Two days, 3 autographs, 0 cupcakes, and 1 broken ankle

This weekend I went to Washington DC with Melissa for the National Book Festival. Despite rain and inappropriate footwear, a good time was had by all. Friday night Melissa and I met the first of our crazy cab drivers. He told us how Dan Brown was going to be there and about the low prices of books in the book sales tent. We could not shut our big mouths once we got to the hotel and we talked, in the dark because we swore we were going to sleep, until about 2 am. The alarm went off at 8 and we immediately knew that we should have gone to sleep earlier. So we got up, got dressed, grabbed our Luna bars and headed out. We arrived at the book festival 2 hours early and realized we had forgotten our umbrellas. So I got in line and Melissa went to get them. I quickly met a new friend and we chatted until David Shannon and John Scieszka.
Now we were both beside ourselves to meet Mo Willems but his line was growing longer by the minute as we waited in the first line. Luckily our new friend's husband was sitting in his chair in the front of Mo's line, so we pretended to be their daughters and hopped right in the front of the line! So our dreams came true and we met the one and only............


After we met Mo and got our books signed we were pretty hungry so we set out, the blind leading the blind, to find lunch. Neither of us being shy, we decided to ask a lady who seemed local where to eat. She pointed us to Elephant and Castle and we had a delicious lunch. We then headed back to hear the authors speak.

We heard from Megan McDonald, author of the Judy Moody series

We also found out exactly how crazy Stephen Kellogg is. Please notice that his tie is backwards and upside down, his pants are wrinkled and dirty, and his hair has cowlicks. We were sitting in the second row and trying very hard not to laugh.
We saw the author and illustrator of the Spiderwick Chronicles. They were hilarious and made me want to read the books.

The moment we had waited for, and shamefully run over some children for, had arrived. We got to Mr. Mo Willems himself read from his books. It was incredible.

Firefox just crashed and deleted the rest of my post so more to come tomorrow..............

Breast Friends

Check out this awesome shirt I designed for my Breast Cancer 3 Day team!

Mrs. Boddie goes to Washington

I am very excited to announce that next weekend I am going to Washington DC. I have never been there and I can't wait! I am going to the National Mall to see some of my favorite children's authors. Mo Willems and David Shannon are 2 that I am really excited about. There are some grown up authors there too, but since I have spent most of my adult life reading children's book out loud I don't know many of the adult authors. My carry-on bag is probably going to weigh 100 pounds once I put in all the books I want to get signed.
I am going with Melissa. Melissa and I went to high school together, and aside from sharing the dance floor at my ten year reunion, we haven't seen each other since. We have connected through blogs and our mutual love of baking and all things cupcake. She has already staked out the coolest cupcake bar for us to visit. It's going to be a great trip.

Microwave cakes?

So my Hungry Girl cookbook has a recipe for chocolate cakes, made in the microwave, that only have 130 calories. I was very skeptical because you just combine cake mix and lite, fat free vanilla yogurt and then cook in the microwave. They are topped with fat free Cool Whip mixed with lite Hershey's syrup. They are delicious! We have eaten them for dessert for the last two nights.

Game Day food

There are a lot of good college games on today. My school, Michigan, is kicking butt right now and the Georgia Dawgs are about to at 7:30. I cannot believe that I actually watch and enjoy college football now. Living in the South really gets to a person after a while. For today's game I made some sliders with a Pampered Chef recipe. They were really good, and totally cute!

Really?

I went out to walk tonight. I only did about 2 miles, but is so boring by myself. Yesterday I made some cupcakes from my Hungry Girl cookbook. When I returned from walking there were 3, yes 3, cupcake wrappers in the trash can. So while I'm walking to try and burn off calories my husband eats 3 cupcakes. Really, Keith?! At least they are low calorie cupcakes, but still 3 is a little much. (I'm really glad he never reads this blog)

recent annoyances

I haven't blogged in a while, but here are some rants I've been saving up.

Last weekend I decided to meet a few fellow 3 Day walkers to train. We decided to walk 14 miles at a park nearby. We were about 11 miles in when it looked like rain was moving in. In about 3 minutes it went from a little cloudy to a light sprinkle to a typhoon-like downpour. We took a short cut, through the woods, and made it back to the car 1.6 miles later. We were drenched from head to toe. Luckily I had some plastic table cloths in the car from my bake sale the day before so we put them over the seats to protect them. It was raining so hard on the way home I couldn't see the road! The funniest part was that as we were driving, my friend and I wondered why neither of our husbands had called to check on us......

Recently a case of swine flu has been reported at my school and several others in the county. So naturally everyone is swine flu crazy. The slightest cough gets attention now. So today all of the cafeteria workers are wearing masks. Then someone told me that the front office staff was also wearing them. Now if it is really that much of a threat, why don't teachers have masks?

The biggest rant is about a shopping experience. I want a new bedroom set desperately. My frugal husband has been saying we can't get it until ours breaks. This furniture is so old and ugly, but luckily it is solid wood so it WILL NOT break! Finally after months of wishing the bed started to squeak a little. Keith fixed it. But then it started again. It eventually got so bad that each time either of us moved at all it was like an orchestra playing. So I went online and found a set I really like. I went to the actual store to see if they had what I had seen online so I could check it out. I told them that I wanted a king size bed with storage under it. I want the extra storage because I am so tired of things not being put away. Anyway, I digress, so I am asking the man to help me find it and he asks me to pull it up online. I found the set but it didn't have the storage under it. This other man came over and was behind me, looking over my shoulder, and says "unless you want kids' furniture, adult beds don't have storage under them". I was PISSED. I replied "I'm not stupid, there are sets with storage under them" and then I pointed out one online. I came home and realized that the bed and the storage were actually sold separately. Of course I emailed the store and told them how rude the salesman was and that if they didn't need business I'm sure another store did.

I think that is all of my rage for now. :)