The One with ScrapFest

My poor neglected blog! Here's what I've been up to since Thursday:

Thursday September 11th 2008
I woke up Thursday morning and watched a couple episodes of Supernatural. I love that show. It's the modern-day version of X-Files, it even has one of the same producers - Kim Manners. Then I turned on the cable and watched some footage of September 11th 2001. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was driving to school from seminary listening to 107.7 THE END and the radio hosts were talking about the disaster. When I got to school we were rushed into our advisory class where we watched the events unfold on the television. Then we were sent to our regular classes and my math teacher actually made us take the test scheduled that day. Like I could concentrate!

Back to 2008. Chris and Art dropped me off at the airport and I made my way through security and to the gate. I was an hour early so I started reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows for the second time. I was tempted to read Breaking Dawn again since I've already forgotten most of it, and I wish I had brought it instead of Harry Potter.

I had an assigned aisle seat but since the flight wasn't full and there was no one in the window seat I sat by the window. I HAVE to sit by the window to remain sane on airplanes. However, a weirdo came and sat next to me, told me I was in his seat, but that it was okay to stay there. That's the one nice thing he did for me the whole flight. He ordered about three cups of coffee (spew), had his music playing so loud I could sing along to it, took up the middle arm rest the entire time, and was so strange that I didn't feel comfortable enough to ask him to let me go to the bathroom. I had to go so badly by the time we landed three hours later; but of course there was an airplane already at our gate so we had to sit on the tarmac for several minutes. Then there was a huge line in the bathroom. TMI?

Mike and his wife Lenore came to help out at the booth and my mom flew all the way from Seattle to be with me. Once we grabbed our bags we walked to the car rentals and upgraded to a nice Envoy.
We made our way to the hotel and relaxed for a little. Then we went to THE Mall of America. It's like a city. There are so many stores. It's huge. There's not just one roller coaster in the middle like I thought, there's an entire theme park! Naturally, being in a mall all I wanted to do was shop! But alas, I had to work and like I really need more clothes.

My mom and I walked around and around and around. Her favorite store was Department 56. She seriously screamed a little when we turned the corner and saw it. We looked at the Halloween stuff that she collects. I love Halloween and seeing all the decorations in that store made me giddy. Side story: Last year's Halloween was a disaster (although now it's kinda funny). I had no idea what to expect since it was our first year living in the apartment. I bought tons of candy, put it in a special cauldron bowl, downloaded the Harry Potter soundtrack and played it really loud so everyone could hear it, dressed up in my Renaissance dress, and basically decked out the place. And how many trick-or-treaters did we get? One. And where was I when that one trick-or-treater knocked? In the bathroom. Yeah, this year will not be like last :)

Anyways, at about 9:30pm I helped set up the booth. It was quite a complicated set-up but with everyone's help we got done by 11pm. Our location could have been better - we were right across from the Rain Forest Cafe so there was constant mist drifting towards us and obnoxious animal sounds drowning our conversations. But it's all good. Back at the hotel, my mom and I watched some more September 11th footage. Words cannot describe my emotions about this tragedy.

Friday September 12th 2008
I bring my pillow with me wherever I go so I can sleep well. And I did. We ate a good breakfast of French toast and yogurt then we went to the mall for day one of ScrapFest. We set up the make-and-take and the craziness began. Most of the women were really fast and were in-and-out in under two minutes. Others took their time and tried to make their own card/layout using the supplies. Whatever floats their boats. Our line was probably the fastest of them all. Women thanked us for having such a fast line because they stood in other vendor booth lines for up to two hours! If I were to do it all over again, I'd probably provide a layout instead of a card and I'd make our booth display more fancy. I loved Doodlebug Design's eye catching booth.During lunch I met up with my mom and her life-long friend who lives in the area. I got some baked Zitti from Sbarros and it was good. After lunch Kelly taught the two classes and did a wonderful job. As I walked around helping the class attendees, it was funny to see how many people STARED at us. Like we were some kind of freaks. What's scrapbooking? Where are all the men? What are they doing? It was funny. Even Blogger underlines "scrapbooking" as a mispelled word!
Right at 5 we packed up our stuff and headed to the Archiver's in Maple Grove. We did a lot of giveaways, ate some dinner (more pasta, but I love pasta) and quickly taught them how to make this card. I bought a cute 25-day countdown calendar box from Karen Foster Design to alter for Christmas.Back at the hotel, my mom and I watched Overboard. Such a cute movie.

Saturday September 13th 2008
I had another delicious French toast and yogurt breakfast then it was back to the mall.
Saturday was exponentially more crowded than Friday. I've heard that bad weather gets more people to the mall and it rained all weekend. Saturday was a repeat of Friday, just more people. I got an amazing Nutella crepe for lunch. So healthy! Crepes remind me of my days in Paris. This is an actual picture from Paris and he's making a Nutella crepe.
After the booth closed my mom and I hung out. We ate dinner at an Italian restaurant called Tucci's and I got margherita pizza. Mmmmm. It reminds me of my days in London. I would get margherita pizza every time we went to this Zizzi's place. Then we went and saw The Women. Don't see it. The only thing I liked about it was Meg Ryan's hair. There wasn't anything worth watching on TV at the hotel so we went to bed.

Sunday September 14th 2008
We got to sleep in on Sunday but I still got up early to say goodbye to my mom. It was so fun to hang out with her. If she hadn't come, I would have been so lonely! And my wardrobe wouldn't have doubled in size (I'm totally exaggerating :)

We only had one class on Sunday which went well. As the final minutes of ScrapFest came to a close we gave away practically everything we had at the booth. That made women happy. Free stuff is always a good thing.

The plane ride home was interesting. When I checked my bag the lady gave me a ticket that said I needed to request a seat. Uh oh. I was getting bumped. I got through security fast and found my gate. It said gate E15 on my ticket but when I got there it said E11. The lady at the counter where I needed to request my seat had a sign that said "position closed" and when anyone tried to talk to her she said in a rather stern voice, "I'm not open." In the same terminal three flights to Cincinnati had been canceled so people were running around frantically trying to revise their plans. And Delta likes to overbook all of their flights so they don't lose money, which means either people voluntarily give up their seats for compensation, or people get bumped... So I was trying to figure out whether or not I needed to find a ride back to the hotel. Finally someone announced that the flight to SLC had switched planes and was now going out of gate E13 and that it would be "open seating." I quickly got in the semi-line that started forming after the announcement. Once the women said she would start boarding, the line was non-existent. People were pushing and cursing and it was like being at a concert. I wasn't the first one through the line to board the plane, so when a little ticket with 1A on it popped out of the machine I thought everyone's ticket said 1A on it because the computer was screwed up. Since she said it was open seating I assumed that meant I could sit anywhere. I walked by the First Class seats because there were quite a few older people I thought deserved it more than me. I found a nice window seat not above the wing and close to the front. Then one of the stewardesses asked me for my boarding pass and I said I didn't have one. She said, "You need to come with me." Oh no, I was getting bumped. I stood at the front of the plane while everyone walked by. Then the pilots got on and asked me what I was doing standing there. I said the lady told me to. Blank stares. The flight attendant looked down the aisles and saw there was only one seat left - 1A. I pulled out my little ticket that said 1A on it and handed it to her. I should have given it to her in the first place but I didn't know that's what she wanted. So, I got to sit in First Class which wasn't different from sitting Coach except there wasn't anyone sitting next to me. The flight wasn't too bad as far as turbulence. And I don't think I was the only one afraid to fly on that plane. While I was standing at the front a guy knocked three times on the outside of the plane, patted it like a dog, and traced an "x" on his chest with his fingers before he got on. I attribute all of this badness to the fact we flew out of gate 13 - chalk another one up to my triskaidekaphobia.

Now I'm home and my life is back to normal. At least for now!