Best Weekend of the Year?

I hope that title isn't true, but it might be.  Maybe the rest of 2012 will all be downhill now.  Haha, if that's the case, so be it.  The weekend was awesome.

I managed to get a better headcount by going ahead and calling a couple people who hadn't emailed me.  As of mid-afternoon, we were at 14 with 2 no responses, and then by early evening, down to 12 plus the 2 non responses because one woman who'd confirmed was sick.  We realized there was no way we could get 12 adults comfortably around our dining room table, so we had to bring up the kitchen table from the garage and put both leaves in both tables. 

That left us with the dilemma of how to set up the two tables -- I really wanted one long table, but didn't know how that would fit, so I assumed we'd have to have a "kids' table" in the living room.  Ugh.  I really didn't want to split up the group. 

We decided to rearrange our entire living room.  Did I mention that my family believes in the 12 days of Christmas, so our tree stays up through Epiphany?  That meant the second floor was already pretty crowded.  We moved a couch up against the wall (usually the couch is in the middle of the room, splitting it into two rooms essentially).  That let us basically have one long table running almost the length of the room.  We had to angle it a little but there was still enough room to walk around it.

The biggest disaster occurred at about 6:20.  I'd told people to come at 6:30 and hubby and I were WAY behind schedule.  We'd basically set the table and done all the prep chopping, but we were in the process of assembling the eggplant parmesan and the lasagna.

Hubby added mozzarella to the eggplant as I was dividing up the lasagna noodles and toppings.  I put the first layer in the dish and went to the fridge to get the rest of the mozzarella and ... surprise! ... no mozzarella!  I knew for a fact I'd put 1.5 pounds of mozz on the grocery list, and .5 pounds parm, but somehow hubby wasn't paying much attention and reversed the cheeses. 

I wanted to scream!  A bad day to have skipped yoga I guess!  I seriously thought I was going to lose my $hit.  I've told him that grocery shopping needs 100% accuracy when he does it the week of a dinner party.  So 10 minutes before guests were due to arrive, all cooking came to a halt while he went back to the store. 

I was really frustrated.  I think I've mentioned this before.  I have this fantasy about having a dinner party.  I make something like lasagna early in the afternoon, and get the table set, and get everything else set up.  The dishwasher is empty except for maybe one cutting board or something, and the sink is empty too.  I'm sitting on the couch drinking a glass of wine, and we're listening to music and chatting when the doorbell rings as the first guest arrives.  Well, no fantasy coming true Friday night.

The doorbell rang, there was a lasagna with only the very bottom level assembled.  I hadn't set up any appetizer, we didn't have drinks ready, the kitchen was a disaster -- full dishwasher that I'd just started to run, full sink with all that didn't fit in the dishwasher.  Stress!  But like I said, all good friends, so I was a bit less concerned than I usually might be about wanting everything to be perfect. 

Hubby eventually got back from the grocery store.  He was still in his sweats so he basically yelled upstairs hello to everyone, threw the cheese up the stairs at me, and changed clothes while I got back to work on the lasagna. 

But after that, it all came together.  People showed up, mingled, seemed to like our house.  Dinner was great -- everyone seemed to like the two entrees except one person who might not have liked the lasagna.  When we were scraping plates at the end of the night to load the dishwasher, I was so surprised to see the one bit of lasanga that hadn't really been eaten.  We took up plates for everyone at the table and just passed them around b/c the pans were too hot.  So everyone had a roughly equal size of eggplant parm and lasagna.  Usually out of 14 people, I'd assume at least 3 or 4 wouldn't have liked one of the two things.  But no, just the one bit of lasagna remained, which I took as a good sign. 

We had dessert and coffee and people stayed well past midnight.  Then we spent about 30 minutes unloading and reloading the dishwasher, then we decided to leave the rest for the next day.

Continuing our awesome weekend on Saturday morning, we got up to run a 10k.  We were both exhausted, but you gotta do what you gotta do!  It was my first race wearing my weight vest.  Hubby didn't end up finishing because he had an upset stomach.  My race went much better than planned.  My bestie ran with me to keep me company and that alone made it a lot of fun.  Lots of people were asking about the vest, and I ended up being very happy with our overall pace.  I felt pretty good the whole time.  Though when I finally took off the vest and went to get a cup of water, I felt like jumping and dancing, I suddenly felt so light! 

The race had more logistical difficulties than perhaps any race I've ever done (they were trying a new timing system and short-staffed, leading to a double collossal fail), but it didn't bother me too much since I wasn't planning to get any PR anyway with the extra 35 pound vest. 

But the late race start meant we had to hurry home afterward for a quick shower, then we went with our neighbors and two other very good friends and all 3 of the kids to the local Italian club for an Epiphany celebration for the kids -- the Epiphany witch, a big Italian tradition, more important than Santa, came to visit all the kids.  All 3 kids were fairly shy and spent most of the time coloring, but it was still a fun lunch and nice to spend the time with all of them, plus some other friends that we met there. 

After the Epiphany lunch, we came home.  The plan was to undecorate the tree but we opted for a nap instead. 

After a quick nap, we went to yoga.  Hubby's first time.  I was really wondering what he'd think.  He is insanely not flexible.  Like imagine someone who's really not flexible, and then think of someone even less flexible.  The instructor noticed, but couched her comments nicely.  She said something like he should just reach upward since he was "too muscly" to be able to get biceps and ears touching when we had to reach our hands overhead.  That made him blush!  But he stuck it out for the entire class and did a great job.  He tried everything at least once and I was suprised at the end to hear how much he enjoyed it.  Enough that he signed up for an entire month! 

So our schedules will only let us go to yoga about 3-4 times per week together max, and I really think more than once a week is unlikely, but those times will be fun. 

We crashed hard Saturday night and both slept like babies.  He had to work on Sunday, and I had the first morning of our running training program.

I think about 20 people asked me about my vest.  Someone said I should make a sign, and they were right!  People seemed to either tell me I was crazy or to be impressed by the undertaking.  I wish it wasn't so noticeable.  Since my pace is slowing down so much with the vest, I'm running with a lot of beginners.  And I'm well aware how hard it is to train for a marathon or even a half when you're not wearing a weighted vest, I don't want to undermine that.  I am coaching a group again, and I really want to make sure there's not too much focus on the vest and more focus on their great undertaking and eventually the accomplishment. 

I spent the rest of Sunday working and being lazy and watching movies.  I finally watched Bridesmaids, and aside from the Milwaukee connection, I wasn't really that impressed with it.  Sure, parts were funny, but I was expecting so much more from several people who'd really raved about it.  Oh well. 

Then last night was yoga again with 2 more newbies -- my local bestie and her sister.  It was actually the lululemon free class, and it was insanely crowded.  Crazy.  Like an inch between mats and the room full to capacity.  I've been in some very crowded bikram classes before, but this topped the cake.  It was a lot of fun to share the class with them, and I think we'll do it again later this month.

So all-in-all, an amazing weekend.  From 6:45 Friday night to 6:45 Saturday night might be among my favorite 24 period of 2012.  And the 24 hours that followed that were also pretty amazing.