Last Spring, Ben and I went to Antiques Week for the first time, and it was an amazing trip. The shopping, the food, the experience-we loved it all! I must say that it was the
Junk Gypsy's "Junk-O-Rama Prom" that led me to the decision that Antiques Week was something we must attend, and after months of planning and saving money, we went. It was a blast! I always knew that I would attend again, but I really didn't have any plans for going this fall...I figured we would wait until we could get a big group together, or maybe until we bought a house and needed to collect random and amazing things for our decor.
Then I saw the tweet from Junk Gypsy. Something along the lines of having lunch at The Prairie by Rachel Ashwell. Of course I clicked on the link, which led me to a post from
The Hidden List blog about a blogger luncheon and meet and greet with Rachel Ashwell on September 26. (More on this later.) So I was planning to take off work that Monday, drive to Round Top that morning, attend the luncheon, then head back home. Then fate intervened again. Last week I got an email from Kelley at The Hidden List, explaining that I needed to keep my eyes on my inbox, because a very special invitation from HGTV was on it's way, with instructions on how I could meet the star of an HGTV show on Saturday. Moments later, my
favorite show host, Emily Henderson, tweeted that HGTV was sending her to Round Top that weekend. The stars alined, and I knew that it was her I would be invited to meet, and also, that I would be going to Round Top for the weekend, no questions about it. And sure enough, this showed up:
My friend that I invited along to the blogger luncheon, Ashley, also agreed that we needed to make a weekend out of this. Some very expensive last minute hotel reservations and a tank of gas later, I was cruising down country roads, heading for Warrenton, blasting the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album, and feeling perfectly content with life.
We planned the trip so that we would arrive shortly before the meet and greet started, and sure enough, I was one of the first people in line to meet Emily. Actually, I thought I'd try to get in a little early, and when I walked up to the HGTV tent and saw Emily standing there, I really couldn't believe my eyes. I mean, she was just
standing there like a normal person! I talked to a sweet lady in the tent, (I wish I remembered her name!) and told her I was a huge, huge, ENORMOUSLY HUGE fan of Emily's, and she told to be sure and tell Emily that at the meet and greet later. Dang, I wasn't getting in early. So we shopped at the Junk Gypsy tent for a while and got our bottomless iced teas from Zapp Hall, and came back at noon for the meet and greet. Oddly enough, I wasn't that nervous to talk to her. When I've met Miranda Lambert in the past, it's always been a little awkward and I haven't had too much to say besides, "congrats on the Grammy" or whatever. But with Emily, as cheesy as it sounds, I felt like I already knew her. I mean, I watch her on TV every week, read her blog religiously, and follow her on twitter and facebook. I knew she was a cool, down to earth person, and I wasn't intimidated to talk to her at all. Even though she's the biggest "rock star" celebrity in my eyes, right there next to Miranda. (Ben, who watches
"Secrets from a Stylist" with me and my twitter followers who see that I retweet just about everything she says, can attest to this.) Seriously, I'm a huge fan. She was all smiles and pretty adorable as usual, and didn't make me feel like a freak for telling her the following: I love her show more than The Real Housewives of Anywhere, I read her blog and tweets every day and comment on them all the time, I learned more about styling from her show than in 4 years of interior design school, I did a "style diagnostic" on Ben and my style, and we are "Rustic Boho Glam", and that totally helped when we finally had money to buy real furniture and accessories. Oh, and also, that Ben said I needed to buy a tray because she always puts everything on trays, and that my grandmother said to tell her she likes her show too. By this point, I was getting rushed along by staff, so she signed a photo for me and we took a picture together, which she told me to tag her in. She geniunly seemed to enjoy meeting me, and reacted to me the same way she does to people on TV. Probably the most down to earth person on television, seriously. And I hope that she remains a fixture on HGTV for a long, long time. And also that she writes a book, and/or creates a line of home accessories for Target. The same sweet HGTV staffer I talked to earlier had me sign up for an hourly drawing to win an iPod Shuffle, let me pick out some swag, (I chose an HGTV laundry bag,) and we went on our happy way. It was SO DANG FUN!
So then Ashley and I were on our shopping mission to find the following: a highchair for Ashley, (for her daughter's 1st birthday cake-smash photo shoot,) and a dollhouse for me. (See Emily Henderson's post about the
dollhouse challenge, which I was already stoked about. I'm telling you, this was all fate.) At some point we ate lunch, can't remember exactly when, but we got sandwiches (pimento cheese and chicken salad,) from the Legal Tender Saloon, which is so so so good. Homemade bread and seven kinds of cheese; enough said. We found Ashley's highchair amazingly fast, and it was already painted with the perfect white chippy peely paint. We decided to take a break and head to the hotel to check in and rest up, and come back for dinner later. On our way back, we passed by the HGTV tent again, and Emily was done with the meet and greet and looked like she was about to head out. I stuck my head in and told her I forgot to tell her earlier that my shopping goal for the weekend was to find an inexpensive dollhouse so I could join the challenge, and she got excited and told me I totally should, that it doesn't have to be an elaborate or expensive thing, and
she was going to be shopping for her dollhouse too. We said bye, and as we were walking away the same sweet HGTV lady yelled "JESSI! Wait! You won the iPod!" Sweet! I asked her if they really just drew my name, and as she was saying, "yeah, we were just about to call you," Emily was standing behind her laughing, shaking her head "no" and mouthing "no she didn't!" So I won an iPod, just for being a crazy and memorable fan, probably because I wasn't shy and talked to that lady. You never know people! The craziest part was, as we were driving back to the hotel, they called Ashley to tell her she won one too! Imagine the luck!
After resting up and checking in at the hotel, we headed back to Zapp Hall to eat dinner at Royer's. I got beef tenderloin (YUM!) and a chocolate chip pie to take home to Ben. :) Then we enjoyed a few beers and the cool breeze of the evening while listening to some live music and enjoying each other's company. I really had fun getting to know Ashley better this weekend. We've always had a lot in common and she was the perfect companion for this trip. We did lots of dreaming about one day having our own Antique's Week booth. Then we drove back to our hotel and slept like rocks! Amazing first day of a wonderful weekend!
Shiner Blonde and our free koozies from Gypsy Georgia for being such loyal customers!
Tomorrow, I'll try to post about Day 2, Sunday!
