Saturday Surprise - I met Ree, The Pioneer Woman!!

Ok, so there's this blog, The Pioneer Woman, writted by a lady named Ree Drummond. And she's stinkin' awesome. She's makes me laugh - A LOT, has awesome recipes, tells crazy stories (and admits stuff to total strangers that I'd be wary to admit to people that love me unconditionally!, yet makes her totally endearing). She also has sections on her blog about Homeschooling (doesn't quite apply to my dogs at this point), Photography (lots of great tips - wish I had the time to play around with photoshop, but I don't) and Home & Gardening (love her style!). Can I say I want to be her when I grow up, even though I'm already in my 30's and she's only 40? Ha ha!

Anyways - she recently put out a cookbook, The Pioneer Woman Cooks!, and it is amazing - lots of recipe favorites, funny stories, beautiful photography - all wrapped into one book! And she's been taking part in what she calls the Griswald Family Book Tour, and yesterday was her stop in Houston at an awesome place called Georgia's Farm-to-Market.

(Side note: The Houston tour stop was actually put together by a little bookstore on Memorial called Blue Willow Books - the people there were FANTASTIC and it's the cutest little bookstore ever. Everything ran with ease throughout the day, they were super nice and it was a totally painless experience. I highly recommend them and will be returning in the future for gifts for friend's kids -gotta support the mom and pop stores when you can!)

Ok - so I got there with Karen and met up with Nicole and Natalie (along with her sister and Miss Elinor) at about 12:15ish... The event started at 1, but we knew from reading past blogs, etc. to get there EARLY. So we hung out for a bit, and then out from Door #1 came Ree!

She then did a little Q&A session with the bookstore owner. I submitted a question at the beginning and it actually got asked! It was 'What's the worst thing you've ever made?' - her answer was that in high school she decided to make veggie lasagna for someone (possibly someone she was trying to impress?) and instead of putting in 1/4c of chopped parsley, she put in FOUR CUPS of chopped parsley. BLECH!! She had a hard time stomaching parsley for the next few years... She answered a few more submitted questions, and then had a live Q&A. I had read about the possibility of Black Heels to Tractor Wheels being published, but she hadn't said anything about it, so I stood up and asked - she said it's definitely in the plans and will hopefully be out sometime in 2010 - YAY!!!

Then the signing started - I was in the 5th color group to get called, but there were only ~25 people per group. When we made it up there she was as charming as I expected she'd be. She complemented my outfit and said that Houston seemed to be dressed up and wondered if this was a typical thing. She loved Karen's laugh (who doesn't!?!?) and was genuinely nice to every single person. Exactly as you'd expect a friend to be...

I just thought I'd share - her blog is insanely popular, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone that likes to laugh. And likes to eat.

Have a great week!