My Secret Mission- Featuring Pioneer Woman

My friend Ellen and I went on a secret mission last Tuesday.

My mission: Get a signed copy of The Pioneer Woman's cookbook for the woman pictured below.

This would be my mom, caught on film in a wedding frenzy.

Ellen and I had to stop at Checker's for some delicious eats on the way.

This is Ellen.

If you've ever had Checker's or Rally's, you know why she looks so excited.  Their fries are SO AMAZING.

We saw some pretty sights.

The Occoquan River.  Beautiful.

We also saw some timely bumper stickers.

This was on the rear of a gigantic SUV.  With one person in it.  

But we eventually arrived.  And it was PACKED!  They didn't even know if they had any cookbooks left to sell me.  Luckily, they did.  I bought one for me, and one for my mom.

She did a short Q&A at the beginning.  I couldn't see her, but holding my camera high in the air, my camera could catch a few blurry glimpses.

She is one super-nice, gracious lady.

After that came four and a half hours of waiting in line to get the books signed.  I had no idea it was going to be so crowded!  Ree spent a lot of time with each person, though, which I liked.  While we waited, Ellen and I caught up on all the latest reads.

SCANDALOUS!

Ellen said, "This book should come with its own barf bag:"

Yup.  The only good about this book is that cute chair in the cover.

Martha Stewart can make you feel inferior even at the bookstore.

There's no escaping that b$%^#.  I love her, don't get me wrong, but she is probably a robot.

Towards the end of the night, I started going a bit bonkers.  My adorable flats were boring a hole into each of my heels.  And it was way past my bedtime.

Ellen and I couldn't stop laughing.  At everything.  Especially the parenting section.  And the "teach yourself a language" section.  German is hilarious after 11 PM.

But we got close to the front!

There she was!  I felt like Ralphie in line to see Santa!  

It's possible that I blurted out

IWANTAREDRIDERBBGUNWITHACOMPASSANDATHINGTHATTELLSTIME

(Please tell me you're getting the "A Christmas Story" reference.)

I'm not sure what I said.  I'm sure it was nothing memorable.  She was nice and smiled and nodded and treated me like a sane person, though, so it couldn't have been too bad. 

And are Robert Pattinson AND Taylor Lautner checking out my ass in this photo?

Why yes, yes they are.

So, to answer the clues in "I Can't Keep a Secret" post:

1.  The Pioneer Woman proudly displays on the page with her book tour days that she'll see us there in her Spanx.  (Not like she needs them, skinny little thing!)

2.  Orange.  The color of the cookbook.  Duuuh.

3.  Sharpies.  She signed my books with these! 

I feel much much better getting this all off my chest.  I gave my mom the cookbook today before a delicious Mother's Day burger feast, and she loved it!

Happy Mother's Day to my awesome mom!