I survived...

barely. Ok, it wasn't quite that bad, but it was absolutely exhausting. I slept 11 hours straight last night (that has to be some kind of record for me) and I'm still tired and crabby (insert hand gesture here). Here's a run down of how the weekend went:

• Thursday night - Julie picked Anne, Greta, Jeri and me up at my house at 6:30 (well, actually more like 6:45!) and we hit the road. The toll road was closed (thanks for the tip, Tam) so we took US 12 to I94. We hit some pretty good traffic on 94 before it turned North so the trip took a little longer than we would have liked. We also did a little unplanned "sightseeing" (nevermind that it was dark) once we got to Rosemont. Don't ask. We checked into the Quality Inn (complete oxymoron in this case) and set out in search of food - we grabbed Wendy's around 11pm, if I remember right, and went back to the rooms to plan out our first day at the show. To bed around 1am.
• Friday - Up at 6:30, pack our bags (we switched hotels because staying overnight on Thursday was a last minute decision - we'd planned to drive to Chicago Friday morning), breakfast from McDonalds eaten in the car on the way. Got our badges and waited for the doors to open. Each of us had a different area to cover and our job was to collect catalogs, order forms and show special information. Julie and Greta placed orders at our "gimme" vendors - the big guys from whom we order everything new, no debate required. No lunch - we survive on the chocolate the vendors leave laying around their booths. The show ends for the day at 6pm. We head to the new hotel, get our rooms and dump our stuff. We then drove back to the convention center to drop Greta off at a meet & greet type event for CK Hall of Fame winners (remember, she's the famous one) and then we head over to the local pizza place to order a pizza to be delivered to our hotel room. We immediately begin pouring over the multitudes of catalogs we've collected until dinner arrives. In the middle of dinner we notice that our room is being overrun by huge black ants. Dozens of them. We call the desk, pack up and switch rooms, during which Greta arrives. Back to work until the wee hours of the morning - 3am if I recall correctly.
• Saturday - Wake up call at 6:30 - Greta has to wake me up again after she gets done in the bathroom - I'm a little reluctant to get out of bed. We grab breakfast in the lobby, jump in the van and head to the show. Today we each go back to the vendors we visited yesterday and place the orders we decided on as a group the night before. This takes a little longer and is more involved than yesterday so you have to stay on the move. More chocolate. Lots of cell phone calls. Have you made it to this booth? Don't forget the reorder for this company. See if you can get them to cut you a deal. I won a Chatterbox trunk and a few hundred $ worth of product at 3pm! (more on that later.) Again, lights out at 6pm. We made a good deal of progress today. Tonight we eat real food. I know there's a Cheesecake Factory within a 10 mile radius, so I twist Julie's arm and we drive to Woodfield Mall (again, taking the scenic route...). This is no time for relaxing, however, as we go over the list of vendors, checking off those we've completed and making a to-do list for the next, and last, day. We take our Cheesecake back to our hotel (after an all-too-brief stop at Ikea) and dive in on the remaining catalogs to finalize the last of the decisions and details. To bed by 1:30am, I think.
• Sunday - Wake-up call at 6:00 - we've got an early appt. with one of our reps. Pack up the van. Coffee. We split up again and kill our to-do lists, tie up loose ends, and we're done...early! I think we were actually out of the building by 4! To celebrate, we went to Chili's for lunch. Traffic in Chicago wasn't bad (considering the construction on the Dan Ryan) and we were home at 8pm. Went to Burger King with Adam and the kids the minute I got home, and I was in bed by 9:30. Slept 11 straight hours. Still tired. Off to bed.