I'm such a survivor

So two daughters with two birthdays in one weekend.

If that's not a recipe for disaster, I don't know what is. Oh, 'cept maybe rain pouring down on your youngest daughter's first ever party at CITY PARK!

So the 4 yr old turned 5 on Wednesday. This year was the first year she had the opportunity to have people at her party besides us and my parents. She's in Pre-K this year, and has 20 kids in her class. So instead of celebrating it on Wed with a party, my parents came down from DFW and we went to dinner where they sang for both Syd Vicious and Carly. Carly's birthday was Friday, one of the rare times she can have her party on her actual birthday. She had 8 come over: 6 girls and 2 boys. We ordered 6 pizzas, and had games out the butt. Egg toss was a bit too easy on the grass, so I moved them to the street. It was messy but it was fun. And then, in the middle of the games, four kids from the neighborhood that Car used to hang with walked down the sidewalk, up to what was obviously a party they had not been invited to.

~sigh~

So we invite them to join along. Then we go back inside for Carly to open her gifts. We invited those four girls to help themselves to pizza. They sat around eating and watched Carly opening gifts. I'm sure they felt awkward, but they ended up winning a couple of the games, and I had extra treatbags, so they didn't go away empty-handed. After those four left, I thanked all the kids for being so nice and welcoming into the party and making them feel like part of the group. I was quite proud and impressed.

The two boys were SMOOTH. One gave Car two pink monkeys that magnetically hug each other. The other boy gave her a stuffed dog dressed in a "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" outfit, with a necklace and bracelet on for Car to wear. B and I were impressed. I already like that boy TONS.

Then the two boys left, and the six girls invaded Carly's room for the sleep-over. Shan applied her high school skills in a make-over session. All went well until the young girls thought they could remove eye make up with toner. Oy.

They stayed up until 4am. (I crashed around 1am) By 10am, the first mothers were showing up, so I dragged my butt outta bed. I woke up to rain. Great.

By 11 the last girl was gone, my house is a mess, and for Syd's party that was supposed to start at 1:30 at city park, I'd put our home as the "in case of rain" location. My house is trashed from one party, and I have to whip it into shape for the 20 possible invites showing up of 4-5 yr olds WITH THEIR MOTHERS. And we mothers totally and completely check out other mother's homes. Fabulous.

When God finished His deep belly laughter, He allowed the sun to come out and dried up the area. With glee, I announced the party was back on for City Park. I was saved!!!

Syd's party turned out great. She got a lot of good stuff, and the kids were so well behaved. She had a pinata, the kids feasted on cake (I get 1/2 chocolate and 1/2 vanilla) and vanilla ice cream. We had grape soda, red soda, orange soda, and Sprite. It was a sugar-fest extreme. Syd was happy.

We hauled home her loot and decided to head out to the drive-in movies to make it just this huge event weekend. They were playing SAHARA.

Oh. My. Gosh.

Freakin' FABULOUS movie!!!! I'm buying it the moment it hits the stores. Absolutely not one moment lacking extreme action. As a writer, I appreciated the high concept and the absolute torture to the characters, where everything that can go wrong DID go wrong. If you're looking for a movie up there with INDIANA JONES (the original), you'll love this one. I know I did.

On the writing front: I'm 1/2 way through Stephen King's ON WRITING and I'm enjoying it tons and tons. I also picked up a Harlequin American today, because at The Merritt, the editor of the line said they're looking for a lot of new writers. May as well read one to see if I can do it, right? Right. We'll see. I started an online (email interactive) synopsis class for the month of May. This means two things:

1) Yes, another loop and a crapload of additional emails.
2) More info on synopses. I swear one day I'll be able to give classes on these things. I'm absorbing as much on them as I can.

As for Nationals, I'm still looking for orders, trying to earn more money to cover the registration fee. ~sigh~ In the meantime, I'm finishing up four aprons and four angel jars someone ordered, hopefully to be mailed out no later than Tuesday. I prefer doing afghans to the other crafts, because I can do those in the living room with my family while watching TV, rather than stuck in the craft room by myself. But, a job is a job and any money earned to get me to Nationals is SO worth it.

Exciting news: I emailed with Jodi Thomas this weekend. She remembered me from Nationals last year, but after helping this newbie the first day, we never ran into each other again. In the last year since I met her, I picked up her novel FINDING MARY BLAINE, which was wonderful!! I emailed her and she is coming to Reno, and she said that hopefully we'll be able to set at the same table for one of the luncheons this year to get caught up.

I also "talked" with Lisa Gardner, and I'm too upset that she's not making it to Reno this year. She is such a talent, and such a wonderful person. And of course, I owe her tons, not just for being an inspiration to me as a suspense writer, but also for her fabulous insight on synopses!

Now, if only I can get ahold of Janet Chapman again. I met her last year and she was so nice and I like her so much. She wrote THE SEDUCTIVE IMPOSTER, one of my all time favs, and now out is the sister, Willow, book. I'm hoping to grab it up soon. In the meantime, I just gotta stalk Janet down and see if she's planning on Nationals or not.

So there ya go. I'm tired again just from writing this all out. Nothing dramatic, nothing sensational. Just boring ol' Mom kind of stuff. Now I'm off to watch Blade Trinity and crochet on one of the National afghans.

~g'night my freaky darlings~