Women's Dinner Party

I started out inviting women to a dinner party. I had a week to prepare, okay 5 days. I am such a procrastinator that making the decision on what to have took until the night before. Even then I changed my mind three times. I wasn’t sure how many of the women I invited would show up, but at last count it was between 8 and 12. My next thoughts were where I am going to sit them. I have a downstairs den with a table that can sit 6 comfortably. No problem, I’ll fit 8 there and we’ll be “cozy”. If I have more than that, I’ll just set up a card table and call them the kids. You know when you use to go to your grandmothers for thanksgiving and you had to sit at the kids table in the living room. I am so thankful that I did not have to make that decision since I knew by noon that 7 were coming. Thank you Lord for making it cozy.

Okay so now I have to get off work and go to the store. This all started at 12:30. Dinner party at 7:00. This can be done, I mean come on “Martha” does it all the time in one hour, right? Off to the store. I have my cookbook with me and continue to refer to it for ingredients. Did you know you can’t always get what you want when you walk into Kroger? I was sure that they would have everything in my cookbook ingredient list. But nooooooooooo, they don’t have watercrest. Well if I’d know this I could have pulled some from the creek last week. Okay no problem we’ll go with spinach.

Shopping done. I had the foresight to order flowers two days before, so off I go to pick them up at the florist. I get there and the door is locked. No, no, no! I proceed around back to beat on their back door. No one comes. I see two young people come from the front. My first thoughts, they have robbed the store and the people are inside tied up. I wonder if I can still get to my arrangement. They weren’t tied up and the door mysteriously was no longer locked. I got my arrangement.

Home! Unload! What to cook first? Again I think to Martha and decide to prepare my table first. Beautiful! Dessert, it takes two hours to set up, so get her done! No problem. I’m doing good, I’m even cleaning up as I’m going. Then things begin to get chaotic. It is 5:45 and I am just finishing the salad and homemade dressing (so Martha like). The next thing I know I’m actually throwing things in the kitchen. I have a small kitchen and when you are preparing for 8, it gets messy! No longer am I concerned with cleaning up as I go. I just want to go! Guests begin to arrive and I’m not finished cooking. Not a problem they jump in and help. My kitchen looked like a tornado went through.

What do you get when you put 8 women in a room together for dinner? Lots of laughs and friendship. I enjoyed talking and laughing and forgetting about everything else for awhile. I have wonderful friends that pitched in to help and I am grateful to all who supported my attempts at being Martha like. It was a very good meal and even if it wasn’t just like “Martha” would do, it was well worth the effort. I just hope the next time I have a dinner party I will have room enough to invite three times as many women, for three times the laughs.