I'm finally on the way home.

Hi, Have you missed me? Seems like forever since I came in here to tickle these little white keys. I looked at the dates, and it has almost been two weeks. Time sure does fly by while you are busy.

Right now Phil and I are driving home from Florida. I went to Orlando for a convention with Dewberry Designs/OneStroke Painting. I left last Monday morning, and Phil flew in and picked me up on Friday afternoon when everything was over. We drove to Daytona and checked into a hotel and just hung around. We always enjoy going there, and this time was no exception. But I've got to tell you, I slept until 12:30 p.m. on Saturday while he went and played golf. I think that I could have slept even longer, but I didn't.

This morning before leaving we went to the Flea Market, looking for half runner green beans for my Mom. They didn't have any, so I'm going to have to get my friend Becky in WV to bring some when she comes down later on in the month.

The convention was nice, but like everything it was effected by the money crunch going on in the world. There were not a lot of freebies, and most of our surfaces were just paper. But you know, it is great going and getting a ton of stuff, but when it comes right down to it, that just isn't that important. I love going and seeing friends and making new ones. I look forward to learning new techniques, and hearing ideas that will help my business. Seems like this year I've been stumped when it comes to being creative, and this really helped me some.

Of course I loved seeing my friend Sandy, and getting to meet her friend Nicole. It was funny, even though she and I had never really met before it was like we had been friends forever. She just has such a sweet spirit, and such a joy to be around. The three of us shared a room, a long with Hazel. Hazel is a few years older than us, and she usually would go to bed earlier than we did, but she was still fun to be around. And her hubby is a bee keeper, and I learned so much about bees at lunch one day. I had no idea that bees are such interesting characters.

Sandy is already planning things for next year's convention, I really hope she gets the chance to share her ideas with the right people and put some of them into action. Her brain goes 100 miles a minute with ideas, and she is so good at organizing. Me, just point me in the direction that you want me to go.

I got to give "smiles" out each day. I took 6 roses with me so that I could give them out each day. Of course I gave my three roommates a rose, and then I got to surprise two friends with roses. I've got to say, their reactions to the roses were priceless. I wish I had the camera going when I gave them to Renee and Norma. I got their pictures later, and they were still smiling big. I told them about the 100 days of smiles, and they are going to go get the book to read for themselves, and who knows, they might even start their own 100 days of smiles.

I know that I've done a "smile" everyday, but I'm not sure that I can remember two weeks worth, so I'm just going to add these six roses to my counting, and not count the week before the convention. That's okay, it will just be an extra week of smiles. So this makes my count up to 19 days of smiles.

I'll post photos once we get home. I guess I should go for now, Phil is getting tired and I might need to take over driving.
keep the smile going,
Charlie