While I was at Market

On July 15th I arrived in Atlanta—LATE!!!  It took me about three hours to get out of town.  Very frustrating, but all my fault. 

Forgot the dog’s meds—had to go back for them.  Couldn’t find the car charger for my cell phone—it was almost dead and wouldn’t make it to Atlanta.  My theory is, the cell phone must have been invented by a business owner.  They are the #1 business innovation insofar as they allow small business owners to step outside of their own city limits.  (If I could figure out email on my phone, I could stay away for a week!)  Eventually had to stop and buy a new charger, but of course they didn’t sell them at the carrier’s retail shop (silly me).  So, back in the car to back track to another store—where I forgot to buy oil . . .  ARGH!!!  Another stop.  In total, I went back to the house FOUR times, fit in a few banks and one post office stop—my departure time adjusted from 2 PM to 5 PM.

I did, however, make it to Atlanta (thanks be to God and books on tape!) and was ready to hit the market.  So, the next morning I jumped on the MARTA and made the exchanges to get to the Peachtree Station (deep in the belly of Atlanta), where the escalator was broken so I had to climb the stairs to the street surface!  (Sure there was an elevator, but there was a herd of about 100 people waiting for this single elevator!  I won’t mention the escalator on the other side of the station, because I completely forgot about it!  Rookie mistake . . .)

Okay—to the good stuff.  I visited most of my standards.  Tried to see most of the temporary exhibitors—not an easy task!

Most impressive was one of my favorite vendors.  Their showroom has tripled (at least) in size.  The new line, combined with the current, was almost too much to take!  I had to go back twice in order to make a reasonable wish list!  I wanted to order a dozen of everything.

 

Then there was a new vendor—actually I think this was her second year at this market—but I actually wrote and order with her this year.   The designer’s name is Gina Galvin and her business is Peacock Park Design.

Gina has recently been featured in Where Women Create, one of my favorite Stampington magazines and Victoria!  (one day . . .)

So I walked and walked and walked some more—my head was on a swivel and think I feel like I accomplished as much as I could.  It was a full three days.

One of my favorite reasons for attending the market is to attend seminars.  This market trip was no exception.  One failed morning of cell phone calendar screw-ups caused me to miss two seminars (one was ironically about social technology), but I did catch this guy . . .

 

Olivier Blanchard of The BrandBuilder.  He is a guru of social networking and I learned tons!  So, look out cyber world . . . here I come . . . once I get a handle on texting . . . watch out!  (Okay, he was very inspiring, I just need to figure out what’s right for me and Hodgepodge.)

So, there you go, that’s what I did while I was at market.  I was on the road by 3 PM Sunday.  There was a lot more to it—spent some quality time with my cousin Stacy—tooled around Decatur (hands down one of my favorite areas on earth)—found lots of cool merchandise to fill Hodgepodge to overflowing . . . but tempered myself . . . really!  Those boxes on my porch right now . . . I ordered those last spring!

 

Thanks for your indulgence,