After setting up the date, I emailed Flannery in secret. You see, Tatiana and her family are going to have a little change in January (which I’ll let her tell you all about below) and I wanted to give her a surprise party. Flannery immediately had the idea to ask Tatiana’s online friends if they wanted to participate. I thought that was a wonderful idea, but I wasn’t sure if Tatiana would like us to tell other people about her news. Luckily for The Readventurer team, Flannery is one of the wiliest people I’ve ever known. Within days she had somehow, someway, gotten Tatiana to say via email that she didn’t mind if people knew – all while maintaining the complete secrecy of our plans. I still have no idea how she did that.
So we sent out the call to Tatiana’s closest friends – and we got a ton of responses. You guys were amazing. We got cards and gifts and mostly books galore (what do you expect when a bunch of book nerds throw a baby shower?) from all over the country and beyond. On the day of our meeting, I loaded up the car with all of your thoughtful gifts and made the very easy drive down to Tatiana’s house.
This is how great my co-bloggers are - both Flannery and Catie got together with our multiple blogging and reading friends (you, ladies) and organized this event, and in absolute secrecy. I won't lie, this was a complete surprise and an icing on the "meeting-Catie" cake. I was already ecstatic to just meet her in person, after months, if not years, of virtual chatting, but everything turned out to be even better. The girls know that I am a pretty private person and, as a proper introvert, am not keen on being a center of attention, so they put this shower together quietly and by proxy. And I enjoyed it immensely!