I’ll start by saying I had a wonderful and hilarious post completely finished when Wordpress screwed me over and deleted it forever. Now I am rushing to rewrite everything with the same humor and detail in the 6 minutes I have before Mohawk wakes up. I hate you Wordpress, go eff yourself.

I am not an entertainer. Every time we move I find myself uttering the words, “oh this is a great space to entertain.” Why?! I have no idea. I am never going to throw a party. I like small gatherings 3-5 people. I can cook a really nice meal, get a few bottles of really nice wine... I love cooking lunch for friends. I just think small, I suppose. So I’m not entirely sure what enticed me to throw a “yay we aren’t homeless/surprise The Captain birthday” party. But alas, we did it and I’m pretty sure it was a success.

The Food. Let me start by saying I am not a meat eater. Like, I’m the opposite of a meat eater. Now I’m not an ethical vegan or at least I didn’t start out that way, so I don’t refuse meat in my house or berate a waiter if my falafel is fried in the same oil as something meaty... I’d rather not have my food in contact with meat, but I try to remain reasonable. I would rather take the hit and leave someone with a positive memory of a vegan than some cray person who made them feel like crap. I like to keep an open dialogue about the way I eat. Anywho, I’ve lingered too long here. You get it. Well, I decided on a taco party and scoured Pinterest for the easiest taco recipes and moseyed over to the grocery store. I sailed through the veggies, beans, salsa. I didn’t even bat an eyelash at the cheese and sour cream. But then... The meat counter. Oh. MY. VOM. Beef!? Yikes. I literally haven’t purchased raw beef in over 13 years... I was pacing back and forth for at least 15 minutes. I googled “does brisket have another name?” I had to finally ask a stranger to help me find brisket. He looked at me like I asked him to help me find Narnia. He did, however, eventually point me to a brisket. A 7+ pound brisket. Ew. I tossed it in my cart wrapped in plastic away from anything I would be eating... I moved on to the chicken, which wasn’t as foreign, I ate chicken up until about 6 years ago... I quickly eyed what I wanted and picked it up only to find it was covered in chicken juice. CHICKEN JUICE ALL OVER MY HANDS. I started looking around desperately for a paper towel or hand soap, then I started dancing about like I was going to pee myself. I eventually calmed down and double bagged that shit like a boss. As I was walking away I heard a women say to me, “chicken is so gross, isn’t it?” as she hauled a few cartons into her cart. You have no idea lady. NO. IDEA. Now luckily The Captain put the meat in the crock pot for me and shredded it, so all I had to do was fill the crockpots with veggies, veggie stock, and whatever else they called for that was veggie friendly. Everyone said the food was amazing and I am inclined to believe them because it was almost entirely gone at the end of the night. I made this chicken, this beef, this rice, and this bean recipe as my staple items!

The Booze. Since I had requested that people surprise The Captain with a boozy delight and an entertaining note, I knew we weren’t going to need as much liquor, so we opted to keep our drink list small yet plentiful. We made this delicious sangria via my food spirt animal the Minimalist Baker. We had Mexican beer, Mexican coke, and bottled water all in galvanized tubs along with cups of sliced limes. I would have photos, but all of our guests were ridiculously on time and I was barely able to snap shots of the food before it was destroyed.

The Fun. We rented a few lawn games which everyone seemed to enjoy! We have a huge yard so it was perfect! Oh and the piñata... that’s right I bought a monster truck piñata and filled it with mini bottles of booze... because I love my husband and this is ‘merica where you can do whatever the hell you want!! We also had a cake. An ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins!?!? Who the hell am I!?!?

The Drunks. Well the party started at 4, people were pleasantly buzzed and The Captain had completely succumbed to the dark side around or before 8:30. I was surprised to find the next day that even the “pleasantly buzzed” were actually closer to the black out/vom the night away drunk than I had thought. They just hide it better than old man river, I suppose. I think it was an exciting evening, even sober people were locking themselves in our guest bathroom. Par-TAY!!!! We put The Captain down for bed around 9 and people started filing out around 10, I had the intention of kicking everyone out around 10:30. What?! I was gonna be up by 6 the next morning. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

The Hostest with the Mostest. I will say, it’s not easy to entertain for a large number of people. Cooking, cleaning, introducing, and trying to make sure everyone is enjoying themselves is hard!!! I didn’t have one drink all night long, but I really did have fun. It’s absolutely exhausting, but so gratifying to see people talking and laughing and having a good time!!! I finished all the dishes and cleaning before 11 and I definitely ate 4 or more gluten free/vegan chocolate chip cookies, in bed, while looking back at photos of the party. And I’m happy to report that Mohawk went down around 7 around stayed asleep through drunkards slamming the bathroom door, yelling over FaceTime, and Mariachi music blasting. That’s my boy. But I think we will pass on that massive first birthday party... Momma’s partied out.