I almost forgot to tell you.
But since I’ve had a couple posts now about Stephanie Nielsen, aka NieNie, I thought that I should tell you that I got to meet her!
So Jaimee Rose is a journalist at the AZ Republic who has done a multi-part series on NieNie, and she tells me (really, Tweets me) that Stephanie will be at Domestic Bliss on a particular Saturday. So I am bursting at the seams, and I am trying to find someone to go with me. JuliAnna is friggin in Houston (how could she miss this?! shouldn’t she fly back for this??), Lesley was in San Francisco, Julie had a book fair…the list goes on. I was flipping out (I cannot go meet her ALONE!).
So I beg, cry, plead at Patrick to go with me. No go. He had plans.
Ugh, fine. I’ll go by myself. So I drive all the way down there and I had five minutes before they were supposed to leave. So I am frantic through this fair thing, I finally find them – I spot Christian (her husband) under this gazebo thing (they can’t be in the sun).
So I was a couple people back in line (where WAS everyone? Don’t they know – this is NieNie we are talking about.). And it’s my turn when a guy brings them water and I’m thinking they are going to cut it off when it’s my turn.
Instead, Christian turns to me, gets a huge smile on his face, outstretches his arms and walks QUICKLY at me saying, “Hey! I know you!!” Now WHAT do you say? So I said, “Haha, I know you! I am not sure if you know me though.” But he insists he knows me. So the only thing I could think was possible, was I said, “Well i used to shop in the store all the time when Stephanie worked here.” and he was like “That Must Be It!” So he goes, “Stephanie, Stephanie, she knew you from the store!”
So I get to talking to them and I start talking about what an inspiration she is/they are, as a mother (not a burn victim) and GUESS what I do. Big Shocker…
I start like sobbing all over them.
OMG it was so embarrassing and the whole time I can picture myself calling Sarah, telling her I cried. Of course.
And you know, they were sweet about it. I changed the topic to like the weather or something and those cool bikes they have. We moved on. We group hugged like four times. They were so neato, and I gotta tell ya, just the nicest.
So in the store I get to talking to Jaimee and I tell her I cried and how embarrassing. Well, us three (Jaimee, Stephanie – she came in to shop – and I) get to talking about Christmas trees and Stephanie tells me you just must get two trees. Then I tell her I’m embarrassed about crying on her. She laughs, says it’s those moments she thinks about the most, and then we go back to talking icicles.
She gave me some great Christmas decor advice, it turns out.
So i don’t have any pics (didn’t seem right), but funny enough, on her blog, she wound up linking to my work blog, called The Hot Sheet, where I write about the best places in Phoenix. Now she doesn’t know that’s my blog, and I don’t know if she would take the link down or possibly link to it more often, if she knew it was the girl who cried on her at Domestic Bliss. But now I can truly say I’m blessed to have met her.