Madam, I had HOPED to have made that announcement MYSELF.

I'm telling you guys something really special and exciting tonight, you see, but it seems that Petie, aka Country Girl, over at All Things Bright and Beautiful has written a post TOTALLY STEALING MY IDEA and even publishing it at the exact same time.  What EFFRONTERY.

Ahem... I'm getting ahead of myself.  Gather 'round, boys and girls, because I'm going to tell you a story.  

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Petie and a little girl named Amy, and they really weren't little girls by the time they met each other-- the fact is that Petie was seventeen and Amy was sixteen, both of which ages are kind of past the time of being termed little, ya know?  Anyways, Petie was visiting Old-Fashioned Charm one day and came across a link to Amy's blog, which she clicked upon, and I could say that the rest is history from there, but that wouldn't be fair to you if you want to know the whole story.  (If you don't want to know the whole story, you needn't keep reading.)  

So Petie commented on and started following Amy's blog, and Amy visited Petie's blog and started following at that very first visit (which is something she almost never does-- there was a connection here, people) and after a great deal of commenting back and forth, Amy began to think that this girl was a real kindred spirit.  

Then one day Petie started selling personalized bookmarks from her blog, and decided to host a giveaway to promote them, and Amy ended up winning the giveaway (on her seventeenth birthday, how fitting!).  And that's how Petie and Amy exchanged email addresses... and that's how the correspondence started... and that's how Amy started bugging Petie to watch the Les Mis concerts.

And that's when things REALLY got rolling.  Because, see, the Les Mis concerts kinda became Our Thing.  We talked of little else.  Valjean, Enjolras, Javert, Enjolras, Eponine (we're both huge Eponine fans), Gavroche, did we mention Enjolras?  Yeah, we kinda like that guy.  And we kinda like Ramin Karimloo and his shirtsleeves and leather wrist thingies AND HIS VOICE -- he was our favorite portrayal at the time.  (Amy now just slightly prefers Aaron Tveit but thaaaaaaat is another story for another time. *hastily ducks away from Petie's rising wrath*)

In fact, we even ended up hosting a Les Mis Concert Comparison week that summer, which was AWESOME in every way and succeeded in bringing us even closer together.  Pretty soon we had ridiculous nicknames for each other (she's Puddle and I'm Chauvelin... don't ask...) and phone and Skype conversations started happening.  It would be so cool to meet each other in real life, I said several times... to which she replied with, "I KNOWWWWWWWW!"

But nothing came of that, of course-- it was just wishful thinking.  Until last Friday, that is.  Because last Friday another phone call happened, and this time it was Petie telling my mom (I wasn't available at the moment, unfortunately) that HER mom was coming to my home state for a conference and could my Puddle possibly come along and visit me during her mom's conference?

Ummm... let me think a minute about this... YES.

YESYESYESYESYES.

And so, it's settled. In a whirlwind of planning and squealing and emails flying back and forth, it is now official-- Petie is coming to visit me from October 24th to 26th, and I am FREAKING OUT EXCITED.

So is she, for that matter.  Funny how that works.  

We intend to have a good time.  The poor girl has not yet seen TSP82, folks.  THIS WILL BE REMEDIED.  

Ten days more, people.  Can you believe it?  TEN.  DAYS.  MORE.