Before we moved into our house, we spent many hours here at parties our friends threw, They were and still are great at hosting a party with tons of people while still managing to make you feel special. Hadassah would sit and talk to me as if it were just the two of us. In fact, if her girls came up and started interfering too much in our conversation, she would say "OK, either sit down with us or go play, I'm talking to Jessica." Cool as a cucumber, a true party person.
I'm still trying to catch the cucumber vibe. When we plan a party and I find myself the day before cleaning the mirrors in a room no party attender will go in, I remember that I haven't given much thought about food. Or ice. Or what people are going to drink. But wow do those mirrors shine!
We had a going away party last Sunday for some friends. And for once I think I got my priorities straight. I didn't clean one mirror, except of course the bathroom mirror, and the glass sliding door, and possibly some picture frames and I had to clean the microwave door. But other than that, glass surfaces were out of my mind and I only concentrated on the number of glasses and cups we would need.
After many parties at the house, I'm finally learning how this house flows with lots of people in it. Most everyone ends up in the kitchen, so I decided to create three food zones there - Pizza, Coffee & Tea, and Booze. These were Moldovan guests, so we got to put out our homemade alcohol concoctions with no fear of turned up noses. The Pizza Zone was a great idea, the boxes just got stacked up on the area around the stove and didn't take up precious buffet table space. For sure going to do that again.
There's another area of the yard that many of our guests congregate in, and I don't know why. Every big party we have there's a crowd in our garbage can area. I usually look over in horror to see people gathered around our garbage cans, sometimes using the Recycle bin as an ad hoc standing bar of sorts. This time I was ready. I made a line of chairs on the patio blocking off that area, only to see halfway into the evening that once again, there was a crowd over there. Some guys brought their barbeque and that's where they decided to set it up, right by the trash. Oh well, I'm not going to fight the lure of the garbage cans, it is strong.
It was iffy but the weather held. We had a fire inside and a bonfire outside, and for once I was relaxed enough to just let things flow. There was enough food without it being too much, the perfect amount of pizza and the children brought me flowers to add to the daffodils I picked from the yard. If I stick to the zones for the next few parties, I may just be relaxed enough to sit down and talk to our guests. Either that or go clean some mirrors.
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| The Utensil Zone. We ran out of forks. Let them eat from the Cake Zone with spoons! |
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| The Alcohol Zone. Helps hide the dirty mirrors. |
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| Party goals - no more Styrofoam cups. |
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| The Patio Zone that leads to the Garbage Zone. Maybe next time some police tape? |
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| Young Tony brought me these, it's a Moldovan party tradition. Sigh. |
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| Little Adela brought me the roses. Heart touched. |
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| The Morning After Chair Zone. |
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| The Basketball Zone. |
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| No, the hats were not because of the Alcohol Zone. It's just become a thing at the end of our parties for the last guests to take a silly hat photo. Until next time... |
