Housewarming Party Prep — An Exercise in Making Myself Crazy

So first things first, for those of you who know me, I'm a little bit of a perfectionist. So as one might imagine, the thought of having a few dozen folks over on a Saturday afternoon for a housewarming is enough to send me into a cleaning and staging frenzy. Yes, I said staging. Like when you're selling a house. Because I am a crazy person. Just a word of warning to those of you showing up tomorrow...yes, the whole place looks awesome if I do say so myself, but open an overstuffed closet or basement door at your own peril. The rest of the stuff had to go somewhere.


Speaking of stuff that I hid away — a little because we had people over last night and a little because I couldn't deal with it for another minute — the first thing to get shoved behind a door was the grill. As you may know from my previous post, the grandiose plan to move my Dad's old grill down here ended in heartache and a few spider bites. After living outside covered in a plastic tarp and grass clippings for a few seasons, the gas line of said grill had rotted away to naught. In knowing nothing about grills, we just opted to not blow ourselves up and bought an after-season, super-on-sale Lowes number on Tuesday night with big plans to put it together, along with a bench that I got for a ridiculously good price on Overstock.com.







Nicole and I had a few of those screwdrivers I mentioned (both beverages and tools), so the bench got finished, but the grill did not. By any stretch of the imagination. As soon as the directions started having 10 mini-steps per step and mentioning venturi clips and other gobbledygook, we got all flipped out and gave up for the evening. Probably a decent call since it was already almost 1145 on a weeknight and putting together items that can cause injury if not constructed correctly whilst filled with a decent amount of Grey Goose is probably a job left to the professionals.





So Wednesday I returned to said grill. I approached it with caution. I spoke in a soothing voice in the hopes of alleviating it's anger. I tackled it onto it's back with it's hind legs flailing and slapped together the firebox. All was well until I tried to hook in the ignitor wire, only to find that it didn't fit correctly. After about 20 minutes of staring at the pictures, cursing, and speaking with Charbroil representative Chenelle, we deduced that the piece was broken. Missing a plastic tip. So 7-10 days for delivery? Sure. Except for that whole party on Saturday bidness. So manual lighting (slash eyebrow singeing) it is.



After about ten more minutes of grill wrassling, I gave up, shoved it behind the door to the basement and turned on reruns of Ghost Whisperer. Alex discovered my defeat when he tried to carry extra boxes to the basement and almost died tripping over the pieces shoved haphazardly around. "Be careful going down the....nevermindddddd."


To add a little more flavor to my getting ready for the party fun, my cousin Kelly was in town last night. Putting grill woes aside for a moment, I rocked a little vaccuuming, grocery shopping, and throwing together a homecooked meal for 7 and a half on a Thursday night. Shrimp Vermicelli, beans and greens, crackers, spreads, wine, spaghetti escaping the collander into the sink, house tours, baby creeping, mention of debauchery in California, good conversation, and a whole lotta leftovers. Not bad for a Thursday night.


So after a weeks worth of cleaning, buying, building, dozens of lists, RSVP counting etc, plus our impromptu dinner party and an ongoing allergy cold thing, I am pretty much destroyed.





Luckily for me, I have a handsome husband with a plan and a few vacation days to spare. Today while I was working away down in Smyrna, my other half will be doing all the errands I had planned to tackle tonight after work — a list that fills me with dread and anguish. So this morning, when he sent me this:





With the message, "Grill...done," I literally was holding back tears because the thought of having to try to determine which freaking part goes where was enough to make me cringe. I'm thrilled because I now have the overly clean, overly prepped house all to myself while Alex is off gaming, can watch bad tv, take a bath, and be well rested for the fun tomorrow.


House photos, party photos, and more to follow shortly!