The best laid plans...

I had a Pampered Chef open house this weekend.  My plan was to have a bunch of people come, earn rewards to get some more products, and book shows for the next couple months.  Plus it would force me to finish cleaning my downstairs.

Well, my downstairs is clean, and a few people came on Friday night, but today, no one came to the second half of the open house.  All those delicious treats just sat there untouched (we took care of that).  One possible show out of the weekend.  Very disappointing.  I see areas where I could have done better to make this happen.  I did not call or stop by and invite many people, I just sent emails and facebook invitations.  I planned to stop by and introduce myself to my new neighbors and personally invite them.  I ran out of time.  People are busy.  There's a whole list of reasons why it turned out this way.

To keep my business going, I'm going to have to push myself out of my comfort zone and call people I don't know well.  I need to risk rejection.  I don't like rejection (does anyone?).  But it won't be me they are rejecting, just the thought of scheduling and planning one more thing.  I respect boundaries, but I also know this is a fun, useful thing to do, so I don't need to be unwilling to ask.

I am thankful that God's plans for me are much bigger than mine.  I know if I try to live up to what I think he expects of me, I'll always be disappointed.  But I also know that he will never reject me.  Even if he wants me to change (and be changed), he will not stop loving me until it's done.  And he won't leave me alone when it's hard.  He'll be at every party :).

It's party time!

We will be hosting a sleepover party tomorrow night with Abby (who's turning 8) and 6ish of her friends.  I've been making muffins for breakfast and cleaning and planning and still need to clean lots (but they're kids, so they won't expect perfection, which makes me feel better).  Abby's big request was to "have a treasure hunt where we follow the clues like Emily had at her Incredibles party."  Sure, no problem, those are super fun.

Then today it suddenly occurred to me that Hannah and Emily might enjoy helping with the treasure hunt.  Moments of struggle, am I willing to let them do it even if it's not the same way I would or maybe I don't think it's done as well as I could?  Then I remember how creative and amazing those two girls are, so I asked if they wanted to be in charge of the treasure hunt.  And I didn't see much of them for the rest of the afternoon unless they couldn't find something (which happens frequently since we're still not all the way unpacked).

They have been planning and creating.  One clue has a video on the computer that Hannah dressed up and created with the camera on the computer.  There will be a clue that requires the party girls to call Grandma for more information (from a script provided by Hannah and Emily).  It's going to be awesome, as good as anything I would have done.  Plus they have a great role to play in making Abby's day special.  I'll post pictures.  I'm so proud of them I'm tearing up.