Fifteen Minute Friday

So today I had to come home from work. I was just to sick to try and make it through the day. I stayed in bed ALL day long....except for trips to the bathroom. The house is a wreck...I'm having company one week from today and my energy is GONE.  Isn't that the way it always seems.

It's time for a SUPER plan.

First and foremost, I have been staying up WAY to late...bed at 9:00 or 10:00 is a must!  I waste a lot of time later at night on the computer because it is hard to shut my brain down. I am more of a night person than a morning person but when you have to get up early you can't afford to miss even that one hour of sleep! It's time for a regular bedtime.!!!

Tomorrow it's time for a delegation plan....what hubby can do and what my daughter can do...laid out very plainly for the week ahead. Even if they don't get it perfect...I can add some last minute touch ups and it's better than starting from square one.

Also tomorrow if I feel better, it's time for lists and a food plan. What do I till need? What will I pick up last minute?


Sunday it will be time to plan the table setting, locate the items I need for that and have them stashed somewhere handy or Friday evening.

Last but not least...it's time to remind myself WHY I like entertaining and focus on the love of family and friends. That's always and energy boost!

My theme is You Put the Sun in my Sunflower.....so somewhere along the way I need that bouquet of sunflowers or the centerpiece!!  Wish me luck!  Hopefully I'll be back next week with some pictures of the dinner party.

Naughty or Nice Dinner Party

I thought I'd post about the Naughty or Nice dinner party we had for Kelsey's 23rd birthday on December 21st. These cute little birds (they are actually pens) made a fun centerpiece and worked great with the color scheme of red and green.

 

Kelsey received this "Go ahead and be naughty" wine glass as part of her gift from her sister, Katie. It was the perfect addition to the table.

 

 

The water glasses are red and green with attached straws!  By each place setting there is a bag of coal (for the naughty)  It was one of those red velvet bags that you find in stores around Christmas...It says in gold..."You've been naughty" and it has coal in it.  In addition there were goodie bags with a personal little naughty or nice tag marked by Santa himself.  Inside the bags were naughty and nice M and Ms (found at Dollar General), plastic beer tags that had fun sayings on them...like..."drama queen" and little bottles of Birthday Cake vodka and UV Blue. There were also a few assorted candies like Egg Nog etc.

I always enjoy creating a "theme" dinner party...and it's fun to hunt in the dollar stores for grewat items to use (for cheap!)

Ghoul Friends Dinner Party

We had a Ghoul Friends dinner party...and it was fun!  I made some little ghoul friends for party favors (see below). the color theme was black and purple. I used some purple charges some black plates and purple soup bowls!  Then I added some fun water goblets from the Dollar Tree store and some cool purple glitter skeletons and skulls!

I also found some Ghoul Friends hand sanitizer at Bath and Body works...so another fun little favor!  I love when a good theme comes together!

Oh I almost forgot....I added witches stockings to the table legs. I didn't have witches boots at the time but my daughter found some at a garage sale and when we had the Witch Hunt party a few weeks later...each table leg also had a witches boot on it....a lot of people liked this little touch! :)

September Dinner Party: Friends Color My Life

One of my personal goals right now is to spend more time entertaining. I have so many ideas I want to try:  recipes, tablescapes, decor, party themes. Yet the dishes sit in the cupboard and the ideas in my head. So my goal for now is to bring them to LIFE. 

Above is my "Friends Color My Life" fall dinner party table!  It's not fancy smancy but I like it!  I invited three friends and my two daughters, plus myself that makes six which is just the right number for a small dinner party!

I used the red chargers (which I also use at Christmas).  I used my fiesta colored plates (only the orange and yellow for fall color)  and I used some cute little soup pots I got recently!  They are in deep green, red, and orange. By mixing up the color scheme at each place setting it was a nice effect.  You can barely see the fall leaves glasses I used for water glasses and the tiny solar moving sunflower pots at each place.  The pots themselves were orange and red which went nicely with the colors.

You can see the place settings a little better in this shot but the flower is turned around because Cresia was letting it get some sun so it would start moving!  The flowers came from Dollar Tree and made cute little take home party favors!  The centerpiece a fall floral arrangement came for the resale shop for like 3 bucks!  I entertain on a BUDGET....so I can do it more often!!

I really like the way this little gathering turned out. Good friends and good food....oh wait...here's the menu!

Signature Drink:  Chocolate Martinis
Appetizer:  Zesty Cranberry cheese spread and crackers
First Course: Baked Potato Soup
Entree: Baked Italian Chicken Breast with stuffing and green beans
Dessert: Banana Parfaits

I must say a few years back I had this revelation that small dinner parties were "the way to go" when entertaining. I love my big parties (Halloween and Summer, and sort of Christmas Eve, although that's different) but for conversations and relaxing a smaller gathering is best!  I must say it played out that way. The evening was very relaxing and I acutally had the time to sit and talk and laugh with friends.

In October I might try a Ghoul Friends party...in fact yes...yes I will!

A Haunted Dinner Party

This year we moved the BooBash inside and hosted a Haunted Dinner party. Everyone was to come as something "dead" or spooky looking.  The tables were draped in black tablecoths and creepy cloths, skulls, bones, candles, spider webs etc.  Everyone was immediately seated by the evil "Mistress of Darkness" who called them names like "maggots" and "zombie scum".   There were candles everywhere but it was still pretty dark and there were scary sounds like screaming, growling, and bells tolling!

The menu

 

The picture is blurry but these are the menu selections. Things like Italian Horror and Grinch Fingers and Eye Pokers. The guests made their selections and recorded them on their dinner sheet:



In the kitchen each item was numbered so I needed to serve each plate according to what they had selected. I had two friends help me serve because with sixteen seated guests one person can not manage it! Imagine the guests surprise when they selected poorly! Some ended up with a napkin, two forks, two olives and a glass of water for their first course. After each course the table was cleared. BUT the little devils kept trying to hide their plasticware for the next course. If the Mistress of Darkness caught them she took away their chair and they had to stand for a bit!

I kept the portions really small for the served part of the meal but after course five the guests could help themselves to any and all food available and even get an extra fork!

This was a blast!  I did learn some things from it and I will share the tips with you here in case you want to try this party!

Tips:

• Make sure the food is in order 1-26 in your kitchen. I didn't think about this because some of the items were in crock pots etc. Even if you have to renumber the selections on the sheet for your guests I would set it up so you can just walk in a circle with items number 1-26.
• The original sheet had 25 items, I added Vampire Treat (red wine, Bloody Mary, or red grape juice) The menu also included water and tea. If doing it again, I would set up the table with a water glass and a wine glass (an additonal glass if you desire) and I would start everyone out with a small glass of water and one of the Vampire Treat choices. Then they would not get another drink until it came up on their choices sheet. Then I would just pour it into the glass on the table. A pitcher of tea, water, bloody marys and a wine bottle could be carried around to do this!
• Another option to consider would be making this a THREE course meal rather than five. You could still have all the food items but divide into three courses instead of five. The only caution about doing that is more people would end up with their plastic ware...so maybe cut down on how many forks etc are listed in the selection choices. Its fun to see people try to eat without their forks! lol. It did take a lot of back and forth trips to serve 16 people FIVE courses but if you have the energy it will work!!

This was one of my more successful parties but its not one you can repeat very often or with the same people because they will know what is coming. My brain is already swirling with ideas for next year.....maybe a murder mystery dinner party...hmmmmm.