On Meeting Heroes

At the end of March, on two consecutive days I got to meet some very special people.  Becky Higgins and Heidi Swapp, who were in Australia as part of a tour for Spotlight.  If you know me or read here you know what Project Life means to me.  But what you might not know is that way back I was a Heidi Swapp fan too.  When I first got into scrapbooking (or maybe I should call it - pretending to be a scrapbooker and just hoarding products) we didn't have a lot of money.  I certainly couldn't head to Spotlight (not sure they even had scrapbooking back then) and sneak a whole bunch of stuff on the credit card like I did in March!  Money was tight and I spent very wisely.  If something didn't get multiple uses it wasn't worth it (I didn't buy embellishments, I made them).  Enter 'Love Your Handwriting' by Heidi Swapp.  I remember at the time this was really expensive here, for me it was a massive purchase but one I valued - a skill I could use over and over was worth the few pennies I had and the only tool I needed was a pen.

Fast forward to 2014 and I found out I had the opportunity to meet two great scrapbooking heroes.  I questioned whether I should meet Heidi as I wasn't currently up on her products.  I was grateful for her book (and all her stamps and photo corners and ghost alphabets that I still have) and I wanted her to know that.  I was also interested in all the sprays going on in scrapbook world right now and wanted to learn about Color Shine.  So off I went, an hours drive away on a school day with Simon in tow (and a GPS that wanted to send me 2 hours north instead of 1 hour south!!).  We arrived and sat at the table with a bunch of lovely ladies, Simon using the table runner as a tunnel for his cars and me checking out all the products that were pretty new to me.  Heidi walked in, showed us heaps of samples and taught us how to use Color Shine, with her zzchh noise and all.  Yep, I wanted some.  But she also sold me on her Memory Planner, see this video.  When it was our turn for a signature I pulled out my book for her to sign.  She hadn't seen it in a while and flipped through.  One of the first layouts Heidi landed on was one of her teenage son and she told us the story of the layout and that she was grateful for the chance to look back, particularly at a time that is trying when you have kids (teenage years!).  Yes.  I left feeling super happy about my visit.

Meeting a hero is a gift, but tough too.  You know so much about them and they have influenced and helped you so much and it's nearly impossible to give that back, and particularly for someone that writes better from the heart than she speaks it.  Being able to give something was super super sweet and a good lesson for me.

And the next day was Becky.  I'd written a note because I knew it would be busy and didn't know if I'd get the chance to say how much she meant to our family.  Heck, I cried in the car on the way there.  Sheesh!

       

Brian wrote a note too - love his Spot(lite)light spelling!

I had considered not having the kids there when I met these heroes (as it would have been easier on all of us) but I thought it important for the kids to see me meet people I value.  Brian loved it although got a little cocky and shy (can you be that at one time) once we reached the head of the line.  Simon remembers too.  The other week I was naming people that love him and he added "Becky Higgins" to the list.  Priceless.

Super, super grateful to people that are such a great influence in my life and to me as a person.  Thanks Heidi and Becky.  It was awesome to meet you.