A couple of Friday mornings a month I make the trip to the closest Central Market. It is about twice as far as my regular super market and there are things you just can’t buy here. Things like Pork N’ Beans for example. But I love this place. The selections of fresh vegetables, cheeses, meats, seafood, and specialty items abound. I primarily go here as it is the only place I can buy Bison meat, which we have grown to prefer over beef. However, I always find many more things than are on my list.

On this particular Friday morning the only thing I need from the produce department is mushrooms. However, while getting my plastic bag for the mushrooms I see fresh okra out of the corner of my eyes. WooHoo!!! It is way past fresh okra season so this is a pleasant surprise.

It is 5:30AM on Saturday morning. An alarm is going off somewhere in my dreams. Oh right, the alarm is actually going off across the room where my phone is plugged in. Why is my alarm going off at 5:30AM on Saturday morning? I have not had enough sleep! Oh right, early start today at Women of Faith. I’m up, Nikki is up. We are moving. Dress, pack, check bags with hotel, breakfast, checkout and we’re off.

We arrived just at the American Airline Center was opening. At the door we entered these guys were there with their signs, cheering us on.

We are in, cleared security, what is in store for today?

It was so easy to agree to blog about this event in order to win 2 free tickets from BookSneeze. However, it may be difficult to verbalize all that I experienced during the past two days.

First Impressions and Thoughts:

• 20,000 women in the same building? Really? This is a really big concept to get your head around.
• Did you know that 20,000 women can actually sing together and sound beautiful as if they had practiced many times?
• This turned out to be some of the best “people watching” I have experienced.
• The Women of Faith organization is a class act through and through and prepared for everything.
• So glad I decided that a taxi to/from the event was a better idea than parking and walking in this heat and being in the traffic gridlock.
• How do I manage getting to/from the restroom without stopping at the food vendors with high calorie goodies?

A few weeks ago an email appeared in my inbox. It was from BookSneeze. BookSneeze is a program of Thomas Nelson Publishing which provides free books that they publish to bloggers for free. It was an invitation to register for 2 tickets to a Women of Faith event. I rarely register for anything as I never win or it is some type of come on. However, I know a good deal about this organization and I knew it wasn’t a come on. But there was still the issue of never winning anything.

I have always wanted to attend this event, but in the past my travel schedule has usually interfered with the ability to do so. So I looked at the email for a couple of minutes, checked the schedule for the dates of the Dallas event. I had nothing scheduled, so I went for it.

In a few presentations on the subject of change I have made a point that change is easier if it is for something we want to do than something our employer wants us to do. I use the example of how easy it is to change when we want a new cell phone. If we choose to change to a new cell phone you don’t hear a lot of grumbling. We tend to embrace the learning process and in a short period we know almost everything there is to know. We are telling everyone that will listen all we know and how wonderful our new phone is.

I was taught long ago that without integrity my knowledge means little. Of late, roads that I have taken have caused a number of people to question my integrity. So I think it is time to address these issues.