November is always nuts

There's always plenty to write about in November, so there will be plenty of content fodder here this month, no worries! Whether I'll run out of momentum after putting up a post every day (for NaBloPoMo) is another matter.

Monkeyrotica's Birthday, 11/5

This weekend is Monkeyrotica's birthday — same day as Guy Fawkes' Night — and we're celebrating in style. We have tickets to "The Vices that Made Virginia" a sold-out event at Woodlawn Plantation tomorrow night. From their website:

"The Vices That Made Virginia is a rollicking outdoor celebration of the region’s finest farmers and food artisans ... a lively evening of bourbon, bluegrass, oysters, beer, wine and so much more – all designed to showcase the very best of Virginia."

We are going to have a blast!! We went last year and had such a wonderful time, talking, drinking, and eating with a great crowd of people—lots of real characters, too. I'm glad we can make it again. I doubt they'll be burning a Guy Fawkes effigy, but who knows? That would be a spectacle. Note to self: wear warm clothes and shoes I don't care about; it's outdoors and there's mud. Happy Birthday, Monk E.! Also big thanks to my parents who will be watching the kids while we're out.

Rosie's Birthday, 11/13
Right after we have Monkey's birthday, Rosie's is just a week away. She has invited a few close friends to join her at the bowling alley, to bowl in her 9th birthday. The party package includes pizza and soda, which makes me sigh—Rosie won't consume either, and they don't allow outside food in the alley. We'll have to find something else off their menu for her and hope the other kids don't notice. The challenge for me: Rosie wants a rainbow cake. Have you seen these? It's a six-layer cake with ROYGBV in the individual layers, she wants sky-blue icing and rainbow sprinkles. I haven't made one before and I'm planning to bake this one myself. Maybe I should do a trial run before next Saturday... Oh, and I talked my close buddy Staci into throwing her son's party at the same time and place! Since there are usually two parties rented in every slot, at least we'll be next to friends. And our sons can party in the Donovan's lanes while our daughters party in Rosalie's.

Craft night, 11/20
Other things going on? I have a craft night planned for November 20, which friends and I were chatting about on Google Reader before Google killed it (man, I'm bitter, I can't stop talking about it!). I'll have to check in with the interested parties and coordinate via email, invite, or G+. Heck, maybe I'll use the phone, who knows? We were going to knit, as a few of us took a knitting class last year and I might be the only one keeping up with it. We were all going to work on projects and help each other start/finish/fix what we couldn't figure out. The last time I was at my mother-in-law's, she destashed a huge bag of yarn on me, so I can offer some skeins to my friends. The kids were interested, too, so if we are all working, maybe they'll join in and learn something!

A big incentive to having a get-together at my house is that it'll make me clean up, which the place dearly needs. It's just clutter-heaven right now and we need to put crap away, donate, recycle, toss, anything.

Winter dance performance, 12/18 (coming right up!)
I'll also be practicing for the Winter Dance performance for the next month. I take a modern dance class on Thursday nights and we have a much larger group this year, with about nine teenagers and three adults. There's a holiday party every year and the Director, Mrs. H, invites several classes to perform in the studio with a packed audience of parents, siblings and family all sitting on the floor and standing room only. Our class is dancing to a Mannheim Steamroller song again, but this time we have props: a wand with very long streamers attached. They are incredibly fun to dance with. Really, I'm having way too much fun with them in class and Mrs. H has called me out for playing with them too much. Hee! I leave you with a photo of Monkey and me waiting for the dance recital to start from this past summer (I've got my stage makeup on and my costume's hairband).