missroserose | Post-housecooling-party analysis

Roughly three of four pizzas and one of two plates of hummus eaten
Half of beer drunk, other half taken away
Two-thirds of leftover stuff now gone
Quality time spent with eight friends, old and new
A surprisingly large amount of cash in the donation bowl at the end of it all

Yeah, I think I'm going to call this whole shindig a pretty resounding success. I would've liked a few more people to show up and take things away, but the ones who came by did a pretty darn good job on their own, and I don't think I could've asked for a livelier group of people to spend several hours with.

Many, many thanks go to Donna-doll for showing up at 10 AM and helping not only clean the living room and organize/set out everything that was going, but also cleaning out the cupboards as she emptied them and buying the pizza.

Laura, the lady who bought my car, came by for a while and had a great time - she fit right in with all our crazy friends. She was very sweet - when we were telling her about some of our culinary adventures, she was going "Wow, why'd I have to meet you guys now?" Hopefully she'll come visit us in Arizona sometime so we can cook for her. Plus she's my shoe size too, so between her and Donna I managed to find homes for almost all of my nice shoes.

I think my favorite moment was towards the end when Chris picked up the donation bowl and went "Okay, so you guys are getting rid of this, right? 'Cause I'll take it off your hands as a favor if you want," and Brian and I laughed and laughed...both because it was funny, and because Brian had predicted Chris would do exactly that at some point during the night.

Jeanne was there too, with Anderson, now six weeks old and still one of the most remarkably adorable babies I've seen. I have to admit, even though it wasn't much of a stretch picturing Jeanne as a mother, it's still wonderful to see how happy she is. I know it's something she's wanted for a while. Anderson doesn't have much personality as of yet, but I'm sure he'll grow into it soon, especially with such loving parents.

Robert, a friend of Donna's and reader of this blog through Facebook (*waves at Robert*) came as well and brought his lovely wife Olga. I was amused at how amazed he seemed that we were just giving all this stuff away, and weren't depressed or sorry about it - I guess he forms stronger attachments to things than we do. Fortunately he didn't let his amazement get in the way of taking lots of stuff, and we got the benefit of some great conversation from both of them besides. And they, along with everyone else, rocked out to AC/DC's "Big Balls", which was awesome.

Monica came, of course, although she was mostly just her usual cheerful unobtrusive self. She didn't seem to mind my showing people the picture of her Halloween costume (as various parts of it were scattered about to find homes), which provided for quite a bit of amusement. And she got to play dress-up with my clothes, although how that's really all that different from any number of times she's come over I'm not certain, aside from the size of the audience.

I swear, good friends are what makes the difference between life being "decent" and "great". I know some introverted people who would disagree with me, but I think there's a distinction there - a good friend knows when to leave you alone and when they need to be there for you. We've been blessed with a surfeit of wonderful friends of that nature, and I'm grateful for each and every one of them.