It's My Party and I'll Enjoy it if I want to even if...

If I were at my parents double wide today I'd go out to their storage shed and look for the family pictures. I have one picture in mind that I would love to post here.

My little brother Nathan has a late March birthday and there is a picture of him, at about six, all dressed up, strawberry blonde cowlicks tamed and combed, standing in front of a table all decorated for a big birthday party. It was the year of the late spring blizzard in Colorado and nobody came.

I sort of felt like him last night at our book signing here in our home town. We had invited literally thousands of people by the time we sent invitations to every church in southern MInnesota, every newspaper, and sent out postcards to every foster parent in nine counties. But I sort of felt like little Nate at six....

Fortunately our friend Jill came along to help serve cookies and lemonade and we had a steady stream of people. The stream however, was a series of one or two people and they each stayed a long time. One of our friends from church dropped by right at the beginning after work to buy a book. Then the historical society director who was there already bought a book and visited a bit until our friend, Tim, Sue and Sarah came with their already purchased book that Bart hadn't yet signed and stayed a while until our other friends, Tom and Margie, with their already purchased book, arrived. They stayed and visited for a good hour until our friend Meg showed up. It was great to see her-- she drove quite a ways to be there -- and she bought two books. We had a nice visit.

Yup, 4 books sold, and 9 people there (if you count our faithful lemonade helper). But we had a really good time, no harm was done, (other than the couple hundred dollars of printing costs we have to eat) and Bart and I enjoyed the adult conversation.

Tonight we have a book signing in Luverne. Five of the kids are going with us. We're kind of hoping for a bit higher turnout. :-)