Facebook is great, but face-to-face is better

Tillamook CheeseLast night, my husband and I invited some friends over for a “wine-and-cheese party.”  We had Tillamook Cheese we wanted to share with our friends that we brought back from our recent trip to Oregon, and we figured what goes better with cheese than wine?

My husband and I happen to really love hosting get-togethers at our house, but we haven’t done it much in the last few years. We just felt like our house was too small to adequately host friends. The house we rented prior to the one we are in now was PERFECT for parties, but it was a little ways out of town and hard to get people to come out to visit. We moved into town, but downsized dramatically. We felt like our party hosting fun was still on hold until we moved again.

Boy were we wrong!

So what if we had to haul my desk chair from the office in and another chair up from basement?

So what if we didn’t have room on the table for plates, so we all just picked out our choice of finger foods with our fingers?

So what if there was a line to our one bathroom at one point?

323: Rhythm in WineIt didn’t diminish the wonderful evening that we had one bit. We put together a spread of cheese, veggies, fruit, bread, sausage, etc. We had Merlot, Moscato, Rosé, sparkling red, vodka, beer, Irish whisky, and water.

We had conversations.

In person.

Face-to-face conversations. We told stories, laughed (a lot), high fived over the table, and bounced ideas and thoughts off one another. No one was on Facebook. No one was on Twitter. We were all there, in that moment, together, enjoying each other’s company.

It was amazing.

When the party broke up, we all agreed that THIS was what it was all about. Friends getting together and catching up. And we vowed to do it again. We vowed to do it more often.

When our friends left, my husband and I looked at each other with big grins. I told my husband, “This just proved no house it too small when your heart is this full.”

 

Five on Friday: 2014 Goals Update #1

On January 1st, I listed out my goals for 2014. I thought I’d take a moment to see how I’m doing on a few of goals as of the beginning of February.

1. Write a letter every month of the year.  Done for January! I sent out three postcards from Oregon to family in Texas.

 Tillamook Cheese Factory

2. Get back to what I weighed at my wedding. Well, I don’t think I gained anything, but I didn’t really lose anything either. But then if you ate the food we ate in Oregon, you’d understand. It was worth delaying the weight loss to enjoy!

3. Photography. I did have one mini-photoshoot this last week. I wasn’t really happy with how it turned out at all, but to my defense it was super fast, badly lit and it was my first time using my new external flash. I was destined to have a difficult time. I am, however, as I type this, downloading Photoshop CC and Lightroom 5. Taking advantage of Adobe’s deal right now of getting both for (after taxes) around $10/month for the next year. Can’t wait to try out these updates and see if they open up my abilities even further!

PhotoshopCC

 4. Bookkeeping. Well, it took me forever to get my finances for 2013 together to file our tax return this month. I was doing better until the great computer crash of this last weekend. Now I have to pretty much start over from scratch. I have, at least, gotten a great folder together for our tax receipts, etc. And I’m, so far, keeping it up. So I’m going to take that one as a win.

5. Journal.  I did great until I got sick last week. Now I’m so far behind, its pitiful. However, I think tomorrow night will be a big catch up writing night. Its time to get this one back in order!

journal

So… tell me. How are your 2014 goals going?