Sarah (Mini-me) and I are having too much fun planning this party for Friday. We have some really cool crafts planned and have been trying to get samples made today. (Keeping my fingers double crossed that the jewelry blanks I ordered Wednesday to be sent Priority arrive on Monday!)

Today she painted this wooden toy truck to look like the main character, Bella’s, old truck. We also made some polymer clay beads for our ribbon book marks. Sarah put it all together for this cool display.
 
  

Mini-me got me to read the first three books in the Twilight series sometime last year while waiting for the last Harry Potter book to come out. (The family that reads together, gets into book series theory debates together, or something like that.) Since that time they have become somewhat of a phenomenon in the world of teenage girls.

We pre-ordered our copy of the latest in the series, Breaking Dawn early in the summer and Mini-me has been waiting for the midnight release party ever since. The internet is awash in release party costume ideas and heated discussions about who will win Bella’s undying love (excuse the pun!)

We figured if the rest of the world was as or even more into this book as we were we’d might as well make a party of it! We’ve spent the past week brainstorming ideas for fun and original crafts that relate to the story and have come up with some great ones. I lucked into finding a fabulous jewelry company at CHA that has fabulous pewter pendants ready to be personalized and embellished. We’re also making red satin book thongs, bottle cap pins and decorating canvas tote bags.

If you already have plans for the midnight release join us beforehand for pizza, crafts and fun, we’ll be finished up in plenty of time for you to still make it to your local bookstore to pick up your copy well before the break of dawn!

Hello internet. I’m still around. Just too busy to keep in touch. I’ll be a better penpal in the future I promise.

Last weekend was CHA in Rosemont. I chose to drive in Friday and Saturday. Mr. Mess had originally booked me a room nearby for Saturday night so I could stay over. But after two days of seminars and walking the show floor I just wanted to go home and hang with my family and process all I experienced. I’ll have a CHA-centric post here later today hopefully.

Of course after being away from the store and the home for a few days I’m way behind. Add to that all the new ideas I came back with that I want to implement ASAP, my mind is spinning. It also seems that July is the month that all the salespeople from various advertising venues descend en masse on small retailers like myself. Everyday I’ve gotten calls, drop-ins and appointments with advertisers. Everything from coupon mailers to online aggregate referral sites and everything in between. If you’re wondering, no I will not be placing a $3000 display ad in my local yellow pages, so don’t look for me there.

The girls and I had an exciting night Tuesday night. At around 10pm Latte, the fat white brother (cat for new readers!) started yowling and hissing at his brother and Ozzy. I went to see what the trouble was because it didn’t sound like the typical play fighting they often do. When I approached Latte he hissed and yowled at me too. I finally got a hold of him and examined him for injuries and discovered that he had a blocked urethra and was passing blood in his urine. He was in obvious pain. Male cats can crash fast when this happens and go into renal failure in a matter of hours. I called the ER vet and they said as long as I could get some urine out he was okay until morning. But by midnight he was really miserable and wouldn’t let anyone anywhere near him. The girls convinced me that we had to take him in, we weren’t going to get any sleep anyway worrying about him all night.

So at midnight we drove across town to the ER vets. He spent the night there with a catheter and IV. I had to go back at 7am to transfer him to our regular vet back across to our side of town. He’ll be there under the watchful eye of Dr. Dodd until Friday afternoon. (I’ve been avoiding thinking about how much this will all cost. The ER bill was almost $800. 72 hours of hospitalization is beyond my comprehension right now.)