Monday, June 18, 2012

We did it!!! We survived graduation open house! It was a lot of work but so worth it. I love party planning!  Can't hold a candle to my sis-in-law who has a degree in event planning but I love it just the same. I was determined that no matter what my stage of treatment I was going to make the best of this. Spaced things out for the week so that I could enjoy every minute. Took breaks to have lunch with a sister-in-law and her four kids at the restaurant where Kinsey works. Took the dog to be groomed and got my toes done. Had just the right mix of work and play.

As a big time planner and organizer I have been working on this for months. Did the centerpieces over the winter, wrapped silverware while I was down after surgery, fine tuned my scrapbooks and finally got to my favorite part-the decorating!!! Considering Kinsey gave me a hard time about all the memorabilia she had no problem wandering down from her room saying, "Mom you forgot this!" She didn't want a T-shirt quilt so we  choose her favorites and scattered them around. Looking over everything out of storage and in one place brought a new perspective to just how much she was involved in and how much she has accomplished. We have been blessed with such an awesome daughter!

Crisis #1-Oven completely on the fritz-Kinsey headed to the neighbor's to bake the cheesecakes.

Crisis #2-Piggy problems-Brad's family had a hog roast for all seven of their grad parties. His dad and grandpa build a hog cooker years ago and it was brought back to life for his parent's 40th Anniversary party. He put the hog on just before midnight and when he got up to check it at 2:30am there were big problems. One end had come off the spit and was dangling leaving chicken wired wrapped around the spit and it nearly burned up the motor. Brody got the brother of the year award for coming home from a friend's house in the middle of the night to help dear old dad. After two hours in the dark of cutting wire and realigning the pig he was back on track. Brody manned the spit until 7:30am so Brad could sleep a few hours then Brody headed to bed til early afternoon. We still managed to have him done.

Crisis #3-Rain-So much for being organized and having all the busy work done in advance. We took the tents just before the party but managed to have them back up and decorated just in time for the first guest. Later they did have to come down for good but fortunately the severe stuff missed us. In the end everyone had a great time and stayed safe from storms so that was all that mattered.

Now it's time to buckle down and start thinking about making some decisions. Today I called for a plastic surgery appointment. The first available is July 30th so I scheduled that. See my surgeon this week and am curious to see what he says about all the scar tissue I have. I am going to try to contact the Reach for Recovery program again this week in hopes of getting paired with someone who has reconstructed.