Overwhelmed

I have been extremely busy and the slightest bit stressed this week. I am planning a 50th wedding anniversary open house that is to take place this weekend for my parents. We originally had a hall reserved and planned to have it catered, but with my Dad’s health issues and the surgery he had last month, we decided to tone it down – hence, the open house. Since I live halfway across the country from my family, I was only supposed to be in charge of the invitations; my brothers were going to do the rest (one lives in the same town as my parents and the other one is about a 3 hour drive from my hometown). Well, lets just say, brothers can be useless at times. Since they really didn’t plan anything, other than to reserve the hall then cancel the hall then tell my Mom about the surprise party we were having for her and my Dad but then cancelled, I took over the whole event. It is difficult and stressful to plan a party being so far away. I have been calling people to order food, cake, and gifts – hoping it all works out and people don’t just “forget” that I am in their books to pick stuff up. I have already spent tons out of my own pocket and I haven’t even paid for the food yet. My brothers are planning to pitch in a portion so we each pay a 1/3rd for the party and gifts. I am hoping they pay me before we fly back home on Tuesday as I don’t have much extra cash to pay for a party all by my onesies.

Luckily I have a great friend who is helping me out with the whole soiree. She recommended a place for me to get a cake for the party and even went to the bakery to take pictures of the cakes and e-mailed them to me. She plans to pick up the cake for me and drive it to my parents’ home. I also found out that my Dad’s side of the family is planning to use this party as their yearly reunion. It will be nice to see family that I haven’t seen in years although a bit overwhelming as I hope I will have enough food, seating, etc.

If the anniversary party wasn’t enough, Thing 2 will have his baptism this weekend. Yes, another party and family event. He will be baptized along with his cousin who is 2 months younger than him at their church. We are the godparents for our new nephew and The Mr.’s brother and his wife will be godparents to Thing 2. It is nice that we will be able to have both baptized at the same time and in the same church (we had to do some planning ahead of time and have our church write a letter stating that Thing 2 could be baptized in the other church – both Catholic, however). Also on the positive side, my sister-in-law is taking care of the lunch after the baptism at her home so I don’t have to do much for that except show up. I thank her tremendously for this as I don’t think I could plan two events for the same weekend without going crazy!

I will be sure to let you know how the parties go, unless I pass out from exhaustion beforehand!