Perfectionism. My Curse.

I have officially survived hosting our first round of house guests in the new, tinier homestead. Not only that, but we crammed more people into the sleeping areas than we ever fit into the old, larger abode. I am now ready to open a bed and breakfast. I got this.

Since we moved into the new place, we had always intended to have some sort of celebratory barbecue, something to mark the fact that we survived our renovation with our sanity relatively intact. Of course, my perfectionism prevented me from planning this event. There were always little things that I wanted to have done before I exposed our home to guests. The yard looks like a desert in some places and like an overgrown weed jungle in others. It isn't the perfectly manicured landscape that I have dreamed it to be. The driveway concrete is a nightmare. The trim work around the clerestory windows is not done. The fireplace is still empty. Blah blah blah and on and on and on. It took me some time to realize that no one except me actually cares about these things. People will eat food and drink beer anywhere. The only shortfall of the house is that we don't have the fancy butt spray toilet seat on the guest toilet yet. We need to get another one of those, pronto.

Thus, when we opened the home for friends to spend the weekend (at one point 11 people were sleeping in my 850 square foot house), it seemed the perfect opportunity to throw a practice party. Of course, my perfectionism also extends to parties, and I went insane on the food prep and alcohol selections. Burgers and dogs on my grill? No way. I made seitan and veggie skewers (my own recipe), shrimp and pineapple skewers, flank steak, spicy baked beans, vegan blueberry cobbler, guacamole (also my own recipe), and german potato salad. I bought a lot of soda and tons of fancy beer (yeah, no Coors lite for us, just a selection of locally brewed craft beers). Someone brought cupcakes from Crumbs (butter cream perfection). While it was a lot of work, since I have that gene that makes me happy when I am feeding and entertaining people, it was well worth it.

Oh yeah, I know I mentioned it, but I'm saying this again...I cooked effing steak on my grill. An actual bloody piece of meat. It got rave reviews. After it was marinated and cooked, of course. My sister and I were both completely grossed out as I sliced it open to find it to be perfectly medium rare AKA still bleeding. We both wondered if I had undercooked it (I actually used the timer on my iPhone because I have no idea how to cook steak). Then we recalled that my mom's steak always looked like this. Actually, my sister reminded me that my mom would eat it while it was still walking around, so we figured I was safe. And I was. No one died!

There is nothing better than a circle of friends in lawn chairs. All we were missing was the fire ring. Next time!