Stop and take a breather

From October 26 until December 27 my life was consumed with all things involving weddings, anniversary celebrations, and celebrations. To begin with, Will and Gillian decided to get married. The wedding was a my house and I had four days to plan, execute, and prepare all the food and decorations for a wedding that would involve 45 guests. Throw Thanksgiving into the mix as the next major event followed shortly by a wedding at my house for Annacarmie and Stephen. This time I had a little longer to plan and prepare for this event on December 5. Christmas follows this wedding shortly. Two days after Christmas I hosted a 50th anniversary celebration for my parents.


Mother, aka Mimi wanted a big celebration to celebrate and she made those wishes had been made known many months before the event. Plans started very well as I began working on things in January 2009. I had a schedule planned for what I would do each month of 2009 so as to not be so overwhelmed at the last minute. Those plans were good and I was able to stay on schedule until some very severe issues came up in my family in May. Those issues derailed everything in my life. Because of that I was really behind and did not get all the things done I had planned on making for Mother and Daddy.

Invitations were complete with envelopes addressed by February. A change of locations at the last of October required the invitations be done over before they were mailed. The stress was beginning to take a toll on everyone at my house but they were redone and all was well as they were dropped into the mail box.

There was not scrapbook of their 50 years together. I guess that will be a gift for another time when I can seem to find time to finish it. The other thing I really wanted to do for them was a DVD that played music on the TV. The DVD was a nightmare. We ended up getting a virus on two different computers as a result of the pictures. That stopped us from working to finish the DVD during the last week. I am not one to give up so with determination I began trying to finish the DVD Sunday morning before the guests arrived at 2:00pm. By 9:00 am I had done all I could do and called it quits. The pictures that were already scanned were the ones I used. No one else knew but me; however, I was very disappointed because the DVD did not turn out like I wanted. At this time I had no choice but to let things go whether I liked it or not.

The party turned out very well. Both Mother and Daddy were pleased with every thing but it was just not what I had wanted to do for them. After all they deserve my best and I do not feel I did my best for this. However, in my heart I know I did all I could do. For some one with a type A personality that is also OCD there were other things that I wanted to do.

Mamma Kim

Invitation Update

Two hundred of the three hundred invitations are finished. woohoo I am 2/3 of the way to reaching this goal. Will I complete this goal on time? At this point I am not sure because I am out of supplies and they are not on sale for half price this week. I am cheap and will almost never pay full price for anything. What was I thinking when I thought possibly I could get by with 200. Not a chance if my mother is involved. She loves everything to be big and splashy, the bigger and gaudier the better. Calling her this afternoon to verify the number of invitations she needed reminded me who I was dealing with. After our conversation I am not even sure 300 is going to be enough. I may be making invitations until December.

Will I ever be able to prepare enough food to feed all the people? How do I even begin preparing when there is no RVSP and my estimates for food will be a guess. Sure hope I am good at guessing.

Kim

Invitations are a work in progress

The Invitation
One more step in the process of the anniversary celebration is in process. I am now printing and cutting everything that needs to be done in order to put the invitations together. I have set goals for myself in this year long process. Monday, April 6 is the goal date to have 300 invitations finished and in envelopes. The next step will be to build a fire under Mimi to get names and addresses so the girls and I can address the envelopes. Mimi asked why we were doing this so early. Has she forgotten what a crazy life I live. I never know from one minute to the next what catastrophe is going to occur. That is why I set goals and do things ahead of time. If I did not do that I would have been in serious trouble many times before. I do not work well under pressure. I guess because I am such a prefectionist. She said, "What if something happens to one of us?" When I told Stephanie this she said tell Mimi even if that happens we are going to have a big party anyway. We have heard about and planned this for way to long for it not to happen. So Mimi I guess you better stick around for the party of the year.

Kim

Sorie update

The plans continue for the big anniversary celebration. Mother is still compiling a list and getting addresses for invitations. I have finalized all the plans in my head for the invitations and now I must get busy getting them printed.

In the process of cleaning and organizing my garage from when we moved in a year ago I am making a stack of those things we are going to use to decorate the conference room. As my children say I have enough to decorate the whole town so maybe I will not have to purchase much. From the looks of the stack I tend to have to agree with them. There are many boxes full of things to use.

We are now arguing over an accent color. I wanted to use something besides red because I think red is too harsh and Mother made it very clear she wanted nothing but red. That is my dilemia right now. Not sure how that one will be resolved.

Kim

Party plans continue

I am off the hook for a little while. The date has been set for the anniversary celebration mad Mother has several jobs she has to do. She may wish by the time that this is over that she has not wanted such a big celebration. After collecting the pictures for me ( and some were really scary, but yes I am using them any way because that was and is our life,crazy clothes and hair styles and all)
Her second job is to get names and addresses of every one she wants to invite. As we talked about the invitations she kept naming people she wanted to invite. It would not surprise me to have between 300 and 400 people attend. Bless my heart. Don't you feel sorry for me? I am such a good daughter, can you tell? At the present I have not received one name or address. I may have to build a fire under her but I guess I will let her rest until after April 15, the deadline to file tax returns so she will not be so overwhelmed.
I am trying to decide what kind on invitation I want to make. Too may choices make my head hurt. I think I should just go with my first instinct and forget it. I will think a little longer.
I have also been rummaging through my garage to find fabric and accessories to use on the table. I have found many treasures that we can use. I knew all of that "stuff" as Pappa called it would come in handy on more than one occasion. This is one of those times and occasions.
Until the next job arises that I can give her I will be working on a final copy of the invitation.

Kim

A fun event

This weekend has been a busy time but one which I enjoy tremendously. Christmas in November is not only a time to get many of my Christmas pages done for my scrapbook but it is also a time of fun, laughter, and fellowship as we all work together on the different page ideas provided. Thursday I did not get to go because of baby duty. he other two days someone else had to take over baby duty.

Annacarmie is having a fit for a new vehicle and I do not know why. She has just what she needs, a 2004 Altima that is paid for. She is wanting an SUV and Will has a 2001 Denali. I have tried to tell her you never go down a year model when trading vehicles but what do I know I am just the mother. I told her to go ahead and trade then when she wanted to trade again she was going to be upside down in the vehicle. When will she ever learn that after all of the years in the car business I do actually know something. I guess part of that wanting to trade often came from the fact that her daddy never kept her in the same car for more than 3 months at a time and she still wants to do that. It does not work as well now as it did then because Pappa could sell or trade anything.

Makenna is getting a new tooth, her first one. Her personality is really beginning to come to life. She is squealing and laughing as we talk to her. She already knows what she likes and what she does not like. She wants someone to be in the room with her all the time. Her mamma says ti is because Mamma Kim talks to her all day every day. She wants to talk so badly and just cannot get the words to come out. Annacarmie text ed me today to tell me Makenna was now laughing out loud. My response to her was she was laughing at her mother because she thought it was a silly idea her mother had for wanting a new vehicle. Makenna laughed at such a funny idea.

Christmas is just around the corner and I have been busy selecting gifts. I have purchased many presents already. Yeah for me, I am well on my way. I even have some surprises for those it is extremely hard to surprise.

My mother and daddy will celebrate their 50 th wedding anniversary in December 2009 and I have already been told this needs to be the event of the century. Guess who gets to put all of it together, Yes you are right that would be me. I am already collecting photographs. I have several ideas in my head now I just have to recruit help to bring those to reality. Hopefully Neil is going to do all the food and flowers for me. Mother wants an event no one will forget and Daddy had just as soon let the event pass with little fanfare. You see who won that argument. I will be posting throughout the year as plans continue to come together. Not only do I want this to be a time of celebration for them I also want to have a documented journal of the journey leading to that day.