Aaahhh, Alone at Last...

Today is Mother's Day and I am beginning my celebration by skipping church and staying home alone. This was not a planned event--I had every intention of going to church with my family, but when Eric showed up in our bed at 2:00 a.m. (again), this time with a football helmet, my sleep suddenly became disrupted. So when 7:30 rolled around and I realized that I was quite late, I made an executive decision to send the rest of them to church while I took the morning off.

This is a rare event, to be completely alone in the house. Whenever this happens, I often don't know what to do. Sometimes Mike will take the kids out so I can get something specific done, but on the rare occasions when I suddenly find myself alone, I don't quite know where to begin. And since it is Mother's Day, I refuse to spend my precious Alone-Time cleaning up after last night's dinner party, especially since I spent much of yesterday preparing for said dinner party.

We have been involved in our dinner group for about 9 years and the other 3 couples are some of our dearest friends. We rotate houses and generally potluck it, but for me hosting dinner group tends to be a stressful event. Perhaps the fact that it's one of those rare times when I CLEAN my house adds to the stress. I do clean regularly--don't be too scared of my house. I do clean. But when I'm about to host a dinner party I feel compelled to dust my baseboards, give the dining room a good once-over, sort through the mail on the kitchen counter, that kind of thing. And this is on top of the standard cleaning such as the bathrooms, putting laundry away... and I had a dinner to cook. Since cooking is not my favorite thing, that adds to the stress.
Don't get me wrong--I love hosting my dinner group and finding fun recipes to share. I'm actually a decent cook and I enjoy preparing a meal that I know my friends will love. But hosting any kind of a party (i.e. a Harry Potter birthday party...) stresses me out, so by 4:00 I was exhausted from my day.

We did have a lovely time. Leah, Michelle, Heidi, and I took a garden tour while Dave, Andy, Gordon, and Mike (along with Ryan and Eric) sat in the kitchen talking about who knows what. Mike and I put the boys to bed and we all sat down to chicken lettuce wraps, jasmine rice, and a pan pacific shrimp pasta salad. And for dessert we had ice cream sundaes, which were even a bigger hit than I anticipated! The girls all admired Cinderella and Gordon and I talked at length about about the perfect cylcing hat that I am going to knit him (much to everyone's amusement!)

And so now I am tired and lazy and just counting the hours until I go for my Mother's Day pedicure. I'll probably come home and watch some tv with the boys while snuggling with them on the couch. And I vow not to say a word about the current state of my house so that we can all have a Happy Mother's Day!