Notes From the Week
This week I started thinking about Halloween.
I haven't really decorated for Halloween in quite a while, but there is a four-year-old little princess ghoul in my life who is currently in her unicorns and rainbows phase, and I think Nana needs to step up her Halloween game and deliver a little Halloween magic.
I'm busy, so the way I decorate has to work with the way I actually live. My plan is fall first, add Halloween, take Halloween away, move into Thanksgiving and eventually Christmas and the new year. I don't want to completely redo the house every few weeks. We will see if I can actually exercise that kind of restraint once I start.
Our daughter baked this week and made toasted pistachio white chocolate cookies and chocolate chip cookies. The chocolate chip cookies were so good that I stopped eating long enough to ask what chocolate she used. The pistachio cookies were in a league of their own. I don't even know how to describe them other than so good.
Friday night we took my uncle to one of our favorite neighborhood restaurants. It is one of his favorite outings, and our favorite waiter is wonderful with him. My uncle hadn't been there in quite a while, but the waiter remembered his usual rigatoni Bolognese, three meatballs and his drink as though he had been there yesterday. He always makes a fuss over him and makes him feel like he is the man of the evening. I love watching it.
Saturday morning I had a massage and then went for a wash and blow dry. My daughter was too booked to fit me in, so I saw her partner instead. One year and two months into her business and she is already too booked for her mother. Can you tell how proud I am?
Apparently being too booked for me did not prevent her from having an opinion. Before I left, she decided my hair needed her touch after all and brushed through it herself. I did miss one of the highlights of my week, our weekly catch-up.
Then it was off to my nephew's graduation party. My sister threw a beautiful party, as she always does. She is incredibly creative and somehow manages to do it beautifully on a budget. The food was delicious, but the company was even better.
At one point my nephew came into the kitchen while we were looking through the window at everyone gathered in the backyard.
"How often do we see everyone together?"
He told me that having everyone together was what he wanted for the day. Of all the things I expected to hear from a young man at his graduation party, that wasn't one of them. It made me smile. What a beautiful graduation wish.
The mosquitoes also noticed we were all together and apparently decided to join the party. They particularly enjoyed my feet. My sister produced a little German device that somehow took the itch away and became one of my favorite discoveries of the evening.
After everyone left, my sister and I stayed up talking and doing the inevitable post-party debrief before we headed home.
Everyone together. That's the week I'll remember.