Sometimes dinner explodes
Some nights, especially these deliciously long summer nights, are just made for a spontaneous dinner party. And some nights, while I am spinning away at the YMCA, my sweet husband makes plans with one friend that suddenly turn into plans with 6. So it goes, I guess.
At one point in my life (well, at many many many points over the last few years), I must admit to being frustrated with the tendency of our particular friend group to "explode" ... as in you invite one, you invite ten. At least. For New Years' Eve this year, we fit 17 people in our little living room. 17! 17. And yours truly baked enchiladas for them all.
So tonight we exploded, as we are apt to do, and it was, as it is almost always apt to turn out, delightful.
And my silly little head thought, "oh! what about so-and-so, and so-and-so, and so-and-so," who weren't part of the group that gathered in our dining room this evening. But there's something about a spontaneous dinner party on a Tuesday night that settles and stresses me ... 6 was enough, and though I would always love to have 10, or 17, tonight it just wasn't in the cards.
As it was, we didn't eat until after 8:00. Falling asleep over dirty dishes we said good-bye to the last and my sweet little husband scurried to the kitchen to clean (one of my favorite things about him!), and now I am left with heavy eyelids and a happy heart to reflect on these nights that I love.
I love having a sister-in-law who shows up willing to work. I love having a brother-in-law who shows up with a sarcastic smile and a bag of 60 (yes, 60!) corn tortillas (because the aforementioned sweet husband asked him to pick up a "bigger bag"). I love having friends who spend 30 minutes wandering around a Wal-Mart with half-empty shelves and overcrowded checkout lines to find apparently elusive tortilla chips. And I love being able to, on an hour's notice, make a dinner that demands seconds ... thirds ... fourths for the guys. I love the laughter, the jokes, the slips of serious conversation, and the nights like this that we have had and will have a thousand times.
(I have this awesome new app - Hipstamatic - for my phone that takes pictures like an old polaroid or instant camera from the 70s. I love it! So this is us eating tostadas, the least graceful ... but most funny ... of foods to eat.)
Such a happy, happy night. It is so sweet to live here in Nashville, with so many friends around every corner. As we start to think about next steps and graduate schools and growing up and moving on, it is refreshing to have a night with some of our nearest-and-dearest, who have framed our story for the last several years and who we pray will continue to be a part of it for years to come. And it is even sweeter to think of the dozen others who could have shared this meal with us tonight and know how blessed we really are.
And now, to bed. And to think I almost blogged tonight about switching Puff over to natural cat food after an unfortunate incident this weekend when Price bought and fed her dog food. I think it was God's way of telling us that we needed to switch to better food ... hooray! Now Puff eats very, very well. No by-products for this hipsta cat! (Because what our pets eat matters too!) But I'll spare you that post, and you can ask me if you really want to know.
Hipsta-matic Puff:
