Shhh...

Someone in our house has a major birthday coming up this month.  She also has gargantuan expectations for it and a mother, who as of Monday morning, still had no earthly idea how to pull off anything close to what she might want.  

But, as is typically the case in my life, I realized that when I slow down long enough to do the things I NEED to do first, and then ask for help with the things I can't do on my own, everything miraculously comes together.  

The only thing on my list yesterday was invitations.  That's it.  Well, there were plenty of other things on that list that needed to get done, but the only thing I absolutely wanted to accomplish was getting invitations finalized.  By 10:00 last night, I could count the million other things I had done yesterday:

Read my scriptures.
Planned my lesson for Sunday.
Went to lunch with a friend who I really, really needed to connect with.
Had a conversation that I really, really needed to have with another friend.
Remembered to mail Savannah's transcript to BYU Admissions.  
Picked up Megan from school.
Showed up with a guest speaker/presenter for our weekly Cub Scouts den meeting.
Made dinner.
Drove all over Allen dropping people off and picking people up.
Listened to all four kids debrief me on their days, made sure they finished their homework, said family prayer, and got them all in bed in a timely manner...mostly.

But...those darn invitations still were not done.  And because of the nature of this party, I couldn't wander upstairs and work on them with someone potentially looking over my shoulder.  

And then the miraculous started to happen...  

I had been emailing a couple of people via Etsy.com (that cute DIY website where people sell their handmade stuff) about invitations that could be sent via pdf and that could be edited and then printed from here...or from Staples.  At 10:30, I looked again at what I thought were my limited and not very appealing options, and noticed a message I must have missed earlier in the day.  Tracy, from Australia, said that she could make some changes and rush a custom order and send me the file by Friday morning.  Hallelujah!   I sent her my specific details, along with my payment, and hit SUBMIT.  And then I slept fitfully all night worrying that I might have missed something or that the 16 hours I had waited to respond had changed her availability, or that the time difference between countries would delay her.  (ugh...)

But this morning I woke up to find that not only does Australia stay awake while we're sleeping, but they also have wonderful little DIY angels/elves who can manifest exactly what I envisioned in my head, but could not possibly have done on my own!  

Eek!  I'm so excited about them, I can't even stand it!  Now...I just have to try really hard not to blow this whole surprise accidentally between now and next Friday night.  

Don't say anything, k?