I‘m one part giddy, one part nervous to speak at the Becoming Conference 2012 in Asheville, NC, along with Jen, Nester, and some other ladies that I’ll meet this weekend. The conference focuses on becoming more creative, frugal, and purposeful.

I’ve attended conferences geared towards either bloggers or photographers, but Becoming’s primary audience is blog readers. I heard great things about last year and I’m excited to be part of it this year’s event!

I titled my session Using Photography to Transform Your Family’s Moments into Memories and we’ll talk about composition tips, basic editing, camera phone photography, and more. I got so nervous about leaving my desktop computer and external hard drive of photos behind that we loaded them up in the backseat of the sweet orange Camaro that my husband and I are driving to Asheville right this very minute (I’m pecking this out in the dark on my iPad).

{I don’t usually panic over leaving my computer at home, but I’m still tweaking my presentation and want access to all my pictures!}

Angela wrote about taking a $4.99 dress from Goodwill that still had the tags on it and transforming it into a creation that she’ll wear on Saturday when she speaks at Becoming (I hope some of her practical creativity rubs off on me this weekend). I have a dress story, too, but I didn’t embellish mine myself and unfortunately I paid more than $5.

I found a dress that I really like while shopping on a girls’ day out this summer. I loved it plus it’s reversible—hello! two dresses in one!—but couldn’t justify the price tag. That night I sent in my session description for the conference while simultaneously Google searching for a better price on the dress.

The two merged in my mind until I decided that surely I was supposed to wear the dress to speak at the conference (I have a gift for justifying things that I really want). I found out what day of the week the store took markdowns and kept the tab open on my iPad. One Thursday morning I hit refresh and Boom! the price dropped.

They tracked it down in my size in Nebraska and shipped it to me. The flip side is black and I’ve worn it both ways (my husband still doesn’t completely buy my story that it should be considered two dresses). Unless I spill sweet tea all over it at lunch Saturday, I will wear the dress when I speak at Becoming. It feels like wearing pjs, and that’s the nicest thing I can say about any dress.

Please say hello if you’re at the conference this weekend! Will you be coming to Becoming?