Slumber Party, Not to Be Confused with the Donner Party, Even Though One Person Present Had the Surname "Donner"

My mom has never complained, even in the days when she found me almost insufferable, about the standards by which I maintained order and cleanliness in my room. It's one of the two  areas by which, even in her biased mind (the other being piano-playing ability and ability to master singing harmonies; Matthew does [honestly] have the better overall singing voice of the two of us) I am not inferior to my brother.  My mother loves both of as much as any other mother loves her children, but Matthew comes up on top in most head-to-head comparisons in her opinion. I'm old enough not to be terribly bothered by it anymore, especially since she seems to try to be fair. Where my room is concerned, she mostly thinks I go a little bit overboard. She thinks I'm the bedroom equivalent of the little kid who always has to have his toy cars lined up in a row as opposed to ever actually playing with them,  as in  "on the spectrum." I think we're all entitled to a few little quirks without being labeled as autistic or  anything close. I don't throw fits when people pull down the covers to the bed or extra bed and get in if it's someone who's supposed to be sleeping there. We all should be  allowed our little quirks. My quirk is the degree to which things in my room must match and the cleanliness upon which I insist, which necessitates a no-food rule.

Alyssa, Jared's cousin, arrived tonight instead of tomorrow. I only have two beds in my room, and one is a roll-out I keep in my closet, although it has Westin mattress and box springs I pull out of my rather large walk-in bedding, rug, and linen closet, so the bed is very comfortable. Alyssa could have slept in the guest room, which is also very nice, but she wanted to be in with us, so she was going to sleep in my recliner but we felt sorry for her because she has cramps and decided she should sleep in a real bed. Meredith took the recliner and let Alyssa have the bed.

We watched movies downstairs first, because I don't serve popcorn in my room. I do serve drinks, but not food, and certainly not to a group as large as three, and certainly not popcorn, as that's when things start to get messy. I might consider letting someone eat Halloween candy there, but that's about the extent of it. I'm sure everyone thinks I'm way to picky about my room, and I almost admit I am, but it's a very nice room and has to be treated well or the furnishings won't stay nice. Most of the bedding I'm taking with me when I move to an apartment and later a condo, which is a real incentive to take care of it.

There are times when I'm practicing so much that the musical motif is overpowering, and I'm sick of looking at musical symbols, but such is not the case now, so I have the musical motif out.  Even with my OCD-ness, we were able to make the decor work. 

Everyone was  asleep when the boys showed up, making the sort of racket that would wake up even any dead people who may exist as ghosts in our house. The other two girls went back to sleep a few minutes later, but I'm still up. I'll have to sleep a little later, and the others know they can go get breakfast without me. I can also sleep on the beach tomorrow as long at I remember to thoroughly coat myself with SPF 50 sunblock every hour or so. The smartest thing to do would be to thoroughly immerse myself in the frigid Pacific for just long enough to get chilled. Then I  can dry off and coat myself thoroughly with sunblock, then lie down on a towel on my tummy and cover my body with another towel. I should get a good nap and with minimal sun damage.

Regardless of what I down, I'll have a Frankie-and-Annette day on the beach with minimal skin injury so that I will be OK for surfing on Sunday. We'll probably even play beach football or volleyball, which is such a Frankie-and-Annette thing to do.

guest bed

my bed

blanket throw we threw over recliner because it's leather to make it feel warmer and cozier

fleecy blanket we threw on top of Meredith on the recliner