Weekending & May Amazon

Linking up with Holly and Sarah for Hello Monday:

Friday evening, we hung around the house Friday evening. The girls were both out of the house for dinner- Alyssa at a grad party and Abby was out with her boyfriend. Abby got home fairly early and the three of us got to spend some nice time chatting. I finished up some last-minute party preparations and went to bed at a decent hour.

Saturday morning, I woke up early and started one last task (at home) to do before heading out to Alyssa’s grad party. I made some cookies for the party! I wanted to make them the day of the party so that they would be as fresh as possible. I had already made a different batch of cookies for the party and froze them. I could have done the same thing for these cookies- made them ahead of time and froze them but decided for whatever reason to have completely fresh cookies. 

The party was starting at 1:00 pm and it was at a local country club called Sycamore Springs. The woman whom I worked out all of the details with regarding us hosting the party there, Heather, had asked if I wanted to come in around noon to set things up. Uh, that was a no! I told her that I would need to be in earlier if that was possible. It was, so Abby and I arrived at 11:00 to begin setting up. Donnie drove us and then he drove back home where he and Alyssa would come back around 12:30 pm. (Alyssa, bless her heart, offered to come early with Abby and me to help decorate. I told her that I appreciated the offer but that I didn’t want her to have to put together the decor for her party!)

I wish I had taken a picture of all the stuff we brought! We were able to bring dessert items and then any decor that we wanted to use for the party. Decor consisted of various means by which to display pictures- tri folds, photo albums, two laptops with which to display the photo slideshow (in case there was a problem with one laptop, I wanted a backup!), supplies for a balloon arch (two electric balloon inflators in case one flaked out, I wanted a backup!), serving pieces, and some of Alyssa’s certificates/ awards. Dessert consisted of ....a lot. I did get a picture of that. 

Abby and I were busy decorating for right around an hour and a half. Donnie and Alyssa arrived close to when we were done so we took some pictures. Alyssa liked everything quite a bit. I tried to keep some elements not necessarily a surprise per se but not things that she necessarily knew about (maybe they were surprises then (🤷‍♀️).

A few pics with people before the party started

The party was... a success! Alyssa felt loved, appreciated and celebrated. I will likely write more about some of the specifics later. All I will say now is that it was good!!

After the party, we spent some time tearing things down (mainly popping all of the balloons in the arch!) to take home. My aunt and two cousins from Michigan were heading to our house afterward so they helped and my brother and his family from Indiana were also coming back to the house, so they helped. As did Jacob. We also were able to bring home the leftover food (for which we’d paid :)). Several people who RSVP’d that they were coming couldn't end up making it and Heather explained to me that whatever number I gave them for the amount coming, they would make food for a few more people in case anyone showed up who hadn’t RSVP’d. Those two conditions left us with a lot of food left over which was much appreciated!

My brother and his family stayed for a few hours. After they left, it was evening and though we weren't exactly hungry, food did not sound exactly bad either. I mean, good tasting food like pizza didn’t sound bad! Donnie wanted our out-of-town guests to try our favorite hot honey pizza from Donato’s so he went out to pick up a hot honey and a regular pizza (in case our guests didn't like the HH pizza!). 

We watched a movie after we ate. Donnie and I both dozed off during it! 

Sunday morning, we couldn’t go to church because Alyssa was heading out to go to South Carolina with Avery and her family. The time they were planning on leaving was nebulous based on when everyone was going to be available to leave (six of them were going to SC) but the general time frame was looking like it was going to conflict with church. We planned to watch our church’s service online but there was a problem with the streaming of the service. And so, we watched my cousin Dan’s church service that streamed. 

In the early afternoon, Alyssa left for South Carolina and my Aunt Katy and cousins John and Dan headed out to go home to Michigan.

South Carolina or bust for these six!

After our guests left, I completely relaxed. Donnie took a nap. I tried to as I was tired (that nap during the movie came back to haunt me when I slept poorly that night :() but I figured a nap would be elusive and I was correct. I looked at pictures from the party, texted pictures to people, worked on this post and just enjoyed relaxing without worrying about any upcoming events. I enjoyed (almost) every second of party preparations and with no job and no ability to drive, I had plenty of time to devote to various projects related to the party. So, my general stress level was never high. Nonetheless, the numerous tasks that needed to get done and knowing that some things were beyond my control and wanting the event to be the best possible one for Alyssa meant that there was some nascent level of stress surrounding the event and after it was over, I was able to completely relax.

Around dinnertime, Abby left the house to go to work. She’s interning with the city and is helping with special events. One of the parks was hosting a symphony event and Abby went to help with that. Donnie and  I decided to check it out- and by check it out, I mean see Abby though the music sounded good so that was a bonus :). 

North Park was so cute; I would have loved to take more pictures but the storage on my camera is out so two is all I have. 

I ran into my friend and former fellow dance mom Susan

I have never linked up to Prime Purchases because I don’t order much from Amazon Prime. I looked at a few recent months´ purchases that I made and saw that in one month I made one purchase from Amazon and in the next month I had made two purchases. 

If ever there was a month when I was going to order a lot, this one was it. Since I can’t drive anywhere, delivery services are going to hold very practical appeal. And, throwing a grad party in the mix meant that I needed to make numerous random purchases. I checked out my order history and I ordered all of four items in May. So compared to February and March, I ordered a lot, lol. Here they are:

153 Piece graduation decor set

link here

If you just need a bunch of balloons as I did, this is a pretty good set. The few larger balloon decor pieces were a cute touch. Two very big negatives though were that quite a few of the balloons would not blow up! Neither using my electric balloon blower upper nor the good old-fashioned mouth to balloon method would render the balloons filled with air. Pretty annoying! I would say a good twenty of the balloons would not blow up. Also, for the shaped balloon pieces- the ones that say Congrats Grad- the set did not include the plastic straw piece that you need to inflate the balloons. In my general party supply bin at home, I had an inflatable number balloon that I hadn’t used yet so I used the straw that came with that to blow up the balloons. 

720 piece photo corners- $11.99

link here

My method/style of scrapbooking is what I would call “lite.” I don’t use a Cricut machine (though I have one!), I don’t use stamps, I don’t use a lot of stickers or embellishments. I do like to use photo corners because I think they make photos look sharp on a page. I needed some (definitely not 720 but it was cheaper per corner to buy in bulk and I will use them at some point so I bought this large size) and normally would have gone to Hobby Lobby for them but my inability to drive rendered buying them on Amazon the most practical thing to do.

Portion Scoop #20

Link here

Who knew there were so many sizes of scoops available? I had no idea. I owned a scoop, but it was small. I wanted to make cookies of equal size but I wanted the size to be larger than the size my small scoop made the cookies. So I purchased the size #20. I am pleased with the size- it makes large though not humongous cookies. I’ve used it several times (I purchased this May 1st!) already and really like it!

Running Armband

Link here

This is called a “running” armband, but come on man, that is insensitive to those of us INCAPABLE of running (I say that tongue in cheek. My sensitivities are just fine. I do find it a little odd that an activity is listed as the name for the armband). I bought it to use so that I could listen to podcasts hands free while outside gardening or inside cleaning. When Donnie and I resume outdoor walks, I will use it so that I can have my phone with me but wear athletic shorts that may not have pockets.

And, a former runner can dream- if I return to my favorite exercise of choice- and decide to run at a park, the handy dandy little zipper will be nice to store my car fob in. When I have driven to locations to run before, I loop my car fob into one of my shoelaces and tie it in my shoelaces (and then run looking down every few steps to make sure the fob is still secured!).

Linking up with Tanya!