Pioneer Woman!

First of all, if you haven't heard of The Pioneer Woman, you MUST check her out. She lives on a working cattle ranch in Oklahoma with her husband and four children, and she just about does it all: she cooks (and documents each recipe with many photos), even recently publishing a cookbook that shot to the top of the bestseller list; she homeschools her children, and blogs about it, sharing helpful resources; she just finished a book about how she met and fell in love with her husband; and she does all the things that a wife and a mom have to do on top of that, including keeping cows out of her front yard. It's not hard to see why she's gotten popular - her writing is hilarious and self-deprecating, and yet she makes you want her life all the same. She has been very inspirational to me and many of my friends, so we were thrilled when we found out that she would be doing a book-signing at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Charlotte!

Ree Drummond (her real name) gave a short talk about herself before the signing, and then answered questions from the audience. She's just as funny and approachable in real life as she is on her blog. Despite a long wait (we were in group H - each group had probably 20-30 people), we had a great time, and it was completely worth it to get to meet her and have my cookbook signed! We got photos, too, but those are on Megan's camera, so I'll add them later.

Our friends Alisa and Jason also came to the signing, but since they had to drive down from Greensboro after work, they were there a bit later. We all went to Amelie's afterwards. We found out later that someone had brought Ree a box of pastries from Amelie's at the signing, because she mentioned them both on Twitter and on her blog. Glad to see such a great place is getting national recognition!