The scary hostess

Tonight Joanne and her family are coming over for dinner. Partially because my back is still sore and partially because it is 101 out, I was not super motivated to do a lot of cooking today. I came up with a pretty simple summer dinner menu and everything has been ready to go since about 2 this afternoon. The ease of today got me thinking to how I use to prepare for guests. There is only one word for it - scary. I don't know why, but for the first 5-7 years of Pete and I's marriage, I became completely insane when people came over for dinner. The menu was planned out in extreme. There had to be 2-3 appetizers. Some huge hunk of meat, like a lamb roast or a prime rib. Of course the meat needed 3-4 sides to go with it as well as a homemade dessert worthy of a Martha Stewart magazine cover. ( I tried today to find a picture of this pumpkin cake I used to make each October - it's pretty insane.)
Well after all that planning, and cooking and of course cleaning, I rarely had a good time. Pete and I would fight in the hours (or sometimes days) leading up to the party. I would be exhusted when people arrived and after everyone left, Pete would swear we were NEVER having guests over again. I created so much pressure on Pete and I. It was ridulous.
The sad part was, that I really enjoy having people over. Having a meal at home is so much more relaxing and enjoyable than going out. With kids now in the mix, resturants are always a sad disaster and babysitters get expensive.
Sometime in the last 2 years, I finally realized that my friends don't want to come over to my house to have a four course meal of fancy food. They want to come over and hang out. They want to let the kids run wild in the backyard while we eat stinky cheese on crusty bread. (Because what is better than stinky cheese among friends!) What a relief this realization has been. The best part has been that we actually have friends over a lot more often then before and we go over to friends houses quite frequently as well. When you set the bar at prime rib and Martha Stewart cake - who wants to try to reciprocate!
So what are we eating tonight?
Chips with mango or tomato salsa (all from the store)
Dinner: Roast chicken, green salad (Joanne's bringing that), Orzo salad, and of course a loaf of bread with some stinky cheeses.
For dessert the kids are making us ice cream in our ice cream ball and I bought a pie.
Easy, easy, and I can't wait for the Heim's to arrive.

Adventures in Garage Sales part 2 - Should we call an ambulance?

Friday night I went to bed exhausted from a great first day of our garage sale. Although I was tired, I was excited about how much we had sold. I said to Pete, “I would feel that it was a successful sale, even if we didn’t sell one thing tomorrow.” Oh if only I knew what a prophet I was! Saturday morning, while I was trying to move a king size bed out of the garage, the frame came apart. I badly twisted my back. For an hour or so, I thought the pain would go away, but it only got worst. Two hours later, I couldn’t sit down, bend over or move my arms without horrible pain. Our wonderful friend Vanessa came to our rescue. She helped Pete pack up the sale and took the girls back to her house. Pete took me to the ER where we spent the next 6 hours. X-rays showed that nothing was broken, it was just a bad sprain. I was ordered to spend three days in bed and take three strong prescriptions for pain, swelling and muscle spasms.
While preparing for the garage sale, my time and thoughts were focused on all the worthless stuff that crowds our house. I kept thinking about the money I have wasted on toys, clothes and kitchen gadgets that go unused and are unappreciated. Because I am a hopelessly cerebral person, the piles of unwanted stuff made me start thinking about our family. Who are we? What do we value? I don’t think of us as being materialistic. I think of us as valuing our friends and family, not things that can be bought. I think of us as a family who stores treasures in heaven, not junk in the garage. But seeing all of our extra stuff piling up for the sale seemed to be evidence to the contrary.
But as I have watched friends come to our aid and Pete take such amazingly tender care of me the past few days, I’ve realized that we really are who I want us to be. We’re surrounded with amazingly generous friends who are willing to drop everything to help us. We’re part of a faith family who knows the power of prayer, and covers us with it. And most importantly, I’ve been freshly reminded of how truly incredible my husband is. He has juggled the roles of single dad, nurse, chef, chauffeur and Technical Product Manager (the job that actually pays him) beautifully.
I think that is the danger of having too much stuff. We get blinded by it. It absorbs our space, time, and energy. We start to think that all those things have value. We lose focus of the fact that it is indeed just stuff. So although this was not the ending I had pictured for my adventures in garage sales, it’s a perfect one for bringing my priorities back into focus.
** As for all the garage sale leftovers – they are going to Goodwill this weekend!

Adventures in garage sales part 1 – the good stuff

For the last few weeks I have been getting ready for a garage sale. It is just frightening to me to see the amount of stuff our family has amassed. I don't think of myself as a shopper. I really don't like shopping. But the amount of stuff we have must mean that I do shop (or maybe our stuff is breeding – that is very possible). As I sorted our belongings out I found enough Tupperware for 3-4 families, enough stuffed animals to open a toy store and enough Citrix (the company Pete works for) logoed shirts, backpacks and water bottles for an entire village. The bags and boxes of stuff just kept piling up. Books I'll never read again, clothes with the tags still on them, blah, blah, blah, just way too much stuff!

But as the saying goes, one man's junkola is another man's treasure.

After days of tedious sorting and pricing, Friday finally arrived. I love garage sale days. I love meeting and talking to complete strangers. I think it is so interesting to see what people buy and how much they offer for it. Friday's sale went great. We had crowds most of the day and sold so many things. Sarah and Emily sold donuts, juice and water. Emily was quite the forward saleswoman, walking around asking people if they wanted a donut. Sarah was mortified by her little sister's forwardness, but it paid off and they made $17. By the end of the day, I had made over $500! Who new my junk treasures could be worth so much?

Interested in having a garage sale? Here are my tips and links to two sites about having garage sales.

1. Make a lot of signs. I did bright yellow arrows that said "Garage Sale" leading to our house.
   
2. Post on Craigslist. I posted an advertisement on Craigslist, listing types of things we were selling, our address, and told people to follow the yellow arrows.
   
3. Keep the kids busy. Having the kids have their own sale really helped me keep them busy during the morning rush. They were very excited about making their own money.
   
4. Organize your items by category. Place all kitchen items on one table, baby things on another. You get the idea.
   

   Tips for having a sucessful garage sale or tag sale.
   10 tips to a wildly sucessful garage sale