Yesterday was the National Night Out, sponsored by the book in which I am fortunate enough to have a chapter, I Just Want to Pee Alone.

I agreed to co-host an event in Lancaster, but only because Meredith made me. Even though hanging out at a bar on a Wednesday evening is not really my scene, I was glad to get the chance to see my bloggy BFF again.  We decided to hold our meet-up at the Applebee’s in Lancaster. 

Why Applebee’s? Because there are only so many options in Amish Country and we’ve seen Talladega Nights and we wanted our own opportunity  to get kicked out of an Applebee’s. 

 That picture only took like 5 tries on Meredith’s phone. You know you’re getting old when it starts being hard to take a selfie at arm’s length.

Although it was Ladies’ Night, we brought some special guys with us. Did you think I was kidding when I said I saved them from the dumpster?

I had a special game planned for George. (I had heart-shaped Post-It notes and a blindfold and everything.) And we had lots of prizes to give away.

 But…

Heather (left) and Gail (far right) were the only brave souls who decided to come. They had seen our event in the paper. Since it was just the four of us, we had more of a relaxed evening, just eating and talking (and the occasional photo op with Seinfeld stars). Meredith and I both ate giant burgers right in front of poor Heather, who is a vegan.

Heather is a mom of four and Gail is a mom of six! It was a lot of fun connecting with these ladies and there was a busload (literally, they were on a bus trip) of senior citizens who were highly amused by us posing with George.

You also know you are getting old when the senior bus trip finds you easy to relate to, but the teenage waitress does not understand why she is taking your picture with this half-naked middle-aged bald man. 

Even if our chapter was small (but mighty!), it was very cool to know that there were other women meeting at the same time all around the country because of our book.

Believe it or not, even though our whole lives seem to revolve around building the house right now, occasionally Eddie and I  also get out to do other stuff.

Like work.

My favorite part of my job? It’s toss up between being able to sit at home and work with my kids next to me, staying in sweat pants 90% of the time, and building fabulous relationships with other women and moms with whom I have so much in common. Also, every once in a while I get to dress up and pretend to be famous.  

Last night I had the amazing opportunity to be one of the featured authors at a book signing at Kismet Consignment in Downingtown, PA with Meredith from The Mom of the Year and Ellen and Erin from Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms.

Lest you think my life is this glamorous all of the time, I should tell you that the day started with me catching Penny’s vomit in my bare hands in an effort to save the rented carpet in our apartment. Also, just before the signing, I showed up in this red dress at kindergarten pick-up, where Abby announced she had to poop and I had to hike around the entire campus carrying a sick baby and dragging a preschooler with a potty emergency around to every door until someone would let us in the school so she could use the bathroom. Fun times with bodily functions all around. Plus, I got very lost on the way to Downingtown. Like, “I need to stop at the fire station and have them give me entirely new directions” kind of lost. 

Who wears tight, revealing red dresses with plunging necklines and stands next to men in firefighter uniforms in the middle of the day? Escorts and authors, that’s who.

But I digress. Back to our signing…

Meredith worked so hard to put this event together. She arranged the location, the food, the swag, the decorations, the advertising, and she ordered all of the books. All the rest of us did was show up. Meredith even fed us dinner at her house before we headed off to the signing. Huge props to Meredith, because this event was hoppin’. A TON of people showed up, even though the fire department actually closed the road because the high school down the street was having their Homecoming parade. 

That didn’t stop anyone. People told us they parked across the street, stepped over the barriers, and walked to the book signing anyway.

We had our very own Avon lady giving out free lipstick swag  to attendees.

We scattered around pictures of ourselves recreating the cover of the book. 

Meredith had a poster-sized version of our book cover made for photo ops. Here I am standing next to it with her, my best bloggy buddy. She’s just so pretty and classy and tall all the time.

Kismet is an adorable store! The owners were very gracious hosts. It didn’t hurt that the merchandise is pretty amazing as well. All of the other authors bought clothes and jewelry while we were there. 

I, on the other hand, was busy admiring the furniture, which was also for sale. I want to marry this piece and take it home with me to live forever.

And what’s a Ladies’ Night Out without wine, cheese, fruit, chocolate, and CUPCAKES? Cocina Cupcakes donated all of the cupcakes for our event. I had the chocolate chip cookie dough and it was ah-mazing. Like, for real. You can tell by the fact that my dress leaves little to the imagination that I am no stranger to cupcakes, and I can promise you that these were simply the best cupcakes ever.

What’s better than eating raw cookie dough? Cookie dough and cake together in a way that doesn’t involve any risk of salmonella,  that’s what. I’m telling you, you need these cupcakes in your life.

It was so fun to meet Ellen and Erin! We’ve been online friends for a while, but this was the first time we got to meet in real life.

Our pens stayed busy all night. Pretty much everyone who was there had come to see this fabulous lady.

Meredith’s sister and dad came to support her too.

And we got some autographs of our own. We used this mirror as a guest book and our attendees signed it with lipstick.

Thank you so much to those of you who came out to support us last night! We had a ton of fun and it was awesome to be able to meet some of you!