Here we are already at the third day of the New Year.
What can I say except wishing you all a very prosperous 2013 and lots of wonderful birthday parties (parties with themes and without themes) for your children.
If you are a regular reader of this site, you would have noticed that there was absolute nothing new in the way of party ideas for nearly the whole of 2012.
I’m not even going to apologise for that. When real life starts interfering with your plans and ideas to build a successful online party site, there is not really a choice between taking care of your family members who need you or maintaining a regular schedule of new party idea content on your site.
Your family wins in every time.
I’m not even sure if I want to share all the “bad” things that happened to me and my family in 2012 with you, but maybe I should so that you can realise the reason why I did not post a lot of new things on this site in the past months and if you can learn something from my experiences, it is worth it to share it.
Ok… deep breath…
Alzheimers
Early February 2012 my ex-husband of 14 years was diagnosed with advanced Alzheimers – I’m not even going into the long story of why it affected my life quite badly…
You can find out more about Alzheimers here if you are interested. One thing I can say is that if you have a family member who starts acting “funny” e.g. memory loss, it is worth it to get them to a doctor as soon as possible. Don’t put these changes down to “old age”.
Tuberculosis
Also in February 2012, my son was diagnosed with tuberculosis. It was the start of a very strict 7 month regime of taking medication and being tested every two weeks to monitor the progress of the disease. A bad persistent cough, shortness of breath, excessive sweating and tiredness can be an indication of a lot of illnesses, but never rule out TB – it is not an illness that only existed amongst miners a 100 years ago; it is still very much a part of our modern life and becoming more serious every year because there are new strains of tuberculosis every day and it is getting more difficult to find a cure for it these days.
Jaundice
In August my mother (82) contracted quite severe jaundice as a result of gallbladder problems… treatment, pills, visits to one specialist to another; sonars and scans that finally “ended” in a procedure in October where the gallstones were blasted into tiny pieces but she stayed ill, so had to have a lot of care at home. Jaundice can also have a lot of causes like the different Hepatitis strains, but in her case it was not infectious.
Hip Fracture
And then to top it all, in early December 2012 she “broke” her hip – so back to hospital again, – luckily she did not need a hip replacement but still had to undergo surgery to fix the fracture with plates and screws. Thankfully after a month of being in hospital and staying in a private care facility the last two weeks, she is back home again and walking better every day with the aid of a walking frame.
If you are still reading this, THANK YOU! Stay with me!
Because all of 2012 was not bad!
In fact, on the 26th of October something happened that cancelled out all the bad things that happened throughout the year.
I BECAME A GRANDMOTHER FOR THE SECOND TIME!!!
A day before my birthday on the 27th of October!
And I was there to share in this wonderful event!
Say hello to my grandson…
Of course, now that there is a small boy in the family, the party mindset has to change totally to include boy “stuff” for future birthday party planning.
The themes of the parties will have to change to bikes and planes and trains, fishing, fire trucks and all the things little boys like.
That is what makes it so exciting to plan a birthday for your child; no party has to be the same because no child is the same!
So, no matter if you plan a party for your daughter or your son, enjoy it and have lots of fun. And come back often – who knows, there may be a lot of surprises on this site in 2013!
