We had some friends over last night who we hadn't seen for years. We decided during our holiday that we should make an effort to have friends over for dinner now that the kids are happy enough to sit in front of the television while we entertain.
It was a great idea earlier in the week - I was looking forward to using the nice dinner set where all the pieces matched, and I was keen to get stuck in to making some new fancy dishes too. I love cooking and putting on dinner parties is a real joy for me. But as Friday got closer, reality hit.
Work to do, the house to tidy, things to do for the kids... When was I going to cook a fancy dinner, let alone shop for it and make myself and the children look presentable for company?
So I turned to a magazine which offered me a 'Cheat's Dinner Party'. That sounded like what I needed! And I have to tell you, it delivered what it said it would. I managed to shop, prepare the dinner party and clean up the house, children and myself in 2 hours - not bad hey!
The food was delicious and only needed a few tweaks to feed 7 instead of the intended 4. My daughter and I even had time to pick some flowers from the garden and make the table look fancy.
This made me think of the other ways that we can make life simpler by 'cheating'. After all the dinner plan was just a set of instructions to follow. How often in life do we stress out about something, when if we sit down and list all the steps we have to follow, we can accomplish something without too much fuss?
So today, I've got about 5 things to do, some big and some small. But I think I'll just see them as a set of steps to get me to the couch tonight by about 6pm to enjoy some time with my family and a nice glass of wine. My kids might even learn from my good habits!
One thing I know for sure is that next time, I'm not going to worry about entertaining. I'm just going to invite people around and plan the food around what else needs to be done.
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