It both came and went pretty quickly, we left Amber off to the airport yesterday, her trip to Texas went by in a blur.  I guess it doesn’t help that every time we’re together, we’re so insanely busy, I suppose when you don’t see each other all that often, you want to capitalise on the time you DO have together.

Last Thursday (2nd), Col worked pretty late.  He’s been swamped since, well, the last few months to be honest, but lately, it’s been ramping up even more.  He’s busy as a bee.  We missed a Scooby Gang dinner, but snagged a quick feed at Red Robin (yum!) on the way to the airport.

Amber’s flight arrived promptly at 10.30pm, we dropped her at the house (so she could do some work that she needed to finish up) while Col and I headed to Walmart to pick up provisions for the following day’s ‘hostess’ party before we all flaked out.

Friday morning Amber and I got up early to get things sorted for my Norwex hostess party.  For those of you don’t know, the USA is BIG in to their hostess parties, Scentsy, Stella and Dot, Passion Parties, Norwex, the brands are all different, but the principle is the same.

Someone volunteers to host a ‘party’ in their house, a consultant comes around, does a demonstration of the products, people can order products if they’d like and they go home with a new working-knowledge of a product they perhaps never heard of before.

Norwex produces a line of cleaning products that ”will save you time & money, improve health, and move towards creating a better environment.  Norwex microfiber goes beyond “surface clean” with the innovative use of silver particles integrated into synthetic microfiber cloth.  Cleaning with water only produces a healthy outcome for us and the environment.”

I have to admit, I’m normally skeptical about things like this.  I don’t like being taken for a ride, or feeling in any way like I’m being conned, however, this was my best friend and I figured she’d not lie to me – she hasn’t lied to me in seven years, she’s not going to start now!

The demo knocked me on my backside! She got crystal light stains out of my work-top that have been there for months, she cleaned my oven door – that hadn’t been cleaned in two and a half years (it was PIGGING!) – in minutes, making it look like it was barely dirty to begin with and she cleaned my ceiling fan in seconds, without throwing chunks of dust and dirt everywhere! I was totally convinced!

Out of the 12 people (over two ‘parties’) that Amber demonstrated to, 9 people bought stuff, I guess they were convinced! We even had a ‘remote’ purchase from someone who hadn’t seen the demo, but was curious about the products.

For lunch, Magz, Sophie, (and little Eve), Frances, Jo, Amber and I all headed down the road to Thai Siam to enjoy a delicious (and cheap as chips) lunch.  I LOVE the Thai food there – I’d never tried Thai food until I moved here and dove in, feet first.  It’s delicious!

That afternoon Amber worked while I did laundry, before Col came home, picked us up and took me to St Thomas’s university to perform with the Chamber Choir.  I was late (stupid traffic!) and the performance was a short three-song set to open the International film festival.  It was fun though, I still get a buzz from singing, I don’t think that’s ever going away!

From there, it was off to Chuy’s for a group dinner (complete with margaritas of course!) which was supposed to be followed by game of Ligretto in Magz and Sams, though Sam was asleep on his feet, so we abandonned and headed home.

At home, Amber and I stayed up late, drank some yummy drinks (vanilla schnapps and apple pucker – not together of course!) while we watched – nay, suffered through, an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras, which has officially left me scarred for life.

Can you believe, that in the first 24 hours of Amber’s trip to Houston, I didn’t take a single picture?  No, me neither, that’s cause I did, I did take pictures, however, they were on my phone, my phone which, as soon as we got home from Chuys, keeled over and died a sudden and ill-timed death.  So huge apologies for the lack of pretty pictures to look at!!