Back from Hot-lanta

Hey everyone! I hope you've all had great weeks, full of whatever you want them to be full of! I've been gone all week on a biz trip to Hot-lanta with some of my coworkers for GiftMart. It was so great!!! I went with 4 of the buyers whose $$$ I control to help them with planning next year's spring and summer lines (as well as some brainstorming for next fall). I am SO glad I've had so many great professional opportunities over the past few years to do interesting things as a CPA. Accounting and auditing and financial budgeting are so not for me, and even though I spent years doing boring junk like that I've also been able to work my way into far more interesting niches involving numbers, such as my current gig (for a great company, to boot!). We had a blast, I work with such a great group of people and even though it's been a tough year of streamlining and downsizing we have a great group that's only going to get better. The days were absolutely exhausting - we'd leave our room around 7 am and spend the day in vendor meetings, product showrooms, vendor lunches (while having more product presented while we ate) and then straight to vendor dinners. We'd finally get back to our room around 9 pm, absolutely beat! Going from sitting on your rear all day at a desk to literally walking this massive 18 floor building all day long with hardly any sitting was very hard work, but such a great experience that I feel so fortunate to have had. Our last meeting wasn't over until 5 last night, so after we spent ages in crappy Atlanta rush hour traffic we got home around 11 last night. Another perk of business travel with my company is the "free day" you get off when you come home. They figure since you've been away from your fam you should have a day to sleep in and spend time with them, so I've spent today as a total veg with my pal Pippin taking massive naps, sleeping in and watching TV!

And of course I spent the whole week sick. At the end of last week my allergies really started kicking it up, and the weekend outside fishing at my parents farm for their annual July 4th festivities made it even worse. So I spent the whole week coughing and hacking (horribly), hardly sleeping from the coughing, and now my throat is completely raw. Having to talk all day long all week made it so much worse, I'm already feeling so much better today from just spending the day being quiet and resting. I really don't feel bad now - it just hurts like razor blades to swallow, so I don't want to eat much although I know I need to. It totally stank to be sick for my first Market experience. But you make the most of it and I didn't want to miss a thing so you just keep chugging on.

Brent had dropped me off at work on Monday (we left from work) so he picked me back up at work when we made it back last night. I walked in to a clean house (yay!) with fresh, homemade cookies - the no bake peanut butter oatmeal kind that are my faves! Do I have the best hubby or what??? So I literally had nothing to do today except rest on the couch with Pips and watch some TV. The perfect day!

Anyway, I took lots of pics and I'm sure we have some fun ones from July4th to share too. (I literally haven't even seen those - I went from our weekend suitcase to the business suitcase). Have a great weekend!!!