Withdrawals

I’m amazingly tired after coming back from the ACFW conference in Dallas late Sunday night. I should be doing all sorts of things around the house (I haven’t even unpacked), but I’ve spent the morning reading everyone else’s blogs on the conference. For someone like me who pretty much just sees her family daily, being around other people nearly 24/7 for five days is a radical change.

I loved it. To me, the best part of the conference was hanging out with people I had met at other conferences and had become good friends with, meeting people I knew only online and finding we connect even better in person, and meeting new people. But to have all of that suddenly cut off feels strangely odd, like we need some sort of transition or post-conference decompression chamber.

Heather left the comment on my blog, “So what are we doing this weekend?” And I think I wrote back on her blog, “I feel like half my family has left me.” As an introvert, this is a new feeling for me. Generally, as much as I like other people, I need space away and time to recharge. Maybe because I’m in desolate Arizona among the cotton and the cattle steeped in solitude that I didn’t need it as much.

This conference was so much about heart and so little about craft for me. Mary DeMuth’s morning track was just perfect for this. If you didn’t attend, get the CDs. I did teach a late night chat on mentors and mentees which went well, considering I almost forgot I was teaching it, I was completely brain dead, and it was the night everyone went out to dinner so I expected nobody to show up.

I also was surprised to receive an interesting array of gifts: blush, a contact case, Diet Coke, and a hotel coffee cup. Just goes to show what quirky friends I have.

But most of all (not really, but . . .) I was so thrilled to find that it was 90 degrees when we landed in Phoenix Sunday night. Somehow I lost three pounds during the conference, and I think it’s because I shivered them off. Dave Long called me a cream puff at the FiF dinner Friday night for not wanting to live anywhere it snows routinely. I challenged him to visit Phoenix in July. Yeah, we’ll see who’s the cream puff.

Pictures:
I didn't take any, so I only have what Jenny took with my camera Thursday night and other people have sent me.

I stole this picture from Heather. It's Mike Snyder, Heather, me, Michelle Pendergrass and her husband, Phil.




This is me, Pam Dowd, and Jeanne Damoff. The three of us were roommates at Mount Hermon last spring. Jeanne's my sister if only we had the same parents.

And, would you believe, that's it? I told you I didn't take pictures. Maybe I'll remember next year.

. . .