Clairol House Party---no hair coloring, just plain fun

     Recently, I wrote about the preparations for my second house party event of 2009---a Clairol House Party---sponsored by Clairol, Crest, Venus Razors, and the house party website (www.houseparty.com ).  Although I had done all of my leg work for the party, was all set up to entertain on the original date of May 2, my sis--had some important business to take care of and asked me if I could re-schedule.  Since she had warned me in enough time, I rescheduled the date for May 9th.  Yet, a shocking surprise would test my hosting skills to the core.

     The day before my house party, mother nature decided to play rough and show her VERY UGLY side:  although thunderstorms were forecasted for the day, it wasn't a regular thunderstorm that came rumbling through (more on this in a seperate article).  The storm had only lasted for roughly 10 minutes, but, during that ten minutes---everyone in a three county area of Southern Illinois lost power; including me.  To make matters worse, phone service was also disrupted for thousands, and, according to the radio, it was also now time to conserve on water. 

    This really presented a problem: I had no electric and couldn't access the house party website in order to re-schedule the date; and, due to the severity of the storm, alot of folks were without phone service (not to mention that everyone has cordless phones in their home which take electric to charge them), so calling my guests was out of the question as well.  The guests that did call me that after the storm asked if I'd still be hosting, and, with a very heavy sigh, I told them yes, it was still on, but I really had reservations as  to how we all were going to deal with the rather PRIMITIVE conditions at the time.  I informed them that there was no reason to bring their towels, since, the local radio station informed the listening public that water conservation must begin the night of the storm.  I also told guests that they did not need to hurry to a store to get their hair coloring---it just wouldn't make any sense to do so.

     That night, I was really worried about how my house party would turn out.  Not only due to all of the obstacles, but, because of the radio reports in regards to the extreme damage done by the ten minute storm.  Curfews had been set in place for every municipality along the Rt. 13 corridor from Murphysboro, IL to Marion, IL; all curfews were 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. in the morning, due to downed wires, downed trees, complete homes being demolished; on the first night of the storm, there had been roughly 70,000 people (including me) who had lost power.

     The next day, my daughter Erin and I, trying to make the best of the situation---began to set up for the party.  We decorated the living room quite well, put out the box of goodie bags, and began to wait for guests to arrive.

     Though the party didn't get started until roughly about 3:30 p.m.---probably due to the fact that the storm had wreaked havoc on the area, my guests began to arrive one by one.  The first guest to arrive was my neice Kristin; she was awarded a large bottle of Got2Be Smoothing Lustre Lotion, just for being the first to arrive.  By the time that all guests had arrived, I had five men outside on my deck and six women in my home.  As the party got under way, a lot of my guests had their own storm stories to tell, and, as they told their stories, I passed out the goodie bags.

     I then proceeded to the door prize---as part of the house party thing, I always make sure I have a nice door prize where all my guests enter their names on a piece of paper (this time, the guys sat out on this one), and one lucky winner gets to take the prize home.  The winner was my neice Kristin---and she was pretty stoked about it!

    My guests and I then proceeded to play a "how many words can you make from the title Clairol House Party"?; this time, it was my neice Kandice who won the first prize!  She was pretty happy about it.  Then came the "Guess The Hearts" game, in which I had poured a bag of Sweet Tarts hearts into a Juicy Juice cup.  My sister Donna finally won the prize, which was a Glade candle that we were all recently introduced to through www.BzzAgent.com.  The two games were played by candlelight/camping radio lights.

     At the end of the party, we all enjoyed food off the barbecue grill, cheese & crackers, and other food that could be ate quickly.  We then celebrated two birthdays: my neice Kandice, turned 21 that day, and, my daughter Erin would soon be celebrating her twentieth on May 13.  Though my guests left late for home (which was really taking chances considering all of the curfews), everyone got home safely and really enjoyed getting out & having fun: even though Mother Nature wasn't really kind to any of us that weekend, my house party turned out to be a terrific success.  My worries of the night before had been vindicated!