I'm a Cook finishing her story about meeting PW

Continued from this post: The "roadies" tested the microphone, the bookstore representative (at least I THINK that's who she was) said a few words, a hush fell over the crowd (well, as much of a hush that would happen in 500 people) and Ree walked up to the mic! Right away people began taking pictures. Some stood up, some lifted their cameras as high as they could, and others were lucky enough to have a prefect shot of her and her SIL Missy and I think her MIL was in the room too. (Mine ended up having a big white spot, and I couldn't figure out what it was, until I realized it was the flash bouncing off the hair of the lady sitting in front of me-Oops!) Ree spoke for a few moments (including telling us about her sudden onset of allergies, that's Utah for ya!) then started taking questions from the audience. She was so sweet to answer all the questions! I wish I would have had a notepad to write all of the questions down, but they varied from "How do you take pictures of your food? Do you used a tri-pod?" To which Ree answered "I used to use a tri-pod, but it hindered what I could take pictures of so now I use my elbows as a sort of tri-pod" , or something similar to that. Someone asked Missy if Ree was the same in person as she is in her writing that answer was "Yes, absolutely!") A question or two later a member of the audience asked an inaudible question, she was on the front row, and the next thing we know Ree steps back up to the mic and starts singing! She sang a few lines of what I now know to be an Ethel Merman song, and she sang it well! You can find her account of the "incident" HERE. Ree is so cute! Traci even got to ask a question...she asked how many Pioneer Woman readers there are, or how many hits Ree gets on her website. Ree was so down to earth when she answered, she was so humble. It seems that she doesn't even look at how many hits she gets, or how many readers she has. She said it would make her nervous to think about it, and she won't be able to write they what she wants to if she knew (or at least I think that is how she answered). The person behind us said she read it is something like 2 million a month, but I read in an LA times article, she gets 13 million pages views a month. (I don't know the difference between the two, but WOW that is a lot!) One of my favorite questions someone asked was about "Black Heels to Tractor Wheels", and YES, she IS publishing the love story! She is finishing the second half (Wedding Day-Present Day I assume) and going to make it into a book. Whoo Hoo! Book Club choice for sure! After she was done answering questions, she made her way to the book store and started signing the cookbooks of the first 20 people in line...now remember some of us had "F"...luckily even though we waited in a large line (I know, I know, it shouldn't have been so large if "A" and "B" were in the bookstore, why were the rest of the crowd just standing around?) we had fun! Katie and Michelle stayed back with us, so we weren't lacking for good conversation (although we were lacking in food...we were starving!) People walked by and kept asking us about our aprons! They all thought they were cute (GREAT idea Traci) and most wished us luck in getting Ree to sign them. We stood behind a group of girls that were also "F" and they had some fun calling all of us "F'ers" even though the people standing in the way were really the "F'ers", and finally, finally got up to be close enough to be in the bookstore. As we made our way through the bookstore, getting closer and closer to Ree, we started getting tired....so tired I thought I was hallucinating when I saw Missy bring in a few kids that were out in the cold, and the bookstore let them! I also thought I was hallucinating when we went up a few stairs, well stood on the stairs, and at the top was Ree's mother-in-law! Traci spoke with her for a bit, and I admired her beautiful diamond earrings, a gift from her husband (Traci asked), and a few other fans asked her to sign their cookbooks. We kept winding our way through the bookstore, and finally, finally got close enough to take pics (because of the number of people, they asked we only take pictures OF Ree and none WITH her) People kept standing in my way so I couldn't take a decent picture. All of a sudden up the stairs comes a guy from Fox 13 news with a camera on his shoulder...he asked Ree a question or two, and just as I was sitting down, he started filming the crowd (whew! I was lucky! I think I was out of the way.) When we finally got up to see Ree, we handed our cookbooks to the bookstore employee, one person at a time, and Traci asked Ree if she would sign the aprons, explaining to Ree about Annie, not being able to be with us because of her daughter being ill. Ree said something about using tons of antibacterial hand sanitizer and was so sweet to be willing to sign the aprons. (See Beth, that's where the aprons and a sweater come into play....and I WAS wearing pants. REALLY, I was!) She signed three books and two aprons for Traci and it was my turn! I was so quiet (yeah, I know) and didn't know what to say. In fact the only thing I remember saying was that I loved her hair color and that her colorist did a great job (there was a post or a tweet about her going to get her hair done) and maybe I said something about how much I like her? I totally don't remember! (If any of you want to remind me what I said, but not how stupid I sounded, please feel free!) She signed MY cookbook first, and the one for a friend second, then my apron. As she was signing my books, Katie took a picture of me, NEAR Ree (but not with her) and I know I looked way cheesy! I feel bad, because as Katie got her book and apron signed and Michelle got hers signed, I don't remember what happened! I was on such a high from talking to Ree, and her not being a jerk (how many people thought The Pioneer Woman could be a jerk, not me, but you never know) that I didn't pay attention! Sorry Katie, sorry Michelle! I do remember going out of the bookstore and having a few people ask if she signed our aprons, us deciding where to go eat (it was like 9:00 by that point), and me doing a little skip dance thingy on our way back to Traci's car because I was so excited! It was so cool to be able to meet someone I read on a daily basis, someone that shares so many of the recipes I love to cook, and my family loves to eat, and someone that just makes my life so much more fun! I am going to savor the cookbook (and cook out of it too) and possibly get the apron framed (I don't want to find out if the marker Ree signed it with is really permanent) and hopefully when Black Heels comes out in print form, she will sign books at a larger location!