Holy cow!! I met Martha Stewart!!!! *whew* I have to get the rest of this excitement over Martha out of my system.

I took Ollie on a little trip last Friday to Macy’s on State Street… totally last minute decision. Left the house at 10:15 a.m. for her 1 pm book signing.

Got in line at about 12:00 pm where we were greeted by Macy’s staff with bottled water and cookies. The staff was so nice.

We made friends with people in line… thanks to the lady from Scottsdale, AZ for taking our picture. We liked talking with the well-dressed-newspaper-reading guy, too. The Asian lady behind us in the picture had her dog, Emma, in her purse. And we talked about making homemade dog treats.

The line started moving a bit past 1:00 pm. A voice came from beyond a corner, then applause. None of us in line could hear a thing, but oh well, we thought, they’re probably just introducing Martha. Realistically, I figured if we were still in line by 2:00, we would bail because I had to pick up our daughter at school. However, the line was moving at a good pace, and then the skies opened up… a Macy’s staff person approached me and said, “Martha asked that mothers with young children in or with strollers, and disabled people get consideration and be ushered to the head of the line. I already brought up two moms. So, go ahead, go up there and talk to the women at the head of the line, and they’ll get you in the queue.” We love Martha, don’t we? The lady in the bright yellow green sweater was apparently a main coordinator (or Martha staff) and she got us right in.

I’ve been telling people that Martha Stewart is really stunning in person. She’s a beautiful lady… she’s also a powerful woman. I wonder if I admire her more for her lifestyle-crafting-cooking inspirations or her empire building skills? She was very nice, cordial, talked with Ollie a little bit (funny pic in the gallery), asked who the crafter was in our house, what crafts I do (I could have said, “Everything!”, but only told her that I papercraft and sew). For all the things I could have said to her, I basically came up with, “Ms. Stewart, it is such a pleasure to meet you.” She said, “Why, thank you.” Then she said, “Oh, he lets you craft? You have time?” I said, “Well, I sneak in time… but really, I don’t sleep too much,” and she grinned, “Yes, we know about that.” She said, “Very nice to meet you.” to my brother.

There was an older lady whom we met after the signing who was quite upset that Martha was 12 minutes late. She said, “I gave her one demerit for every minute she was late, so that makes 12 demerits…” Wow. Okay, lady, I don’t know how you give demerits, or what they’re going to do for Martha, but I’m pretty sure she wasn’t too concerned about you.

The rest of our short visit with the lifestyle maven is captured in pictures…Ha, ha, thanks for the pictures, Patrick! Don’t know what I would’ve done if you weren’t there!