It's been too long!

Oy- it's been way too long since I've posted to this blog!
To you the blog reader, I am sorry. It would be one thing if there was nothing blog worthy, but that's just it, there is much that is blog worthy!
So, let's start where I left you: right before I left for The Body Shop at Home national conference.

Let me just say, it was awesome. First off it was in Reno, NV. I have never been any further west than St. Louis, MO, the city of my birth. So venturing into the Pacific time zone was just the beginning of my adventure. I'm definitly glad that I had a window seat for the flight in. We flew over the great salt lake, which was really neat looking from the sky. And as we flew over the rocky mountains, one word immediately popped into my head - crinkely.
Anyway, did I tell you that Reno is in the middle of a desert? It's hot, like Africa hot. Not like hot here. When it's 98 here you feel like you are drowning in your own sweat. When it's 98 there it doesn't feel like it's 98, instead it feels like you are slowly drying out from the outside in. It's weird.
Fortunately there wasn't much reason for me to go outside. Our convention was held in a most excellent resort/hotel/casino. This resort was home to numerous restaurants, a casino, a wine tasting room, a mini mall, lots of conference rooms and of course, a starbucks.

So, after getting dinner at Johnny rockets, playing some penny slots, and getting a good night's sleep, I checked into conference.
Right from the get go there was free stuff! When you check in (and might I say, I was checked in by a very cute young man with a lovely English accent) you get a badge with your name and where you're from, a pile of ribbons to attach to your badge which let everyone know what you've accomplished in the past 8 months (I only had 4 ribbons lots of people had less, and a few had ribbons hanging down to the floor), a lanyard to hang your ribbons from, a "program" and a tote bag. And if that wasn't enough, when I opened my tote bag to put my program in, there were 2 brand new products staring up at me saying "I'm yours".

Conference primarily consisted of 2 main things, open session and training. During open session there was a lot of recoignition, (your's truly got to walk across the stage twice) lots of announcements, and lots of give aways! It was like the Oprah show, but bigger. It would usually go something like this: "blah, blah, blah and oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, you're getting it for free!" Then 750 women's worth of screaming would ensue and people would run out from backstage and drop bags of products at each table. It was as they say "controlled chaos".
It was awesome. The training was great, I got some great info about our new holiday products, I got some great new ideas, and got to put faces (and personalities ) to all the names that I keep hearing. Even though I had very little personally in common with most of the people there, we all shared the same passion for The Body Shop and its core values.

So I took a lot away from conference. I made lots of new friends, got lots of great ideas, got a ton of free products, got an awesome sneak peek of our holiday products and promotions, and feel totally refreshed and ready to spread body butter all over the world!

-E