Hello Gentle Readers!!
I trust that all of you will have had a good weekend; I know we did. As usual, when a holiday comes along, we wonder how much of it we will be spending alone especially now with the youngest one recently married. So, we contacted the kids to see their plans. The oldest was heading to the lake house of one of her boyfriend’s friends and the youngest was spending time with her hubby ALONE for ALL weekend. So, that left us doing nothing with no one and figuring it would be another sucky holiday.
When the girls were younger and we lived close to hubby’s parents, every holiday was a party!! We’d buy all the holiday themed party goods, make a bunch of party foods, chips, dips, and things to cook on the grill (if it was summer). We’d spend the day together joking and laughing, grilling and cooking – just having a really fun time. Cue the music to move us back from NY to MI and all of that changed.
Suddenly the girls had places to go and people to see – other than us. Holidays like Memorial day, Labor day and the 4th of July became days where we were just alone; just another day. I decided this year to put an end to that. When I found out the kids’ plans for the 4th I set about finding friends that would be in town and who wouldn’t mind a couple of extra people.
This is how we came to spend the 4th with some of my oldest friends at their house eating bbq ribs and numerous salads all prepared by their father and drinking ice tea till we thought our bellies would burst. And after all that food, including corn on the cob and watermelon, we pulled out what we had brought for dessert; two cartons of Breyer’s vanilla ice cream, brownies, chocolate raspberry, hot fudge, strawberry and salted caramel toppings as well as my extra marshmellowy rice krispy treats. Needless to say, we ate so well at their house that we didn’t need to eat again till the next day.
On the 5th of July we had been invited to spend sometime and have dinner at the home of our older daughter’s Godmother. Almost her whole family was there, so there were plenty of adults and children to interact with. We had a hearty roast chicken dinner with all the fixings, followed a couple hours later by strawberry shortcake made with an angel food “loaf” cake and plenty of strawberries. In between dinner and dessert the kids, daughters and all the husbands played games while my friend set me down for a crochet lesson. (more on that in future posts).
So, instead of this weekend being full of too much alone time while others’ partied around us it was, instead, filled with lots of fun, food and people who truly wanted us to be with them. I will be looking for another party or two to wrangle an invite to for Labor day weekend – who knows, by then maybe we will be in a position to have people over here for a change.
Hope all of you had people to see or places to go to so that you weren’t just sitting on the sidelines twiddling your thumbs and stabbing at the remote control.