It’s time to relax.

The craziness of the craft show is over so it was time to relax. The kids were at the rec center for another Parents Night Out so we went out for a fancy steakhouse dinner at The Tavern.

—Our Menu—

BAD KITTY (for me) and BEER (for Tom)

MEDITERRANEAN OCTOPUS
GRILLED OCTOPUS, POTATOES, PROVENCE OLIVE OIL

BAKED FRENCH ONION SOUP

CROUTON, GRATIN CHEESE CRUST

CAVIAR POTATO CHIPS

TOBIKO, SWEET ONIONS, CRÈME FRAICHE

THE TAVERN FILET 8 OZ

& BLOC OF FOIE GRAS

CREAM CHEESE CARROT CAKE

My first vendor event was a smashing success!

Thank you to my friend Heidi for all her table design guidance last week (and coming down to check on me and talk up LipSense to passersby), my amazing upline (and the rest of the team across the country!) for dealing with my total crazy as I prepped for this, and my awesome hubby for his unending support in every possible sense. I couldn’t have done this without all of you! 💕 It was tiring but fun… I won’t be doing these every weekend but I’ll definitely do more!

After being up at 5:30 and setting up from 7:30-9…Let’s do this! (Oh and did I mention that Tom had to work at his office today so he couldn’t help at all plus had to take the kids with him?!)

 

Some info and takeaways from my day:

💋I am a bit anal plus I’m a perfectionist so I spent probably 50-60 hours prepping the table (design elements, printing stuff myself, REprinting stuff 😂, shopping for inexpensive stuff that can do double duty in my home)… But I think it turned out pretty well! I was definitely the most professional-looking booth in my immediate area!

💋Everyone loved my lips (Blu Red and Blackberry). I think I went through more gloss than I normally do in a week—every demo I did I literally dragged my fingers across my lips and face. 😂

💋The Dum Dums with my business info stuck on them were a fail. The stickers didn’t stick to the waxy sticks and were all falling off and not one person took one. I couldn’t even give them away to kids!

💋The very first customer wanted to see a lipliner. It was my fault for handing it to her… So let’s just say I now have a tester. 😂 But she did end up buying two colors and gloss–and might have a party. (She also came back later in the day with a cracked gold glitter gloss so now I have my very first RMA!) 

💋 I didn’t realize until about halfway through that I didn’t have a Honey Rose or Hazelnut tester out! [Two recent new colors.]

💋 I had ShadowSense stripes on my arm from my own personal stock which I didn’t bring. A handful of people wanted to see them but I only had one color out so people could see the cream to powder action. 

💋I really could have used a LipSense Buddy. I know I lost a lot of people because it took so long to explain and demo with people that I couldn’t snag people as they walked by. A friend (Heidi) who was at a different booth would stop by when she could and whenever she was there taking up LipSense it went better (she’s a big fan). I was also bummed I didn’t get to check out the other vendors. They did have volunteers who would sit at your booth while you took a break but I didn’t feel like just anyone could handle my booth—if I wasn’t there to reel them in, they’d likely pass right by. 

💋 I took my laptop thinking I’d have time to enter each sale. Ha. Haha. Hahaha. 

💋I could have left the beauty stuff off the table entirely. Not one person asked about it. I definitely didn’t need my own out for testers. (But if I didn’t have them, someone would surely have wanted to test something, right?)

💋The QR code was a fail. I thought it would be easy to snap for business info but only one person all day did it. People still wanted business cards. (I had seen it recommended to use because people were more likely to “see” it again on their phone vs. a business card which would likely get tossed.) Next time I will just have a big contact info sheet that they can take action picture of.

💋I didn’t give away too many glossy samples because pretty much everyone who tried it on their lips bought their own color and gloss. 

💋 The raffle for a free gloss went pretty well. I got 19 entries. Two wanted to host a party and four marked that they wanted to learn about/buy other products. Now we wait and see if they return my emails. 

💋 My biggest sellers were Napa and Sheer Berry. I managed to sell more Ooops! today then I did since I starting selling. 😂 I think it’s a much easier sell when they demo it and see how easy it is to make a mistake. 

💋 I was prepared with $150 in cash but only one person paid with cash!

💋 Being on my feet the whole day was rough on my back. I was busy most of the six hours so never really had time to sit down—and even when it was calm I wanted to be ready to easily interact with people and I couldn’t do that from a chair. If I did have a chair I’d want a director’s chair. 

💋The collapsible wagon from Sam’s Club was amazing. It fit my big heavy duty totes perfectly. (If I begin to do more shows, I would like to organize my totes better so everything fits.)

💋I will eventually get a real banner but I was going inexpensive for my first show.) And I will have some small tweaks to do before my next event (like bigger lip pics with more true colors—everyone looked at those).

All in all it was a great day. I didn’t make a ton of money but I went into it expecting to sell nothing and just being there for the experience so anything above that was a bonus! 😂 After both raffle items (the one on my table and the one I donated to the fundraiser), I think I made $200 (better then nothing and my upline was proud!)!

Pumpkin Day

I volunteered to help with Pumpkin Day in Katie’s classroom. I had no idea what would be involved but then I got the email saying we’d be carving pumpkins so bring a knife and bowl if we could. Hoo boy—I hadn’t carved a pumpkin in years…

The classroom was a bit insane (I don’t know how she does it without an assistant—we were spoiled with Owen’s class having one) but overall it went well. There were four moms total so we each had a group of six. We had to measure the pumpkin with blocks and chain lengths, write what the pumpkin felt and smelled like, weigh the pumpkin, see if it sank or floated…and then design and carve the pumpkin. In an hour.

As you can imagine it was pretty much like herding cats. It started with the teacher switching Katie’s seat with someone so we could be at the same table…and the kid completely lost his shit and was a crying hot mess because “he wanted his seat.” Really, kid? You lose it over moving seats for an hour? And then some kids couldn’t pay attention for more than three seconds. One had no idea how to draw an H (“we haven’t done that letter yet”). A few wrote their numbers backwards (71 for 17) but fixed it after I told them—except one kid who literally kept writing it 71 no matter how many times I told him it was 1-7 not 7-1. One kid wrote all his letters on top of one another. You get the idea. I’m not bragging when I say that Katie seemed among the most advanced in her group (able to pay attention, answer questions, write her letters and numbers correctly, and follow instructions).

This is a snapshot of mass chaos before we even started.

 

I didn’t take many pictures because I was very involved in every step of the way—plus I didn’t have pockets, remember. 

   
    

Katie was the badge collector.

  

And then it was time to go home so Katie got to ride home with me. She had a good time and was happy I came. 

#firstworldproblems

When you want to wear your Halloween-themed leggings to your kid’s Pumpkin Day but the outfit doesn’t have pockets so you have no place to put your phone and you know you’ll want it to take pictures. (Yes, Eagle Eyes Readers, the sweater has pockets but I know I’ll be taking it off!)

  

Kidisms 43

Katie was telling me about her day:
My friend Cameron brought food jello to school. Not hair jello, food jello.

I asked Katie to bring a book down to read before bed:
That sounds be a waste of my time because I’m playing.

Katie: EWWW. It stinks in here. Like fartness.
Owen: That was me.

Owen was standing in the middle of the living room pounding him stomach/chest rhythmically.
Me: Owen what are you doing?
Owen, instantly: BOY STUFF.

Katie: Do you want to draw?
Owen: I don’t have any paper.
Katie: I have two writing books!

The kids picked “mystery flavor” Dum Dums. We asked Katie what flavor hers was:
Hard decision.

#fortbelvoirpediatricsdroppedtheballonthatwellvisit

There’s nothing like a call from the school on Thursday afternoon telling you Katie is missing FOUR shots and absolutely cannnot come to school on Monday unless she has them.

WAIT. WHAT NOW?!

We knew about the deadline but we just had her 5-year well-visit before we left and they said she didn’t need anything so we weren’t worried about the deadline!!! GRRR. 

After a few moments of being completely stressed out and pissed off, I started making calls and thankfully the base has a walk-in immunization clinic so she will be there at 7:30am tomorrow with Tom.

Jelly Belly Factory Tour

We surprised the kids with a mini road trip to the Jelly Belly factory which is right up the road…And also surprised them with who was also there!

Getting ready for a train ride around the factory floor. It’s really just a warehouse.

Since it is a working factory we had to wear hats—they are very cheap plus I have a big head so it didn’t last long…but I had to keep it on. 😆


 

We were able to try whatever flavors we wanted. I tried margarita and pancakes and maple syrup. They were both tasty. 

We spent about $50 on stupid jelly beans but we had fun. And I can honestly say I don’t need to buy Jelly Belly fudge again (it’s in the freezer so others can try it). 🙂