Lessons Learned from the Brooklyn Home Show Pt. 2 - The Revenge of Peanut Butter!

I couldn't sleep at all. It was the night before the Brooklyn Home Show, and after the trip from Hell, we finally crash at my best friend Aimee's apartment. After laughing my ass off at Manhattan Cable Access shows like Sandy Kane, my roommate and I settle in to go to sleep. It's like 2:30 am. I am hungry and exhausted. I sneak off to the kitchen and make myself a sandwich. I feel bad about using Aimee & Ben's food, but I am broke. There is no way I'm going back out to get snacks now.



#1 - I see some natural peanut better. Hmmm, never had it before, looks good! Ah, yes and some jelly! Awesome! I make one and a half sandwiches and stuff my face. Then I sneak off to bed. My roommate has one last cigarette and comes in. We are both slightly weirded out about sleeping in the same bed. My fiance is his best friend. But then again, he is like my crazy brother, so it's cool. Matt falls right to sleep. He is snoring so LOUD. I try waking him nicely. He falls back to sleep. SNORE! SNORE! I smack him this time "Stop it!" SNORE! SNORE! It's now 5:30. I haven't gotten any sleep and my alarm is set for 7 am. I kick him. "What!" he yells. "Please stop snoring! Please! If you lay on your stomach it stops!" He grumbles and goes back to sleep. I finally fall sleep around 6 or so.

#2 - My alarm goes off at 7. Ugh, I gotta get up. I am exhausted and anxious. I finally roll out of bed at 7:30. Get in shower. Run run! Uh oh. I start getting nauseas. Sure enough I start profusely vomitting peanut butter. Oh Smuckers, you son of a bitch! When I am done I have little tiny purple dots on my face and around my eyes looks yellow. Nice. Better get going. Aw crap, no one else is awake yet, and it's 7:50! I'm suppose to be there around 8:30.

Everyone manages to get up and running quickly and we're out of the parking garage by 8:23 am. Aimee brilliantly prints out new directions from Google Maps. We get to Michelle's in 25 minutes, with no problems what so ever! I heart Google big time now!

#3 - It's a tight squeeze and I got there a little late. So I make my table display fit. Unfortunately I am only able to use a portion of the table size due to lack of space. But I try and make it work. Katie Stack of Catherinette shows up to lend a hand and help represent the Connecticut Team! However, with all of the items from fellow teamers, there isn't much room for me. But Michelle is so sweet about it that I can't complain! She even offers me an extra table cloth for my table. Thanks Michelle!



The girls of the {NewNew}York Team that are taking part in this show are just awesome. When the show starts I have a great time chatting away with Kimm of Kimm Chi, Mariam of Hand of Fatima who was LITERALLY 9 months pregnant and determined to do the show! And, of course, our own Katie Stack - who acted as crafty liason to poor Mariam. I forget about my bad drive up and have fun, at last!





#4 - The only thing that bummed me out about the show itself was the fact that I didn't make any money. I made like $5. I didn't even break even. Had the table not been so small, had I left more room for myself or even had my own table, had I not made the table so busy by trying to squeeze everything on there, I may have broke even. But now I know. I got a lot of great advice from my fellow crafters and learned a hard and valuable lesson about my business, and mixing business with team. I love my team. The CT Etsy Team girls are some of the best ladies I have ever met! But I need to know when to make it about me, and when to make it about them.
I left the Brooklyn show looking horrible, exhausted and broke.



Our drive home was a smooth one. I fell asleep a few times in the passenger seat. I was suppose to be navigating, but I think Matt felt bad, and just let it go. We pulled into a buffet and ate till we were about to explode. My night ended with me coming home at about 9 pm. So so happy to see Robby and our bed.