Tea Shower

I have now had three showers. The third was held yesterday by McPal and his fiance on a humid Sunday afternoon and it was the sort of day that makes you love life.

Now, these two are the sorts of people who embody all that is home and garden goodness. To that end, they held a tea party with sandwich squares: cucumber and smoked salmon, plus tuna melts. Then homemade scones with homemade cream and raspberry confit. Then petit fours and this ohmygoditssogood chocolate covered peanut butter cheesecake ball. From scratch.

They had helium balloons, white flower arrangements and we drank tea out of this charming china set on their patio, which had been decorated with white bunting.

I didn't realize they'd go to all this trouble and was even more floored to discover a group of them had gone in on a Kitchen-Aid mixer. Yeah. My friends are generous and incredibly kind people. Out of all the things I didn't see coming, that was somewhere at the top of a list I couldn't have conceived. I also received these lovely whisky glasses and chilling stones. Did you know those existed? I didn't! They're so neat!

I feel loved. Seeing my friends take pleasure in making me happy gave me a really wonderful feeling.

I held back telling the Dude about the Kitchen-Aid, wanting him to see it for himself. He was stunned. He took it inside, came back out, and snapped out of his shock enough to splutter a thank you. He was pretty touched.

And now that we're less than three months to go, things are really starting to move. There's still quite a number of things to be done, which is incredible to me considering how much I did in advance. And I'm pretty grateful I did them in advance now because although it's busier for me now, I can still take a moment to breathe and relax.

Not tonight, though. Tonight we're doing the property management thing, renting a Zipcar, and buying some vinyl flooring to replace the nasty carpet going down the stairs. Home project ahoy!