We throw one party a week, about 6 a month. Friday nights, a group of 10-12 of us gather around my counter for five hours and laugh and share our weekly stories of kids, cooking and screw ups. My house is also the main gathering place for the Leslieville scotch society.
Note the background mess? I didn’t have time to light the candles on this night.
These Friday nights are our saving grace. So fun and social and better than any therapy they are.
After a week of nuts, and dinner and mess, the place usually looks like a bull went through. My bull being beautiful Ruby.
She is a whole other post.
Sometimes an hour before a party I look around and think What will they say when they see this chaos? My mother can’t believe I have people over when the house looks crazy. I could say No. I could take an hour to clean it. I could schedule our parties more than three hours in advance. Risking not having the party because my dishes have pulled up or there is some art craziness on the table would be a shame. So I just take a deep breath and crash clean for however long i have and allow the party to happen, have everyone come over and know they love me, hope they feel good about their clean houses (I like to think their houses are clean) and have a great party.
Friday night schedule:
6:15 finish dinner
6:16 pull Italian pop and lie on couch to digest
6:19 hope Matt cleans the kitchen
6:20 Arthur yells Spiderman games and steals Matt from my dreams
6:21 Ruby rolls by on her roller blades
6:32 clean the kitchen And see the rest of the house and think of the company that is coming
6:52 Ruby is in the fridge and spills Lily’s open can of Gingerale
7:15 watch Merlin with kids
8:00 Watch another Merlin with the kids
8:45 rush, teeth-a-brush, PJs, snuggle, look at clock, shit 22 minutes to pick up the front hall so people can step in
9:12 discuss the lizard’s future with Ruby and decide that I will not get around to rusting the dining room table for company, good thing we have party counter
9:24 laugh with Lily about another stupid( and inappropriate) Internet quote. Kiss goodnight.
9:27 spray cleaner on counter and scrub off the oatmeal/mouse poo/Cheerios/ice cream/ milk/sticky mango for the company. Grab pillows and blankets off the floor and stuff in ottoman on my way over the box of rockstar light to get candles for counter beside the computer which I awaken and get stuck picking music to start the night off”oh anything!”. Where are the matches!
These are my Friday nights. Mess. Kinda clean. Lots a fun. Mess.
Even ten adults make a big mess. Comparable to my children! All of these people are my family and there are worse jobs out there than to pick up after loved ones. This totally sounds like BS. It pisses me off actually. Again though. Fun=mess. What choice do I have if I want fun?
Ginette's Blog 