Haven Highlights (Not Yet…)

I just finished spending a couple of hours on a post highlighting the best moments of the Haven Conference and all the awesome, witty, kind and fun bloggers I met.  Unfortunately, when I hit the “publish” button, only a few sentences were posted.  Everything else was deleted.  No draft folder.  Everything just disappeared into thin air.  After a few delightful moments of attempting to bring it back I realized that the post was forever gone.  (Perhaps floating around in some strange parallel universe with William Shatner’s toupee.)

When I feel more kindly toward my computer (and that naughty WordPress) I may attempt again to highlight the truly incredible time I had at the Haven Conference.  For the time being though, my laptop will be in “time out” until it can behave.

I’ll just show a picture of my favorite item of “swag” from the conference.  A quart of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.  In the hotel room I lovingly doubled bagged and packed it snugly in my already overstuffed suitcase.  (Kicking out a pair of running shoes–that I never wore, by the way–to make room for the paint.)  I was nervous the whole time at the airport expecting that any moment they would x-ray my suitcase and say, “A can of paint?  Who packs a can of paint in a suitcase?  You must be a terrorist.”  And then they would detain me (as I missed my flight) while they stripped searched me (cold hands) as I attempted to explain that it wasn’t just any old paint, but the wonderful Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.

Thankfully, my suitcase made it through but the buzzer went off while I was in the machine for the full body scan.  Must have been all the jewels on my be-dazzled jeans.  (I am from Texas, after all.) After they performed a pat down and wiped my hands for foreign substances (bomb residue) I was free to go.  Beth, from Free Stylin and I were on the same flight and had to hustle to the gate since we were now short on time.  The plane was absolutely packed and we were all squished in like sardines.  I was wedged in between two men.  Thank goodness, all three of us had showered that morning.  (Well, at least two of us had.)  Now these gentlemen seemed pleasant enough but as a rule I generally do not enjoy sitting next to men on a plane (although I think I could make an exception for Mark Wahlberg.)  Men usually sit with their knees as far apart as possible.  So I’m sitting in between these two men (both wearing shorts) with their legs touching mine.  Not so much in a creepy way but more in a “I’m going to take all the space I can” way.  One was too busy lip synching to his Billy Ocean jams while the other was engrossed in his Hunger Games novel to really bother with me.  They each also had their arms hanging over the arm rests on either side so I had to pull my elbows in as far as I could to avoid having our arms rub against each other any more than necessary.  So I had to end up using little T-Rex arms to eat my lunch of water and a Twix bar (you take what you can get.)

Thankfully, I made it home safely.  (As did my quart of chalk paint.)  My suitcase had been inspected after all (they left that cute little note inside) but the paint remained sealed in the can, although it did have a few dents.

Haven Conference was a blast!  I loved every minute of it.  I will write a more detailed post on all the highlights of the trip (after WordPress and I make up.)

~Miss Charming