and we're off!

On the plane, heading to Tucson! Yay! Did you know that Southwest has WiFi on the planes? I had no idea. Now I know though. The space for putting bags under your seat is also very narrow, here's a picture of the wheely backpack I'm taking... and my shoes. They look fiercely dirty this morning. Very excited about landing and getting on the way. Well, excited in general AND I thought it would be a great idea to have a double espresso this morning, so instead of just being excited, I'm very ExCiTeD.

The pilot just said that it's a whopping 35* in Tucson. Glad I brought a jacket and a scarf that Linda with Titus2Designs made me. It's awesome. My mom actually really likes this one, I might see if Linda will make her one... in a raspberry color.

Today is the last day for the To Bead True Blue Tucson Bead Show, so we're going to go there first. I like this show for a couple of reasons – there are some really interesting, smaller vendors there. A few years ago I met Lisa Pavelka working at her booth, and the Crystal Clay ladies were right next to her. I want to see if I can find a new vendor for glass tiles for making pendants. There are also some wonderful jewelry artists at this show.

Oh! And, the To Bead True Blue show usually has really interesting looking workshops, I've never taken one, but they look amazing. Maybe one year we'll actually take enough time to make that happen. I would love to do work in polymer clay and they have had workshops on it in the past. We do have a couple of vendors that we order from throughout the year that have a presence at this show, so it's nice to stop in and say hey and see if they want to give us any amazing deals.

If we have time after that, we might hit up the JOGS show, or maybe that one will have to wait until Wednesday morning before we fly out. The JOGS show only has one vendor that I want to see, this particular vendor doesn't have a website, so when we need something from them, I have to call and ask. Then they send us pictures and then I call back and order what we need. It's kind of a pain, but we do what we have to do to get the best stuff in at reasonable prices. I kind of understand where they're coming from though, I would imagine that going to shows AND having an online store would be very time consuming. I know that for us it's incredibly prohibitive based on the time aspect. Someday though, in my dreams, we'll have a robust web-store where you can get all of your dream beads and bits from us... someday...

Photobucket is loaded on my phone and ready to start uploading pictures. Check in frequently to see the excitement. Or more pictures of my shoes, whatever.

- Anne.