Decorate Book Signing

As planned, this past Saturday, I headed into Boston to meet Sheila, my graphic designer friend, to attend the Decorate book signing at Anthropologie in Back Bay.  What I hadn’t planned, was to have my 3 girls in tow with me.  I wasn’t sure how it would go with my 4-year-olds along?  If there was a long wait, would they be impatient or have to go to the bathroom, and then lose our place in line?  Nevertheless, I had to just go with it.  My husband took our son fishing that morning, so we had to divide and conquer – a girls’ day and a boys’ day out.

We arrived while Holly’s Mood Board workshop was underway, so we milled around the store beforehand.  As we were about to stand in line for the book signing (and as predicted), one of my little ones looked up at me and said she had to go to the bathroom – which, of course, required us to leave the store.  When we got back, the line wasn’t too long.

Soon enough, another one of my girls started pleading with me to leave, and the third (our fidgety one) could not stop touching everything and kept circling around the display tables and hanging racks.  Lucky for me, Sheila (a mother, too) was there to help diffuse the situation – and seconds later, I was pulling out my App-filled iPhone to hand off.

 We admired the beautiful display of books and the floral arrangement in the “H” mug.

It was really special to meet Holly Becker in person.  I had taken her Blogging Your Way e-course and had been a fan of Decor8 even before I started the course.  Through the class, I learned about Holly’s journey as she “blogged her way” to the success that she is today.  Her story is really quite humble and admirable, and the course was an insightful process of looking from within and striving for greatness and personal fulfillment.  So prior to our meeting, I already had a pre-conceived notion of “who” Holly was.  And yet, even after the few minutes we spent conversing, I was amazed at how grounded and sincere she is. 

I introduced Sheila as an L.A. native, and as they concurred on how cool the Anthropologie store is at The Grove (the site of Holly’s L.A. event), Holly told us a story about when she was shooting homes for the book in the Los Angeles area.  Holly said that she and photographer, Debi Treloar, had visited Anthropologie at The Grove and she remembered saying to Debi, “Wouldn’t it be great if the book would be sold here?”  She told us this – with a store filled with people waiting to meet her – as if she was still in disbelief of her own prophecy.

Here, Holly was pointing at one of my girls, who was taking her own photos of the event.

and my daughters’ perspective…

I left the event feeling happy, knowing that good things happen to good people.   A cliché not to be disregarded, but inspired by.

While Holly and other bloggers, interior designers, illustrators, writers and artists enjoyed lunch together afterwards, I went to fulfill my promise to my girls – to take them for a carousel ride.

Around the corner from Anthropologie, we stopped to admire street art by Mindaugas Andrius.

Then off to Frog Pond.

Thanks to Sheila for joining us for a fun day in Boston!

Congratulations to Holly on stop #1 of her U.S. Book Tour!  Holly will be in Chicago next, on Tuesday, August 23rd.

images: (1-5) by IgoeCreative, (6-12) by Ei3s