I LUV SOUTHWEST!!!!

Okay, first you need to know something about me. I hate to fly. It scares me. I'm convinced I'm going to die every SINGLE time I get on a plane. But today - today was a blast. First, I didn't sleep at all - had one of those nights where I woke up in a panic every ten seconds thinking my alarm wasn't going to go off. Then into a cab at 5AM, picked up Jenn and Jane and Rita and Barb and off to the Denver airport. Now, why they call it the Denver airport is kind of a mystery to anyone who has ever actually been to Denver, because the airport is not actually located in Denver. It's in California somewhere. Maybe Oregon. You drive for freaking HOURS to get to this place and spend $8 billion in cab fare.. Oh, wait - maybe I've solved the mystery. Denver is run by a band of pirate, vampire CAB DRIVERS!!!! So nice to have little revelations. Wanna see my finger today? EEK. Okay, so after an insanely long line at security with 9000 people and two TSA workers (one of whom stole my ONE OUNCE OF FACE WASH - GRRRRR!! DOES EVERYONE FEEL SAFE NOW?) we get to the gate, the A line and onto the plane where we make it into what I call Southwest First Class - the emergency exit row. I got the super stretch seat with nothing in front of me. Yep - those are my toes, and that's my catalog on my lap. Yay! Anyway, the flight crew is so ridiculously fun right from the get go that we're totally best friends with Steve our flight attendant before we even get off the ground. Man is this guy nice!! I briefly fall asleep and wake up to Steve bringing Jane and a very sweet young lady next to her bloody mary's! What the heck? I was out like 15 minutes and it turns into a party! So we spend the rest of the flight chatting and upon landing are treated to a custom Southwest version of "Crazy", crooned by our extremely talented stewardess Christine. We absolutely didn't want to get off the flight with these people, so we got Steve's email address and we will keep in touch. However, on debarking, we found out that that same plane and crew were leaving for Austin in 20 minutes, and the connecting flight we were supposed to have wasn't leaving for 2 hours. So we got right the hell back on!! Steve and Paul and Christine were stoked of course, and we also made friends with a couple across the aisle who GOT MARRIED IN THE AUSTIN AIRPORT! Great stories, great people. Assuming that our luggage had not made it onto our earlier flight, we invited everyone to have lunch at the Salt Lick. Totally a blast. Paul, Steve, The Mure's, Jennifer, two American Airlines pilots, Jane & I had a fun hour or so over BBQ. Southwest is always fun to fly, but truly, especially today. We are of course going to tell Southwest our story - this was a very special crew. High praise from a reluctant flyer, I promise.

Back to stamping. This is a project Jaron demo'd. If tiffany blue and chocolate chip ever go out of style, I will quit. I swear I will. Love the combo. Did I tell you one of the coolest things I learned? Instead of trying to thread hemp or linen thread through your buttons, take the white trash sewing machine we all have (the white gel pen) and DRAW a little stitch between the holes!! Make an X if you're feeling all froggy!! Amazing how cool the simplest tips can be!! All of convention is like that - four days of small, simple amazing things. I am all stoked to open the convention order that arrived when I was gone and go nuts planning my August camp and two other camps I want to hold. CAN'T WAIT!! Maybe I will have time to stamp some samples from my notes tomorrow and I will share them with you... Take it easy!