Bethjoy.com

And now I’ve been back for a day or two and I really haven’t had a good excuse for not posting other than the fact that I am still tired. So… What did I do on the trip to Florida? To begin with we started at the bright and early hour of 8:30 P.M… After driving all night with Dad driving and me making sure he was awake through most of it while we listened to the delightful story of Northanger Abbey by Jane Austin we arrived at the Embassy Suites we were staying at in Florida some time before six in the morning. We promtly checked in and went to bed.

Later that morning we had a delicious breakfast and my memory refuses to allow me to clearly remember that day but we went to the convention center and Dad checked in and we got our badges and we started setting up the booth soon after. My badge had my name, Elizabeth Von Fange, on it and the company I worked for, The Light Source, as well and my Dad had said that my company title was “Princess”. I liked that and enjoyed wearing my badge. Towards afternoon after much setting up had been done Mom and I went to Walmart to purchase several things for the booth. They had an amazing dollar a yard section but a fit of frugalness hit me so I only bought about six dollars worth of fabric. Also on that trip Mom and I saw cupcake dolls!!! Many happy hours of my childhood were spent playing with cupcake dolls so naturally when we saw them rereleased we just had to get one. So we did:)

Then we went back to the convention center where we had left the boys hard at work and soon the booth was “finished” and we could go back to the hotel. The plan for that evening was to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but due to extreme tiredness I was about the only one who watched the whole thing. Mom dozed of(she was really tired) and Daniel and Andrew left early to go to their hotel room and sleep. I’m not sure about Dad. Charlie and the Chocolate factory is a very funny movie and we’ll probably watch it again when everybody isn’t exhausted.

The next morning we were supposed to be at the convention center before the convention started at 10:00 so we came about 8:45 in order to do final preparations which were done about the time the convention opened. My job while the convention was going on was to scan persons badges so that we could add them to our mailing list, pass out the “swag”(notebooks very The Light Source themed) and smile. For the three days of the convention I attempted to do my best at that and I scanned over seven hundred badges I think my Dad said it was, which was more than usual. I handed out a lot of notebooks too. Due to the fact that the convention lasted eight hours for the first two days and six hours on the last I would get pretty tired by the end of the day. I’m not used to working that long.

The first two days were rather similar. We got up in the morning, ate breakfast, drove to the convention center and enjoyed the sunshine, were ate the convention center all day, drove to somewhere to eat afterwards when the sun was down, then went to the hotel and went to bed. Though I usually stayed up and watched a DVD before going to bed.

The last day of the convention arrived. After the convention was over at four we did a bit of take down and then we went to dinner with two business friends of my Dad and then we came back to the booth and initiated take down procedures. Our crate to put the booth in hadn’t arrived and I was hoping that it wouldn’t for a little while because I wanted to play Daniel in a game of Lord of the Rings trading cards and I wanted to beat him with the new deck I’d just built. Daniel usually was too busy to play me but if their was a delay in the take down their might be time for a game.

We did about everything that we could do in taking down the booth before the crate came and finally there was an opportunity to play Daniel. I felt relatively certain of success but the first turn of the game dashed my spirits a bit for Daniel killed all of my starting fellowship except the ring bearer and then the game got worse from there. I almost got him at one point though, but I didn’t and he got me instead the next turn at site five on the adventure path of nine sites. I was not very pleased and inwardly decided to get some more trading cards.

Eventualy the crate showed up and the booth was stowed and we went back to the hotel and went to bed. The next morning we got up, ate breakfast, got in the car and drove off, stopped for over an hour at the Ferrari dealership where they had a really cute Enzo on sale for $600.00 but the maximum driver weight was 65 pounds which I weigh more than, and continued to drive back to our home in South Carolina whilest and at the same time listening to “The Hobbit” unabridged. it got us home but not before we stopped at a Walmart:) I enjoy going to Walmarts.

There, that is approximately what we did on the trip. I haven’t however mentioned a lot about the trip because I’m tired. You see I was really busy during the trip and I got a lot done so I decided that when I got home I’d try to be a bit busier. So yesterday I sewed a dress(and actually pre-washed the fabric!), did some school, and a lot of research on just which set of Lord of the Rings Trading Cards I was going to buy in order to be able to build a deck that would beat Daniel’s and I did a lot of other things too but writing a post wasn’t among them. Today I swept leaves on the driveway and spent over two hours putting inserts into The Light Source catalogues and earning some money to spend on the trading cards I’m planning on ordering this evening and I also did some more school and some cross stitching and some other things and now I’m writing a post and my arms are tired. Putting inserts into two large boxes of catalogues is very tiring.

There was a really nice event that happened on the last day of the convention that made me very happy and I’ll mention it here since I haven’t already. One of the booths a little way down (And I forget their name) was giving away strings of beads or “costume jewelry” as I suppose it might be called. I had gotten a free necklace of beads for the first time on the last day of the convention since I hadn’t noticed them before being usually very intent on where I was going when I passed that particular booth because it was in the path from our booth to the ladies room which was usually the only reason I went that way. However once having discovered free beads I made a point to pass by again and then I got two free things of beads!!! I was very pleased but the thought “More Free Beads!” continued to circulate in my head. Aided by the thought that probably whoever had that booth probably wouldn’t want to be bothered by carting remaining beads out of the convention center I went to the booth again armed with one of The Light Source Notebooks I’d been handing out and said, “I don’t want to be greedy… but I love your beads!” That got me a sizable handful of the necklaces and I smiled very sweetly and handed the lady who was giving them out the notebook I’d brought over and then went back to the booth with the beads in my purse. I have a large purse. However that wasn’t the end of my trips to that booth, oh no precious… When the convention was over I went back and very happily for me the booth persons had just put out two cardboards boxes of the beads and were encouraging passing persons to take them. Since they said they were just going to get rid of them if any were left I immediately dug into the two cardboard boxes and picked out whatever I liked. My purse did not have room for what I brought back to the booth but fortunately Mom found me an empty Walmart bag in which I stuck my treasure. A little later I went back to see if anything was left and since their was I took a few more beads and put them with the others and then ceased my visits to that delightful place. And what am I going to do with my plunder? Well, it will be great for a dragon hoard if I want one in a movie and I can use the beads as trim and use them as necklaces (their actual purpose I think) and for lots of other things. After all, if it’s free I can probably find a use for it. However considering the clutter in my room and how deep things are piled on my room I probably should refrain from getting too many more things until what I have is organized. However, despite that, I’ll probably be ordering some more trading cards this evening:) After all, I got paid for putting all of those inserts into the catalogues and I don’t think they would have been completed so quickly if it hadn’t been for the fact that as I worked on the catalogues I thought about how I was going to spend it and the fun and delight of the new trading cards I’d been researching. So now I think I’ve written enough of a post.