November / Birthdays / NaNoWriMo

Tonight is Halloween and can I just say, whose bright idea was it to have it on a Wednesday?  I seriously think kid-centric holidays should always be on a Friday or Saturday.  Like Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday.  Give us poor parents a break!  Regardless, I'll be taking The Tweedles out to trick or treat in their Halloween finest and The Hubs - whose professor canceled class tonight so she could trick or treat with her own kids - will hopefully be joining us if the traffic gods allow.  We'll hit Mimi and Nanny's house and prowl Mimi's neighborhood before hopefully making it home before 8pm so the kids (and us parents) aren't too exhausted for school/work the next day.  Here's hoping.

And then, we'll be in November.  NOVEMBER.  Where the heck has this year gone?  I swear, it was just January a moment ago and now we're already hitting the Birthday Trifecta (Bug / Bunny / GG) and Christmas.  My bank account and I are overwhelmed.  Thankfully, thanks to some summer sale shopping for Bug and Bunny, they're pretty much set.  We're still working out what we'll get GG and LW for Christmas.  and GG is turning 18 which is a pretty big milestone.  We'll have to find something special for that since we won't be throwing a party.  The last few years has been pretty GG oriented.  Two years ago she had her Sweet 16 which was a full on backyard bash and last year she graduated so we saved our pennies for a big graduation blow-out.

This year, I've decided it's finally time for Bug and Bunny to have their first friends over birthday party for what will be their 5th and 7th birthdays respectively.  I've been shopping around trying to find something that not only won't blow the budget, but will be good for both boys and girls and the different age ranges.   I think I've settled on Jump 'n Jammin'  which is an indoor playground of sorts.  The kids can bounce, climb, jump, run, scream and generally be crazy for two whole hours with cake and pizza and when they're done, hopefully they'll all be so exhausted the parents will thank us for wearing them down.  The best part?  No set up or clean up for us.  It's win/win people!

November first is also the start of another adventure for me.  I'll be participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) where my goal will be to write 50,000 words in 30 days  - that's 1,667 words a day for those of you keeping track - which amounts to a novel.  I admit that I'm not sure I'll reach my goal.  I have a pretty good idea of what I'll be writing and gave you all a snippit of it last Sunday, but I have no outline, no character build up or really any kind of organization.  Just an general idea of what the story-line might be.  I plan to wing it.  Yeah, I'm surprised too.  That's not generally my MO being the uber-planner that I am, but I'll jump into the deep end and see what swims to the surface with me.  Hopefully it won't end up being some idea sucking tentacled writer's block.  I hate tentacles.

The blog may suffer a bit while I try to meet this goal.  I might try to supplement my blog with more story snippits or complaints of why I put myself through these things or well, random nothingness just to let you know I'm still breathing over here so bear with me.  I promise to make it up with lots of fun in December.

Seriously.. Thoughts?