PAR-TAY down

Emphasis on the down.  My weekend did not go well.  My in-laws are leaving on a 2-year mission for our church and since they've lived in Charlotte for forever, I decided to throw a little going away party.  It was going to be fabulous.  They are going to Montana so I got a Montana state flag as a backdrop and made a cowboy-themed banner to go with it.  I decided to just do desserts so I read a bunch of facts about Montana and then coordinated those facts with a treat.  For example, there are a lot of bears in Montana so I had teddy grahams with a little card and fun fact attached to the teddy graham bowl; Swedish fish for the state fish; root beer because microbreweries are really popular there; rice crispy treats for all the cattle (they look like hay bales); and no back cookies as buffalo chips for the bison.  It was really cute.

I spent the week weeding my front and back yards; spent a day making no bake cookies (5 batches in all); spent Friday making hummus and 5 trays of rice crispy treats; cleaning my backyard, mopping, etc, etc.  It was a lot of work but I was excited because I'd gotten it all done without killing any children and it turned out really cute.

And then we waited, and waited, and waited.  Four families came.  Three of whom I'd asked to bring food because I was worried that my in-laws are so popular that I wouldn't have enough food.

I felt dumb.  Dumb that my in-laws had a mile long to-do list and they had to spend the evening waiting for people to show up and then make individual visits to people they wanted to say goodbye to who didn't show up.  Dumb that I'd spent so much time on this and no one showed up. Dumb that I'm not good at inviting people.  The next day I went to a baby shower and most of the people there hadn't heard about it.  I SENT YOU AN EMAIL A MONTH AGO.  Or maybe I didn't.   Some people claimed not to have gotten it; every one else got the date wrong or had some other excuse. 

Then I found out that Saturday my in-laws' ward (who I had invited) threw them a separate goodbye party.  They all claimed not to have heard about the one I threw, but why weren't we invited to theirs then?  Also, one of the couples at the second party, brought food to mine so...

I'm just really disappointed.  Party throwing is one of my hobbies.  And I feel like it's being taken away from me.  Greg's siblings have all the holidays divided among them, so I don't get to do any of that and then when a chance to throw a party does pop up nobody comes.  More than anything I feel a sense of loss at something I like to do, because it's not worth the time or effort if people aren't going to come.  

I did throw another "party" for my family tonight.  We had our back to school feast.  But it took nearly no planning so it wasn't any fun.  I guess it's the planning I like.  We had each of the kids' favorite foods (shrimp, hot dogs and mac n cheese with grapes and carrots)  with apple sauce cake for dessert.  But then the kids complained about the food and refused to eat anyway.  I just can't win.  I need to take up more selfish hobbies that only I can ruin for myself;  Partying depends too much on other people.  I'll get over it eventually. 

Montana open house

Back to School feast