear, scrapbooking supplies, knitting yarns, sewing do-dads, model trains, fine art supplies; if it's crafty, it's there. The show is HUGE and overwhelming but also really fun. I like looking over a big display from a company that makes nothing but snaps or specialty styrofoam shapes and wonder at the possibilities.

This year I am excited but I am also a bit nervous. I haven't traveled away from my girls in a long time; I have actually never been apart from Nora for more than a day. She's going to be o.k.; she has her favorite person (Dad) and her second favorite person (her big sis) but still...I am trying to talk to the girls about going away on 'my trip for work' in a matter-of-fact manner and since Cleo is now six that is easy. Six year olds are all about matter-of-fact.

me: I will fly on a big airplane.
Nora: why you fly on a big airplane, not a tiny airplane? (Nora's favorite word is 'tiny')
me: because California is really far away and I need to fly on a big plane to get there
Cleo: Mom, California is not really far away, it's right next to the Pacific Ocean. China and India are really far away, California is just on the other side of the country.
Nora: (excited!) Yeah! Mom, you can take a tiny airplane! A teeny tiny one with a mommy airplane next to it.
me: (gulp!) yep, I can check into that, maybe I will try to ride on the mommy airplane.
Cleo: (disgusted) there's no such thing as mommy airplanes, machines don't have mommies

what I am really thinking is that it is WAY too far away...too far for kisses and finding dolly shoes and making banana animals. But then I realized that Cleo's world is big enough to have places further than the ones I am headed to and that is a good thing...it makes me seem like I am not so far away.

The second thing that makes me nervous is my wardrobe. Stop laughing. You know you'd be doing the same thing. I have so few outfits that make me feel 100% great and none of them are warm climate trade show appropriate. I know there is probably some How To Attend A Trade Show site out there that recommends 'comfortable clothes' and suggests jeans and a tee shirt but honestly, that would make me feel like a slob. Business suits would work, but I don't have ANY or the appropriate accessories. I am shallow enough that I like to have a consistent look day-to-day at the trade shows so that I can carry the same tote bag. I have been turning my closet inside out with attempts to find the 'perfect' outfits and I even visited my friends at Galatea and bought one new, soon-to-be-favorite outfit. I think I might lay it all out on the bed tonight and make my husband give me his opinion. That will make him want me to go far away so I stop obsessing about what to wear.

Snow!

We just MIGHT have snow here tomorrow. This is big news for us in the land of cotton and sweet potatoes. I grew up in Ohio and in my first few years down South I was a bit mocking of the local tendency to run to the grocery at the first rumor of a flake but now that I have acclimated, I love it. A snowfall of any measureable amount will fill the streets in my neighborhood with sliders and skaters and walkers of all kinds out to gawk at even a minor change in the familiar landscape. We meet and greet and chat and laugh. It is a day off, a holiday. I have to say that I am now the first in my family to cross my fingers and wear my lucky shirt when snow is predicted.

This is a dilemma, though, with the stores. We may be able to get to work, but then again, if my Southern Belle staff can't drive themselves to work and my customers shouldn't do we really need to be open? Beads aren't medicine. Fancy ribbons aren't food. You don't need what we sell. I tend to embrace the day off and take it for the gift it is. I play with my children, take walks, sometimes do a bit of work at the studio table if time permits. I know that there are customers who think it's funny; we hear a lot of the 'well, I am from New Jersey and we never thought to close for two inches of snow!' but I just say, hey, you are not in New Jersey anymore. Put on some warm socks and ask your neighbor to teach you how to make a decent biscuit. The rest of us are going to go for a walk and act like fools in all this snow.

These photos are from an ancient snow event...that's my Nora Lou, barely seven months old but sticking her tongue out to try to catch a snowflake as she watched her big sis do the same. Those riding toys are in our backyard; one of my many follies indulged by the husband years before the girls were part of our family. Then the toys were 'Yard Art' and ridden only by tipsy, adult partygoers, now they are ridden frequently by smaller, gigglier jockeys. I hope I get to take some new pictures tomorrow. My fingers are crossed.