A Lot of Activity!

So, sorry for the delay in posting and just lack of posts in general. Turns out October has been one busy month!

I finally joined my local Junior League and am really excited about all of the fun things to come on that front. Each year the "provisional" class of new members gets to select a provisional class project (in past years projects have included building a garden next to a local school, doing improvement work at another school, creating an annual holiday party event for local underprivileged families, etc.). At our next meeting we're going to begin the process of researching project ideas with the plan of implementing and completing our project by April. In April and May the League hosts a designer show house (which is their largest fundraising event) so there looks like there will be a lot of work to do to prepare for that-- all of which should be a lot of fun!) So far everyone I've met has been super friendly and very excited about what is in store. In addition to that, I've started taking guitar lessons through our local Music Together program. You may recall that some years ago the Husband bought me a guitar for my birthday and after a failed attempt at previous lessons said guitar had been sitting in Miss B.'s closet, falling out of tune. I had seen that Music Together has a new class for parents and though it would be fun, especially since the teacher is one that we know from when Miss B. was enrolled in the babies class. I figure start small-- I may have absolutely no talent for musical instruments whatsoever, but I figure if I can at least master children's songs I'll have some hope. (Not to mention that after my 8 week course, I can take a stab at doing birthday parties! Woo-hoo! ;) Just kidding.

Then, as if those two things weren't enough, I'm also a team member providing pro bono legal assistance to a woman from Guinea who is seeking asylum status from the INS. Can I tell you, practicing in real estate I really don't usually have much call for doing research and writing persuasive legal memorandum. Working on this matter is really bringing me back to my law school days and I'm very happy to be working with a team of folks who are litigators and who have been through the asylum process before. We expect to file our paperwork next month, with the hope of obtaining an interview for our client early next year. I'll keep you posted as to whether we are successful!

Now we're also doing planning for a big Halloween Party for Miss B. and her friends! I'm looking forward to seeing everybody, especially in costume! As a funny aside to party planning I was telling the Husband about how I read in one of my magazines Halloween party tips from Tori Spelling. Tori (or her people) recommend buying one of those plastic cauldrons and filling it with juice boxes. I liked this idea, but the Husband said that we should take it one step further and put dry ice in the cauldron.** Actually, what he said was: "We should find some place that sells dry ice." Leave it to me: I was able to tell him exactly where on Route 1 you can buy dry ice. (Why do I know this? Because I have a knack for retaining stupid information and have been driving past the dry ice place since 2004 and have a visual image in my head of their sign that advertises "dry ice") Now, I'd really be my mother's daughter if not only did I know where to buy it, but I also had a coupon for it.

** Please note that we do know that you can't have the dry ice anywhere near where kids could possibly touch it. Don't worry. We're not complete idiots.