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I wanted to share some photos from my fabulous 5oth birthday bash!  I did decide to keep guests photos from being posted however, next time I would like to create a photo booth and that way people can have fun and I would feel more comfortable sharing their pictures! What if I do post pictures, but leave some people out? I don’t want to deal with all of that so decided to keep it clear of my party-goers. I did learn that I should have gone ahead with the photo backdrop idea…it would have been helpful.  I already have all the lighting so i really wish I had done that!

I can say this much…everyone did enjoy themselves and I learned a lot!  My biggest takeaway was that for a large group, it is worth it to pay someone to help out with serving. I had tried to find a bartender, but food service was where I found it would have been super helpful!

It was such a great time, but I feel I missed out on a lot of opportunity to visit with people because of running around trying to get food to people, or find a fork, beer, wine or coke for their Jack Daniels or whatever they needed. I waited way too late to prepare the food because I wanted it to be fresh – BIG MISTAKE!

I feel like I tried my best to set up everything ahead of time, with fireplace vibes on the televisions…we had a room set up with singing…so imagine my horror when some of the men found the television remotes and we ended up with football on?  I got over it. My husband keep changing up my strategic lighting – even after I told him before hand, that he was not allowed to touch light switches, tv remotes, ceiling fans, opening windows, everything was off limits to him. He did it anyway.  I was going for a dark, candlelit event…yet he managed to switch on every light in the house, move my ice bucket set up to (of all things) a camping Igloo thing…(I wanted to implode) AND he was 30 minutes late because he needed to do his stretches after his shower (some people are a wee bit ritualistic, other wise known as OCD no matter what is going on.) Either way, I survived it all and had fun!

We had taken special care to have the music set up on our revamped patio…however due to the extremely colder than normal weather…only a few people ended up outside throughout the night and we moved the music indoors.

I was so appreciative for everyone who showed up! (Even those damn husbands and their damn football.) Here’s the tea;

After a close friend expressed her anger at me, for not being present over the past two years, I’d realized that nobody realized why I have mostly kept to myself. I decided to have a party for my friends. An event for them to meet up and have a nice time during the holidays.  I also happened to be turning 50.  It’s in the rule book of life that we all most have a party for turning 50.

I had decided to tell everyone the extent of my neck pain, and that was why I had been missing in action for so many months.  I had worked so hard at hiding my neck injury and trying to laugh it off when people would make fun of my stiff demeanor, so most really didn’t get how much pain I was in.  The pain caused sleep problems. Sleep problems cause other health problems. The next thing you know, you are not going anywhere that requires additional energy! I had a work friend that knew, but pretty much I think people just thought I was lazy and didn’t care about them!  I felt so much relief when I told people why I wasn’t very present in their lives.  My focus was getting though each day on a few hours sleep, not letting it affect my job and trying to get better. There was nothing left of me to go sip wine and hang out with friends.  At my worst, I had an amazing Assistant Manager at work and my husband was very understanding. Without these two, my little world would have fallen apart. I mention all of this to point out that this party was a big deal for a lot of reasons. People are everything. People are life and are what matters most.  I had shut people out to save them the grief of hearing about my woes but really I appeared shallow and self centered by not expressing the extent of my struggle.

Another thing that I didn’t plan on…was receiving wonderful gifts!  Had I realized that there would be gifts…I surely would have scrounged up more people to invite!

Did I mention that cake is everything to me?  I found a great baker in my local area @afrostedmemorymaker in The Woodlands.  I am not a very social person, so it was hard for me to commit to throwing a party, but once i ordered and paid for the cake – it was on!

Next came proper digital invitations so that people knew that I was serious about my party plans and I made sure that the invitation set the tone.

The thing about planning a home event is that it can be used as a huge motivator to work on things around the house! It was a plan of mine to have the patio completed before the year’s end, so having a party pushed me to get the curtain rods put up, finally choose an outdoor curtain and hang my bistro lights. (Blog post coming, but here’s a sneek peek on my Instagram…)

I also revamped the media room as well and now there’s just some furniture to recover here or there.  I am still waiting on a really cool custom dog kennel end table to come in as well for the master bedroom… But I digress.

I am finally 50 and I am very happy with where my life is.  What I notice in people, is that as long as they are content with their current situation, age does not bother them. It’s relative. If you’re 29 but have not yet finished college, most would be upset to be 29 although it’s still relatively young.

There is something liberating about realizing your life is more than half over and what difference does a lot of the past make? What matters is what you are going to do with what time and opportunity that you have left, how can you positively impact others while finding peace and inner joy in each day. Life is not about things and overboard consumerism.  It’s about using your time wisely and love. Well, and loving wisely. If you talk to any woman over 50, that is probably at the forefront of what they have learned. If you really want astounding womanly advise, talk to a very old woman!

My next home party will probably be a casual girl party with a summer pool theme.  I’m not  a huge fan of walking around half naked in front of other people’s husbands so they probably won’t be invited! I guess I am old school but it just seems disrespectful so I try to hide my fabulousness (Google doesn’t seem to think this is a word, but it most definitely is) these days. Or I’m crazy.  there’s always that. My new thinking is that if my husband sees less naked women these days, he will think the one he has is just fine. It seems to be working because he really, really likes me.

It’s a small thing for most, but throwing a party by someone who is a shy loner at heart, was a big step!

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