RWA Day Four & Five: Lovely RITA

I'll be honest, the last day of conference is always a blur for me.  By this point exhaustion usually sets in, and any hope of memory retention is laughable.  I had every intention of getting up for the Kensington and NAL booksignings on Saturday morning.  Um, yeah.  My alarm went off and I so wasn't feeling it.  KristieJ, on the other hand, went.  I later saw what books she came back with and was happy to see that the ones she scored that I was also interested in?  Yeah, I had already purchased at the Literacy Signing.  So sleeping in until 9AM was the way to go for me.

Me and Sarah Morgan - Pre-RITAs

The one thing that stands out as far as the daylight hours is that I ran into Barbara Wallace - who was the last of the Harlequin Romance brigade I was really hoping to see.  She caught me as I was coming out of the elevator, so we were able to chat for a few moments.

I also, was as good as my word, and only shipped back one more box of books.  So that means Wendy hit an all-time best of shipping back only two boxes from conference.  They're getting delivered to my office - so all my coworkers can discover the depths of my addiction (too late).  In the end though it was the ebooks that did me in.  I just counted.  Yeah, 54 - between Avon and Samhain.  Brilliant.  Simply brilliant!

After shipping the last box it was time to get gussied up for the RITAs.  I had a cocktail party invite before hand, and after calling in reinforcements (Rosie - Kristie needed three hands to zip up my dress), I was ready to par-tay!  I finally ran into Smart Bitch Sarah and Angela James, and got my picture taken with the lovely Sarah Morgan, who later on in the evening scored her second RITA for the second year in a row!  She won for A Night Of No Return, which I read and enjoyed - and you all should read it too (says me).

I actually attended the RITAs with all my partners in crime - World Famous Authors, Carolyn Crane and LB Gregg, Rosie and Kristie.  We shared a table with Blythe and Lynn from All About Romance.  It was a good show, and I was so happy for Sarah Morgan and Karen Templeton for their wins (Karen has now won three RITAs in the same category so is officially in RWA's Hall Of Fame!).  

Party People!  Carolyn Crane, LB Gregg, Rosie, Kristie, and me.

Samhain had a post-RITA bash that I hear was off-the-chain, but I was beat - plus I needed to pack.  LB's flight was scheduled to leave about 30 minutes before mine and Rosie's - so we all shared an SUV to the airport.  Once at the airport, Rosie and I saw lots of other conference attendees milling about.  She ran into Sherry Thomas, and we actually shared a plane with Jill Shalvis.  

Our respective men arrived just as our luggage came down the conveyor belt, and we went our separate ways.  I managed to get unpacked (which, other than toiletries, was a simple matter of dumping my entire suitcase into the laundry basket!), and My Man, bless his soul, declared that we should order a pizza for dinner.

Since I have some brains in my head, I did take tomorrow off of work to recuperate, plus deal with minor details like laundry and grocery shopping.  It's back to the salt mines tomorrow, and bitter, bitter reality.

I had a great conference, met so many fantastic people, caught up with folks I had already "met" in previous years, and even learned a thing or two.  We're already talking about San Antonio next year. I figure by then I should be fully recovered from Atlanta.