now i know that this blog focuses on things that mr. lusher  & i do, cook, eat & drink together, but i did something without him recently that is far too awesome to leave out.

i met the pioneer woman.  and a group of great new friends.

the day started with blair & i  grabbing our luggage & jumping in the car for the short road trip to charlotte.  i never charged my ipod, so we were subjected to the radio & a pretty consistent loop of the same 3 rihanna, ke$ha, and lady antebellum songs.  lovely.

we made it to the mall where pioneer woman’s cookbook signing would be held that evening, met the ladies who were already there, bought pw a card, broke a creepy, faceless, $30 figurine, and spent the rest of the afternoon having drinks & waiting for the rest of the group to meet us.

group c, to be specific.

life, mommy & food bloggers.  followers of each other on twitter.  from as far as arkansas & tennessee, to as close as charlotte & raleigh.(beth, suzanne, me, sara, jenny, beth anne, meredith, emilee, sarah, alena & amy, not pictured: sally)

then we parked it in the middle of the bookstore, on the floor & waited.

and y’all, she’s just as awesome in real life as you could imagine through her writing.  she stood at the top of the stairs, claiming that being in front of that many people made her sweat, answered the crowd’s questions, even those regarding what kind of underwear her huz prefers, and even did a little song and dance for us.  not to mention the time she spent personally talking with our group & taking pictures with all of us, no “people” to tell us to move along or laundry list of rules of what we could & couldn’t do.

best cookbook signing ever.  i would like to be her bff.

(photo credits: charmingly chandler, the heir to blair)