Last Tuesday, January 8th Jaymi and I left for Atlanta!
Monday PM packing-- same story, different trip...
Five rolling suitcases + one shipped crate + Alli and Lindsay's bags coming the next day and we made it!! We absolutely do not travel light!
There was a mix up with the dates of Market and we didn't realize they moved it up a day, so Jaymi and I changed our flights and travel plans last minute but kept Lindsay and Alli's the same. We had to stay at a different hotel the first night because of the change. We arrived at the hotel and checked in, grabbed some lunch and walked down the street with our rolling suitcases to America's Mart.
This was our booth when we arrived:
It always feels so daunting to me when I first see our empty booth space. That coupled with the fact that there were several errors on their part- I had copies of our submitted paper work and it didn't match what was given to us in our booth- and really, the management of our floor was pretty ambivalent about it all. That part was super disappointing. But we made do.
Just when Jaymi and I were kind of pulling our hair out trying to wall paper what was supposed to be wooden walls but was seriously like poster board... and trying to figure out how to attach everything since nails and hammer were no longer an option... and what to do about our tables that were all the wrong size... God dropped Todd the maintenance man in our path.
Thanks to his over eagerness to help us ("I'm already being paid overtime," he reasoned.) we got the booth finished. He unscrewed the remaining wall panels so we could wallpaper on the floor and went to the storage closet and brought any and all furniture and shelving on hand, in addition to a giant roll of velcro tape. TODD FOR THE WIN! It seriously would have been such a harder process and even longer night without his help.
The next morning we were up early with coffees in hand to walk to The Mart, as the locals called it!
Lindsay and Alli flew in that afternoon and took the next shift. From then on we would switch off, two of us working 8:45-1:00 and the other two working 1:00-6:00.
So clearly, the work load was not bad at all divided among four people. It was pretty fantastic if I'm being honest. I had really big goals and ambitions for myself on my "off time." I brought my laptop, CBL binder, my planner, two books, workout clothes... I figured I would workout each morning, spend time doing my usual CBL work, maybe explore the city... but I literally did none of that.
We had two hotel rooms at The Ritz on Peachtree Street which sounds super fancy, and it was! But we got a great deal on it in our travel package from Market. It was literally cheaper to stay there per night than the room Jaymi and I had last minute the first night.
You would think not having to be accounted for until 1 PM would give you a plethora of hours, but between the time change and staying up way too late at night, if we weren't working we would typically sleep in until 8:30 or 9 and then lounge around. On my off mornings I tossed around the idea of working out, but consoled myself with the fact that I could do that at home and what I couldn't do was lay in bed and read at my leisure. By 11:30 it would be time to hop in the shower, and then there was barely time for lunch before 1:00 rolled around. I say this completely facetiously, but the mornings did seem to fly by.
On the days when I worked the morning shift, we would get coffee and walk through Downtown Atlanta in the cold morning air with the other fancy work people heading to their buildings (and the homeless people, who we saw get in fights more than once)- I absolutely loved this and folding into that rhythm of life. Once 1:00 rolled around and two of us were done for the day, we would either eat lunch, walk around Market, nap and then go to the foot massage place once everyone was off work; or eat lunch and go directly to the foot massage place. It was a tough call to make, HA! Alli, Jaymi and Lindsay are all super low key and I was perfectly happy to fall right into rhythm with them. I'm telling you- it was not a bad life!!!
Naturally, we got tangled up with some interesting characters while we were there, including Don in his Japanese Raccoon Fur coat. He was perusing around on our floor, and there's no way I'm not gonna strike up a fast conversation with somebody like that.
Later that afternoon Jaymi, Alli and I went up to his "show room" (very loose term) to peruse the sunglasses, get some sage advice and try on his furs. Lindsay just rolled her eyes and assured us she was happy to stay in the booth. It wasn't the last we would see of Don, of course. He made a point to visit our booth every day and give us insider tips and some kind of odd plastic eye ball he assured would drum up traffic.
The first night we were there Jaymi and I worked until 10:00, grabbed dinner in the bar and ate in our room before collapsing for the night. Alli and Lindsay were there with us four additional nights. Three of those nights we had all kinds of intentions of checking out local fare and exploring the city, but by the time everyone circled back up in the hotel room in was close to 7:00 and we were indecisive and fell prey to posting up in the beds, talking and cobbling together some sort of dinner from the "Honor Bar" and room service. One night we attempted to go out and watch the Cowboys game after our foot massages, but we ended up in a bar that was not exactly our scene and happened to be located across from what the locals called "Murder Kroger." We drank a beer real fast, Ubered home and retreated to our usual spots in bed. We all got along so well, and I have a hard time remembering when I've laughed that hard for so many days.
The one night we did go out we met up with my friend Alison Crawford who moved back to Atlanta from Southlake. She showed us around the amazing area of Atlanta she lives in called Buckhead (think Highland Park on steroids), which happens to be the home of one of my favorite authors Emily Giffin. I absolutely loved exploring Buckhead!
We ate at the BEST Italian restaurant called Portofino, which is supposedly pretty iconic in Buckhead.
100% unintentional. We even matched down to our leopard print flats!!
Market was Wednesday- Sunday, and we flew out late Sunday night. It was SUCH an incredible experience. We learned so, so much just being in Atlanta, walking around and talking to other vendors. I could do an entire post about that. The traffic was different for us than it was in Dallas- way fewer customers but much larger orders. All in all we gained 24 new wholesale accounts and were able to completely cover the cost of our trip- which we all considered a big win.
The experience itself blew me away! It felt like picking up my life and being transplanted into another world for a week. Like, what my life would have been like if I'd moved to a city, had a different career and never married. As AMAZING as it was for a week, I have no doubt that the life and four wonderful people waiting for me in Southlake is home and exactly what I would long for if I were living some other parallel life. I was so grateful not only to have this kind of experience (teaching was NOTHING like this) but also to my mom and Teri, Bailee, Sheli, my dad and most of all Nick for taking such great care of the boys and making the week seamless so that I was able to go off and have a wonderful adventure and grow CBL! It's definitely a trip and an experience I will never forget.
