Our Halloween party

The party was a smash success! Joe and I put about 3 months of effort into it, and from our Haunted Forest in the bedroom to our massive spread of food (next time we'll do 1/3 the amount) to the full bar with Mudslides and Zombies, Werewolf and Vampire wine from Transylvania, to all the decor, it was perfect. Even more perfect was our crowd -- a fantastic blend of my friends, Joe's friends and colleagues, my book club ladies and neighbors, my brother and his fiancee...everyone came in great costumes and I just stopped my hosting duties now and then to look around and smile. Everyone was having a great time. And Joe and I won the very fun costume contest -- he was Spiderman and I was Elvira. A great time was had by all, which is the definition of success in any party planning, no matter what little details go wrong. We had a few snafus -- wall hangings I forgot to take down, bad timing on heating up the baked ziti -- but it all works together, just like a wedding, to add up to the fun things you laugh about later. The key is to relax and be a guest at your own party.

Joe and I had planned to have our own little romantic dressup party the next night, but after that big of a job in pulling the party together with so much detail, our plans were doomed from the start. Not only were we tired, but the chicken didn't microwave well (that one's on me), the fireplace log started putting out fumes, my Little Red Riding Hood outfit was incredibly itchy, and Joe's face makeup for his costume went rancid and his face got all hot. So our romantic evening turned into him scrubbing his face clean, and us choking down rubbery chicken and drinking seltzer instead of wine because we were so dehydrated from the night before, then getting right into sweats and PJs to watch Halloween movies we're tired of by now. Entwined on the couch, it turned into a relaxing footrub night. Again, the things that go wrong all work together to add up to the things you laugh about later.

And shortly after that evening, we stripped down the house, got the haunted forest things and the black roses out of my bedroom, and I put my office back together again. My entire world was stuffed into my closet for the party, so it was a 2-day task to get my house back in gear. And it was quite fortuitous, since I found sweaters I thought I'd lost and only put back about 1/2 of the decor items I originally had out in my house. The place looks incredible now, which has me back in the mood to work. I'm pitching my novel for movie rights this week...and I've joined up with www.BnBFinder.com as their wedding expert, so I'm whipping up articles for them. My work-world Treat: an appearance, photo feature and quote in The New York Times. Joe ran right out to get it the moment I called him about it. He's the best.

Now, on to planning for Thanksgiving... ;)