I'M GOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am in shock and doing happy dances in my kitchen!!  I stumbled over Relevant (now Allume) in my internet wanderings...possibly through {in}courage, I'm not sure... and was drawn to the event like fruit flies to ketchup (a current happening in my kitchen, BLECH, believe me, they are VERY attracted).  I kept swimming back to that page and dreaming.  At one point I laid my hands on the computer and asked God to please let me go. And like those fruit flies the idea has buzzed in my head ever since!

I talked to my wonderful, insightful, generous husband and he said he would pray about it.  He came back to me with a yes and a condition.  My heart sank.  The condition was that I had to have money come in from my writing to confirm the yes.  My heart sank further.  I understood from what he said that I had to have ALL the money come from my writing, probably $1000 or so would be needed, if I got an early bird ticket.

Then out of the blue one of my dear, dear lurkers sent me a sweet note in the mail with a cheque for $50 to encourage me in my writing!  I just about fell over and thought, maybe I'll get to Allume after all.  A few months later one of the aunties sent a thank you card along with a GPS unit they'd borrowed and included some money specifically to encourage me in my writing.  Once again, the falling over thing.

But that was it.  $150 was not going to get me to the Allume Social.  I joined the Better Writers group on Facebook, started reading stuff and as the deadlines went by and when it sold out I thought, "Maybe next year, I'll start saving now."

Just this week, maybe Thursday at breakfast, I think, the subject came up again.  He said, and this is a direct quote, "So why aren't you going?"
"Hmmm..  Two reasons, dear, #1- it's sold out and #2 - you told me I had to raise all the money through my writing.  My blog is small and I'm not consistent, enough said, I had $150, I used to it to buy my writing instrument, the iPad  All the amazing book ideas I have in my head aren't paying well, the article I wrote was paid in the form of the book I reviewed."
"I didn't mean you had to get all of it yourself, just a seed, a confirmation."
"Too late, sold out."  Heavy sigh. "Besides, how can we afford that?"
"Harvest is going pretty well, we are moving flax today and lentils will go in a week or two, things will be pretty different in a few weeks."
"Oh, too late, sold out." more heavy sighing.

Friday morning, I get on Better Writer and Mona Phelps has a post saying she has an early bird ticket for sale.  Be still my beating heart.  I tentatively say that maybe I might, possibly want it, if we can work it out.  And then it sits there all day because I can't actually talk to my husband.  I'm thinking that ten other people are going to want that precious thing.

Late afternoon I sneak back, no one else has said boo.  I text the husband who is now off the tractor and in his office at the church with the pastor hat on. "Wanna go to Harrisburg with me, there's a ticket?"  We start a long texting conversation and at the end of the day he says, "You should go.  By yourself. Without me, your protective cushion.  Take the ticket."

You see I figured taking him along would keep it all very safe.  He would be the person in my room at the end of the day so I could sneak around and not have to really talk and meet people (you know, cause they probably won't like me anyway *LIE*) because it might not be fun (*LIE*) and I'd probably die if I had to do this by myself (*LIE*), after all, I'll have to go through customs...and there's that unknown quantity of getting from the airport to the hotel and back!(the scariest part - for me!)  He says, "You can do this thing, and you need to do it by yourself."

And I did.  And it's all happening.  And I'm scared and excited and downright giddy! I even managed to book the hotel and flight by myself. (Not sure why I'm so freaked out because I have booked flights and hotel rooms before...just not for me...all by myself!)

Then I needed to get things all squared up with Mona and that was easy (thank you PayPal) and then Mona said, "God has something for you in this.  Be watching and aware!"  I will be, Mona, I will be watching in wide-eyed wonder, listening with all my heart.  Thank you for being obedient to what God was telling you and opening a door for me.  You can find Mona at Coupon Crazy in Kentucky. And you'll find me floating around with my head in the clouds for the next 40 days or so before I head to Harrisburg!!!

WOW!!!