30 Flirty and Thriving

Today is my younger sister Lauren’s 30th Birthday. When I turned 30, in 2014, my sister Beth, who is now 32, threw me a surprise party at her house that was 80’s themed. She had invited our entire family, minus my dad, which I will get to in a minute. Me and Beth are full blooded sisters while Lauren and our youngest sibling Warren who will be 30 next year, have a different father. Anyway, so when it came time for Beth’s 30th birthday, I wanted to throw her a party in return. Problem was that Beth is the type that has her entire life scheduled literally months in advance. She has a million friends and always has somewhere to be. She is married with two children and they always have somewhere to be as well. She keeps the kids lives scheduled with sports and activities year round to where, even though we all live in the same area, I might see my nephew and niece 3 or 4 times a year. So my mom had come up with the idea of decorating Beth’s office at her job instead. She recruited me in advance to help because she knew I’d wanted to do something for Beth in return for how she’d thrown me a party instead. At the time, me and Lauren were sharing an apartment, and we worked there, taking turns guarding the pool from people outside the complex who tried to sneak in and go for a swim. The day arrives to decorate Beth’s office. I’m on pool duty and Lauren would be taking my place in a few hours. She was just sitting at home watching TV. So instead of asking Lauren to come take my place for a few hours to where I would have made it up to her later during her shift, my mom asks Lauren to go help her decorate my sisters office instead.

So now it’s 3 years later and time for Lauren to turn 30. Lauren just got married in November last year so we no longer live together. I got married in February of last year so everyone is married now. Anyway, once again I decided, I’ll throw my sister a party. Me and Lauren were always the closest because we have a lot of the same personality type and interests. So I texted one of Lauren’s best friends and asked her if she knew if Lauren had any plans for her birthday yet. This was a few weeks ago. Her friend said no, so I told her I wanted to throw her a party. I had come up with the theme and the decoration ideas already. Her friend sent me a template to make an online invitation to send out on FB. So I made the invitation and sent it out to our ENTIRE family saying party Sunday the 17th from 1-3 pm. Later that evening, suddenly I’m being texted by Lauren’s friend as well as another friend of hers who are telling me they think the party should be moved to Saturday. Unfortunately, I told them I couldn’t do Saturday because me and Beth’s sister on our father’s side was throwing her babies first birthday party on Saturday. Her baby had actually been born on the 16th last year. But Lauren’s friends continued to insist saying the party could be scheduled for after the other party that me and Beth had to go to. They convinced Lauren to agree and then proceeded to take over the entire party planning. They created a new online invitation, which they sent out, which cited that the party was being thrown by the two of them and had my name nowhere on it. I was VERY upset at first, just like I’d been upset at my mom 3 years ago when Beth turned 30. But after just a few hours I just said screw it and I no longer care.

I went to both parties yesterday and just as I thought, Lauren’s friends really wanted the party moved to Saturday so they could all get drunk and continue to party after the official party with all our family left. I didn’t stay more than an hour and a half because my husband was with me anyway for both parties and I’d rather be home with him than with Lauren and her conniving friends. I say conniving because they convinced Lauren to move the party to Saturday by telling her that most people spend their entire Sunday’s getting ready for the week ahead and if she had it on Sunday, most people would simply choose not to come. I tried to point out to Lauren that the whole point of letting people know about a party in ADVANCE is so that they can plan around it. I also mentioned the fact that no ones kids are in school right now, so no one has to get their kids ready on Sunday, as well as the fact that I planned for the party to be early afternoon on Sunday so that people could indeed still go home after that and get their week ready if they needed to. I also mentioned that many people throw their kids parties on Sundays in the early afternoon during the summer when kids are out of school. So how was this any different? But she wouldn’t hear it. So that’s what happened. As it turned out, most of our family still did not show up anyway, just her parents and me and her other siblings as well as her husbands parents and a few of his close family members and of course Lauren’s friends. Just thought I’d share the facts and maybe receive a few opinions. Did I mention that Lauren is not much of a partier? Less so than me even. So her friends basically hijacked the party for their own gain.