I Feel...Like I Was Repeatedly Thrown Against A Velcro Wall

That lipstick? Stayed on all night with one application. OH YES.

Happy New Year, everybody! I was reading the newspaper this morning, and apparently I am out of the loop because I don't detest 2008. It's a year, it's a measurement of time, and I didn't feel that it personally erupted from its hidey hole to try and devour me. Call me strange.

Yesterday was a day of insanity. My friend Sarah and I were helping to throw this huge New Year's thing for the kids in our stake. We work with the Young Women in our church, and hey, this is Vegas, and where are the kids going to be if they're not with us? So we planned, and decorated, rang in the New Year and then cleaned up. It was awesome!

We had a dance, (of course) and movies playing in two separate rooms. We had Guitar Hero going on, and a couple of wii consoles set up. We had a living room area by the dance, so whenever the DJ said, "Girl's choice!" all of the girls could zip over to the couches and look bored. We had giant inflatable obstacle courses that doubled as jump houses, and a Velcro wall. Yours truly spent quite a lot of time flinging herself to the wall, and it was great. There were fresh cookies and french fries, candy and bottled waters, and after screaming and yelling and blowing on noisemakers at midnight, we had a breakfast for everybody's families. It was all free, and I think the youth really had a great time, as did Sarah and I. It was fun to just dance. Luke hates dancing, and we haven't gone since...oh, sheesh. His old frat dances, I guess, which I totally hated. I had forgotten how freeing it is to just close your eyes and dance. I'm thinking I'm going to take some girl friends to check out the clubs.

Anyway, yay for us. They had triple the attendance from last year, and I think it's good for the kids to see the leaders actually doing things with them (dancing, racing, Velcro wall) instead of sitting on the sidelines and watching. Sarah and I were the only leaders I saw that actually participated in anything, but then, we're a good ten/twenty/thirty years younger than the other leaders. We're old enough to be big sisters, not mothers and grandmothers.

The only sad thing for me is that Luke and the kids are out of state with family. Although I love time alone because it's so precious, it was hard to come home on a holiday and find an empty house. It was freezing, and I crawled into Luke's pajamas and shivered in bed until I fell asleep. Today was supposed to be My Big Writing Day, sans distractions, but I woke up with this horrible cold. In fact, I'm still in bed with my out-of-control hair, and just might not get out of it today.

Happy New Year. *tweet*