Work In Progress Party

We had some friends in town last week, so over the weekend we threw a party in their honor so everyone could meet their adorable 7-month-old son. It was also a great excuse to have an informal housewarming party. In fact, it was during the party that I realized that we have been living here for 6 months; then I was almost immediately ashamed that it took us 6 months to have a shindig at our new digs.

You see, I am a perfectionist, and I wanted the house to be perfect before we had people over. But we are always in the midst of a project, or there is always something just on the horizon. And every project seems to open a proverbial Pandora's box: painting the living areas leads to retexturing them first, for example.  

So we I bit the bullet and agreed to host a barbeque in spite of the fact that we had no lighting in the entryway or the dining room...

that there is blue painter's tape everywhere....

the walls in the entry and dining room have one coat of plaster on them...

the $15 hutch still has a moving blanket underneath it...

and the walls in the living room are half primed.

And you know what? No one seemed to mind. Not even me (once everyone got here)! Kids of all ages, from 8 years to 7 months, were running and crawling around, playing in the grass, and even splashing around in the hot tub. (I wish I could post pics, but it's kinda weird to put others - especially their kids - on the internet.) The best part was how full of life our house was.

And I realized something pretty powerful: if we wait until our house is perfect, we will NEVER have people over. Or at least it might take years... like 5-10. So I'm embracing the imperfect and the half-done, and living life in the moment.