Pre-Influence Conference Rush

Tomorrow morning I head off to Indianapolis for the annual Influence Conference and I’m so excited!

I went last year and had an amazing time.  I roomed with Diana then and this will be the first conference in FOREVER that we haven’t been roomies :(  I will certainly miss her and all of our binge eating, but she’s got very exciting travel coming up so I’m very excited for her!

Plus, this year I’ll get to know a few new ladies…

Kristi from And Babies Don’t Keep

Courtney from Bowdenisms

Allie from Shop Allie Mac

I’ve been getting to know them online, and I’m looking forward to spending face time with them all weekend long!  When you sleep in the same bed as someone you hardly know, you get familiar pretty quick. Lol

I was beyond blessed last year by all of the speakers, but Annie Downs and Jessica Thompson in particular just blew me away.  Check out their books…you’ll be so glad you did!

Before leaving town for a few days, there are always so many loose ends to tie up and this trip is no exception!  I’ve been running at full steam since Monday morning and I cannot wait to get into the car and have a 5 hour ride of peace and quiet to recuperate.  I can’t even believe that this former road-trip-wussie is excited about a long car ride, but I am!

Maybe I’ll even drive past a Chick-fil-A around lunchtime.  A girl can dream anyway :)

I’ve got half a list formulated of what I want to bring with me to the conference, but my laundry isn’t finished and I’m not prepared to make cookies to attach to my blog cards and I still have lots of running around to do.

I’m tired just thinking of it.

Sometimes going away, even for something wonderful like a topnotch conference or sunny vacation, can seem like more trouble than it’s worth.  The logistics of everything, especially for mothers of little ones, can be positively overwhelming.

I’m trying really hard not to succumb to that defeatist attitude this time around!  I wasn’t doing too well this morning when I was wrangling the girls, doing algebraic equations to figure out what time to eat my low-carb breakfast and drink my glucose beverage and what time to leave the house to be at the midwife office at the right time for my blood draw.

I also wasn’t doing too well when both girls were getting ornery after having to wait at the office for over an hour.

My blood pressure has stabilized in the past couple of years, but it’s very sensitive to any stress I experience, so I was really worried that my hectic morning was going to result in a disastrous reading.  It didn’t (hallelujah!) and we made it out of the office relatively unscathed.

After that, it was rushing home for lunch, signing a myriad of forms for preschool, switching a load of laundry over, rushing to drop Grace at school, a quick grocery run, home to get Avery down for half a chance of a good nap, mailing cards out for Bible Study, putting groceries away, and now plucking out this blog post before I drop off the radar for a loongg weekend.

Phew!

I’m tired just thinking about it.

Maybe I should stop thinking about it :)

This evening should be plenty of time to finish everything up and I’ll have to get over the fact that I’m not bringing cookies with my blog cards this year :(

I’ll also have to trust that everything will be just fine while I’m away.  I’ve got a wonderful hubby who is more than capable of handling things here and my brother is helping me out tomorrow while Andy is working.

You’ll be sure to get a recap post after I get home, so stay tuned!