Busy winter/Baby shower

January and February have proven to be much busier for me this year than in years past. Not only has my workload at work increased a great deal, but I've bought a new Prius (and had to deal with the brake recall problem...but am really enjoying the car now - many thanks go to my daughter and son-in-law for helping me with everything car-related), planned a baby shower, and I've been on lots of outings with friends and family (most recently a Celtic Woman concert at the DPAC, which was my first time there). After all this excitement, I had the most restful nap/sleep this evening that I've had in a long time; that's why I'm able to be up so late tonight writing this.

Even though I was exhausted from it last weekend and am just recovering this week, I have to say that I had a lot of fun planning the baby shower. I made several trips to the Party Store and grocery store, and enjoyed shopping for invitations, decorations, party favors and baby gifts and also shopping online for a special gift for the Daddy-to-be. It's been so long since I've had a group of people over to the house, it seemed like quite an undertaking. I made long lists and went back and forth in my mind over the details, like what kind of food and drink to have and whether I would make it myself or order it from various places. I ended up doing a bit of both. There was a lot of food left over (especially the 7 layer salad from K&W and the hot cider in the crock pot, which I think were barely touched), but I'd rather have had too much to eat and drink than not enough. The punch had an unexpected brown muddy look which was not at all appetizing, but it had orange sherbet on top, and several people said it tasted really good. I think I need a lot more practice to pull off a "perfect party"!

Things became difficult to plan because the number of guests kept changing and we didn't know if there would be children attending or not. The shower location was also an issue, and when it was decided that it would be held here at home, I had a lot of cleaning and de-cluttering to do to make the house presentable...then after all that, we ended up outside on the back deck (which was lovely since it was fairly warm and sunny after being so cold lately) -- but also ironic in that it was about the only place I decided to leave messy, figuring that it would be cold, and we'd need to be inside! I was glad to have good neighbors and friends who swept up the leaves, contributed quiches and chairs to the event, and it was wonderful to see out-of-town guests make the trip.

All in all, though, I think everyone had a good time, even though the icing on my cake dripped, I didn't have time to make the cucumber sandwiches, and I spent a lot of time making an elaborate chicken salad (from a Barefoot Contessa recipe) that I ended up not liking at all because of the fresh tarragon that gave it a strange flavor (but some other people apparently liked it). I was also a bit groggy-headed from staying up late cooking and decorating the night before, and so after a couple of people had already left, a friend reminded me to hand out the goodie bags that I had spent so much time shopping for and filling up! Everyone was certainly extremely generous with baby gifts and good wishes which was all really heartwarming. It was also great that the "Mom-of-Honor" was well enough to attend - It would have been a big disappointment for all concerned if we would have had to cancel due to illness.

Baby K certainly has a lot of family and friends eagerly and happily awaiting her arrival, and the fact that I will soon be a grandmother to a sweet baby girl is finally sinking in. What a great adventure! : )