I pooped out on blogging as we got closer Christmas. Our card making party, planned way before pancreas trouble and chest colds, never happened, but. . . drumroll. . . we DID host a small dinner party last Saturday night and this time I made everything but the pies myself--and I wasn't a screaming maniac beforehand!

I admit that I was house cleaning up to the last minute, but I surprised myself by not fretting over my cooking skills--nor did I start rearranging furniture after guests arrived (my special way of making people feel comfortable).

People stuck around for six hours and then children started turning into pumpkins.

I got my recipe for stew via this post over at Suburban Bliss.

I'm ready to have people over again. It's amazing how good it feels to have spiffed up our first floor. We're more relaxed. Each room feels more comfortable.

Oh--and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were lovely.

Finally, a last post dealing with our October dinner party.

The last thing I did was to paint the living room--almost. Look above the windows and behind the table: Hello Red!

Three coats is what the room demanded. A day before the party, I hung up my paint brush and called it good enough. I had plenty of other things to do!! (Remember that I had already painted the dining room three times!)



Gone are the days when I painted rooms in deep colors. I could pull that off in perpetually sunny Denver, but in Des Moines, I crave more LIGHT! I never got to the trim color, but I was happy enough to lighten the walls and start playing with vignettes, below.



I am shooting for the neutral color scheme of my sister's living room, seen here, behind the dancing sisters.

I am pleased with the look thusfar, and so it is only natural that I would volunteer to host a dinner group from church in January (yes, indeed!), which should compel me to get to the trim and actually hang the window coverings that are waiting patiently in a closet. . .

Spent the day yesterday working on the yard and roasting about 10 pounds of tomatoes that our neighbors gave us. I've never roasted tomatoes, but golly, it was easy and made the house smell wonderful!



I'm going to continue with the yard today, weather permitting, so that I can feel free to jump into the kitchen on Monday. The rooms on the first floor are at the top of my list for finishing "moving in" to our house.

As an added incentive to keep going, we made plans with some friends to host a dinner party in October. Lord, help me.