February Work Conference

 A few weeks back I attended a conference for work.  Normally I am the one who organizes and handles everything for these events when I attend.  I'm learning how my mind is going is changing since having a baby because my thoughts were not quite as organized this time!  

Things didn't start off well the day I left for Kentucky.  I went to pick up the rental car I had reserved a month in advance and they did not have what I reserved.  They wanted me to take a Suburban or a mini van and while both may be nice vehicles, they were NOT what I had reserved and I was feeling particular.  I finally found a vehicle from ANOTHER rental agency and was ready to start my trip.  Didn't stop to realize until I was down the road that there was a masked cigarette smell that was now burning my nostrils.  Thankfully we were able to tame it down with an air freshener and be on our way.

Then I get to the office to pick up all of the supplies for the booth (which I had previously packed up & prepared) and the marketing collateral was all wrong.  It came back wrong originally and I had it all reprinted and what do you know, it's still wrong!  I dealt with that, got loaded and then went to pick up my co-worker.  We get down the road about 5 minutes and realize she forgot part of her luggage...try this again!  :)  At this point, it's getting comical.  Really, what is going on in our effort to get out of town!

We get a couple of hours down the road and I realize we are making good time.  We decide to stop at a store (hello gap clearance store!) and kill some time.  That all went well until we got back on the road.  We had our gps all programmed but were not trusting the direction it had us headed.  Rightfully so...because 15 or so minutes AFTER going the wrong direction I realized we were passing things we did on our way in.  We get turned around and realize our car gps is just CONFUSED.  By this point, I need to make up time.  We needed to sit up our booth that evening and had a certain time frame to get it done!  I had a HEAVY foot the rest of our drive and made it to the convention center with 10 minutes to get our booth set up!  

We get everything done and I realized I had forgotten the giveaway sign for our booth.  The SO HELPFUL hotel staff hooked us up in the business center and we were finally able to get that printed out and ready for the next day of conferences.  Whew...

By this point, my co-worker and I are starving and ready for dinner.  The company allows a nice meal, but we were so tired & cold we just opted for soup from Panera! :)  We're cheap travelers!  During our run to Panera we had another bout with our gps as we were driving down the road and it just starts saying, "do u-turn, do u-turn!".  Either Kentucky's roads are laid out weird or I am just use to the grid Indiana has going on, because it was ridiculous.  I admit, I can be directionally challenged, but this was just comical how many times we were going the wrong way!

By the time we got back to the hotel, I just wanted a hot shower and to get myself some sleep for the long day we had ahead of us.  I got my clothes ironed, took a forever long shower (hello, hardly ever get that with a baby now) and then settled in for some chill time of watching TV and responding to work emails before I went to sleep.  Next thing I know, it's 2:00 AM and I had to just make myself SHUT DOWN!  My brain and body was so wired from the crazy day I think I could have stayed up all night long.

I ended up getting 3.5 hours of sleep before our early morning started.  Besides for the fact that we planned on meeting for breakfast at 5:45 and the hotel restaurant didn't open up until 6:30, our conference day went off without a hitch.  We had great attendance and flow at our booth!  We even made it home without getting lost or delayed... success after the craziness of actually getting there :)

Moral of this story (if you've actually stayed with me this long), because we just ended up "rolling with it" instead of completely stressing out all day, we ended up having lots of laughs together and a great time!  I'm blessed with some awesome people to work with and they make things like this more enjoyable when I have to leave my little family!