Just Call Me Keynote Speaker Melissa

Well I did it! I gave my first keynote speech yesterday.

It went pretty darn well too, if I do say so myself.

You may remember last December when I was featured in a story on the local news about creative ways people were making money in the valley despite (or perhaps thanks to) the slowing job market. They talked about me because of Knits by Meliss (you know the hats I knit and sell).

Well, the woman in charge of organizing this conference saw that news story and thought that I looked like just the kind of inspiring person she wanted to be the keynote speaker for her conference geared towards teaching young girls the importance of rediscovering the dying arts (things like knitting and canning and baking bread and writing letters). So she asked me if I would and (with a little more than a little hesitation) said sure! Why not?

Well, writing a speech is a heck of a lot harder than I ever would have thought it would be, especially since I waited until four days before the conference to start writing it... oh the joys of procrastination. But after a very stressful Friday afternoon when I discovered that my speech was only about 7 minutes long instead of the requested 15-20, I added some more words and I got it done!

The speech making itself was pretty exciting... all the girls laughed at my jokes (mostly) and asked me a bunch of questions afterwards. I even got a few hat orders!

I was excited.

I don't anticipate having to give any more speeches any time soon, if I did, I don't think I'd mind too much.

It was kind of fun!

I posted my speech below (you'll have to click the 'read more' button) if you want to read it... It's pretty long, so you probably don't, but just in case... here it is!

Who Knew 2011 Was Such A Magical Year?

My mom sent me an email the other day with some pretty interesting tidbits in it.

Did you know that in 2011 we will experience a...
1/1/11
1/11/11
11/1/11
11/11/11

That's a lot of one's.

Now here's the really weird part...
Take the last two digits of the year you were born and add the age you will be this year.
It will equal 111.

Creepy.