A Real Nail biter
It's been a long and crazy week so far. TOO much is going on this week, but it's all good stuff. First, my electric is being upgraded this week. I believe it's being finished today. Hopefully the weather doesn't impact that at all. It's just in time for warmer weather. It's getting warm upstairs. But, if I open the windows when I get home, most of the heat escapes. Last night I didn't get home until after 10:30 so it was still pretty warm. But, relief is on the way. I just scheduled the appointment to get the AC service powered up! Look out next Wednesday. I actually hope it's hot one!

Okay, not really nail-biting, but trying to coordinate schedules and permits and service is just plain crazy! Who knew getting central air conditioning would be such a crazy hassle!

This week was also the week to register for Stampin' Up!s annual convention this summer. I'm going with 2 other ladies. I've never met them in person, but we're getting to know each other via e-mail and they're a lot of fun!

Tuesday we registered and selected which schedule of classes we'd want. We got into the exact schedule only to find out later that there was a glitch and EVERYONE was able to register for that schedule. Luckily, we were in early enough and got to keep our schedule.

Wednesday we got to start booking hotels that SU had blocked. Now, you know me, I had a back-up reservation at the most in-demand Marriott in SLC for convention - it's across the street from the convention center. And, it wasn't just any reservation, it was a free reservation. I'd booked it back in January...just in case. How registration works....a link is posted on the SU site at a certain time. It's a mass rush to get in and get booked before things fill up (like the scheduling issue on Tuesday). Well, the link was supposed to be published at 9am. Donna and I were e-mailing back and forth the whole time. At around 9:15 we got frustrated and started calling the reservation number. It was so busy, we didn't even get a dial tone! I got through about 10 minutes later and then sat on hold for 22 more minutes. Luckily, around 9:45 I secured a room at the PRIME Marriott location. Woo Hoo! Donna had better luck and got her reservation a good 20 minutes before me. Unfortunately, the link never appeared until 10:30 - an hour and a half late. Apparently by that time all but 2 of the hotels sold out and the remaining rooms were gone 15 minutes later. WOW!

Thursday was an even bigger challenge. This year we are able to tour SU's Riverton Campus to see how things work. I think this is what I'm looking forward to most. It'll be fun to see where the magic happens. Well, of course the 3 of us wanted to schedule our bus tour at the same time. Kerin works so Donna was in charge of registering both of them. Well, her computer didn't like having her and Kerin's SU pages up at once, so we enlisted Donna's daughter - who is apparently a DSA (Direct Sales Association) queen herself. Donna's daughter, Lisa, is a Tastefully Simple consulant. She's been doing it for less than a year and is already 3rd in the company for sales and business!!! She was featured in their monthly magazine!!! Anyway...so, the three of us sat on the phone. Donna had 2 phones up to her ear since it was Kerin who had 3-way calling installed just for Tuesday. I was the one clicking refresh. The link went up 10 minutes late then it was a frantic race for the three of us to get our first choice of the 2pm tour. Whew. It was done so fast! We got the Schedule we wanted on Tuesday, the hotel we wanted on Wednesday, and the tour we wanted on Thursday. I've been reading about how others weren't so lucky. Now, July 29th just has to get here!!!

And, if you're curious. I placed a few orders last week to position myself to earn the free trip to Hawaii next March! I didn't outright buy enough to be eligible. However, I ordered enough stuff to make achieving Hawaii realistic. 19 boxes of Stampin' Up! goodies arrive tomorrow! YIKES! A box of about 40 stamp sets arrived yesterday!!! And, I have more paper than I know what to do with already. Oh dear! I think I received 4 boxes last Thursday, 2 boxes last Friday, 2 boxes on Monday, 1 box on Tuesday, and 1 box on Wednesday or something like that. Claire jokes that Riverton is now in Elmer!

And, last but not least, my final excitement for the week was that I recruited my first Stampin' Up! demonstrator. I'm officially a "stampin' mama".