have people over more

I’m finally inviting my book group over again. Last year this got postponed because one member of our group was on crutches. This year, if I counted right and everyone comes, there’ll be 14 guests for the evening. That’s the biggest group I’ve had over in a long time. I decided to use a different goal: Have more people over. They’re supposed to be come over the first Sunday of May. I may make that a challenge goal.

In the meantime, to keep my goal list more manageable, I think I’ll mark this one as “Done” for now.

What a GREAT time we had! Was going to celebrate Christmas with our married daughter and her husband yesterday, since they were with his family in NY for Christmas. Sick of turkey, I was almost ready to put the roaster pan full of ribs into the oven, when she called to let us know he was sick with the flu. We had enough ribs thawed for 8 people and just my husband, and son and I at home. So we did the when-life-hands-you-lemons-make-lemonade thing, and called several couples from our church whom we’ve known for years but seldom had over. They loved the meal, and we sat around talking at the table for probably an hour and a half, then played a new game I got with my Christmas money called Apples to Apples. Lots of sharing, lots of laughter, and great memories were made. Why don’t I do this more often? (The answer is…my house is usually out of control, and I’m too tired!) Got to make sure I keep up with maintaining order so we can do something spontaneous like this much more often. BTW, I cleaned up immediately after—even the pots and pans etc. Right after they left, I did them right away, wanting to maintain order, and to be able to get up to order….but that’s ANOTHER of my 43 things!

Early in our marriage (33 years ago!) my husband and I had friends over often. In fact, for a while, we prepared to have friends over on Sunday afternoons after church, and went to church not having any idea who it would be. It was spontaneous and fun, and we got to know a lot of people that way. After children started coming, and I became less organized (and more often tired!)it became less and less often until it has now become a huge event if we have friends over a couple times a year. We’re both “people” people! This isn’t right! The last of our four children is 17, and the time has come to make a change here!

My last houseguest moved out about a week ago, and now I’ve got a new one. Not sure exactly how long she’ll be here.

...and will be staying for awhile. My house is really not ready, but at least the room where she’s staying is in good shape.

I have been backsliding lately on my housekeeping. Maybe my friend can help motivate me while she’s here. I hope so.

A friend is planning to move in with another family member, but there is some remodeling in progress there, so she has asked to stay here with me temporarily. She’s stopping by today to talk about it.

My brother and sister-in-law have asked if they can come here for a visit in two weeks.

I’ve been doing a lot of home improvements and there’s been mess from that and mess from all the wedding stuff from our wedding 6 months ago, and mess from not having time to do anything and it’s just been a mess. Now most of the home improvements are finished and the house is ALMOST clean and I’d love to have people over to hang out and to have dinner parties, etc… Hopefully I’ll be able to balance things enough to keep the place clean enough for people to come over pretty often now. We’ll see. Kicking it all off with a family dinner at my place for Easter.

Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome.

So, maybe some extra motivation in getting my household CHAOS under control would be to set a goal of inviting friends over occassionally.