Party Heart-y......

It's 2:15 in the morning as I start to type, and there's no sense in even trying to go to sleep yet. Our Valentine's party ended at nearly midnight...... and even then, it seemed that no one wanted to stop playing Charades. The men won, by one point--- 76 to 75. Considering that we get just one, two, or three points per Charade, we played a lot of Charades tonight. (Three points if your team guesses correctly in one minute, two points for guessing in two minutes, and one point if it takes three minutes to get it.)

Not only do we act out the Charades, but we also use a large drawing pad--- it's up to the person acting out the Charades clues whether he/she wants to try to draw a picture or not. With that in mind, the funniest Charades tonight was our around-the-corner friend/neighbor S (V's husband). The Charade was a song-- "YMCA." Now you would think that this song would be very easy to act out, considering that just about everyone on the planet knows the hand/body movements to the "YMCA" song by The Village People.

Well, S stood there and gave the guys the signal that it was a song. Then he stands there trying to figure out how he can act out the Charade. After a few minutes, he said "Can I draw the clues out?" Well, of course.... go right ahead. S takes the large pad and the black marking pen, and he draws out big letters--- Y M C A. Naturally, all the men on his team scream out "YMCA!!!!" And half of the room starts doing the YMCA movements.

It took at least ten minutes for everyone to stop laughing.... and S was standing there wondering what all the fuss was about because we all gave him the go-ahead to draw out his clues and that's what he did. It was just so very funny, and S did it all so innocently, that we gave the guy's team the three points anyway. Too, too funny..... I'm laughing right now as I type this.

The food on the pot-luck dinner table tonight was outstanding...... chicken tortilla casserole, Waldorf salad, tossed vegetable salad, spinach & cheese tarts, potato salad, baked beans, chicken & noodle casserole, steamed pork dumplings, sourdough bread filled with spinach dip, garlic bread, pimento-cheese pinwheels. And the desserts--- chocolate/cherry trifle, Dulce de Leche cake, apricot/pecan cake, chocolate layer cake, chocolate bundt cake, red velvet cake, strawberry/orange/coconut/whipped cream trifle. And I'm probably leaving some of the dishes/desserts out, but I'm finally getting tired.... and it's been a long day.

The kitchen is all cleaned up, the dining room is put back together, I've run the vacuum around the carpeting-- lots of crumbs from all those cakes tonight. The tables/chairs are all back where they belong. And except for the red hearts and the other Valentine decorations all over the house, you would never know we had such a great party here tonight. But somehow, the energy from the party is still lingering.

The energy in this house tonight was amazing, right from the beginning of the party. Even before we did any of the games for the prizes, everyone was talking up a storm.... you would think we all hadn't seen one another in months and months. The last time everyone was here-- was our Christmas party in mid-December, which wasn't all that long ago.

The party games--- besides Charades: I filled up a Valentine cellophane bag with red M&Ms, and everyone had to guess how many were in there (397). J guessed 400, and her prize was a straw purse with red handles and red ribbons along the top of it-- just her style, and she loved it. Then for the guys only--- I had one single chopstick for each guy here-- they had to pick a chopstick, and the one who got the chopstick with a red-heart sticker on the bottom of it got a prize-- a Chinese restaurant to-go box filled with Valentine candy and a tin of smoked oysters.

For the ladies only: I had boxes of Hallmark ornaments--- one said "Fabulous" and was decorated with sunglasses, lipstick, a pretty purse-- all girly things.... the other ornament was a miniature box of candy, with tiny faux-jewels making up the tiny candies. Each woman got to pick either of those two ornaments. On the back of one of the "Fabulous" ornaments, and on the back of one of the jeweled candy boxes, there was a red-heart sticker..... and whoever was holding those got special prizes. The best part of the Fabulous ornament was that I had found a pair of red heart Valentine sunglasses, which looked similar to the sunglasses on the Fabulous ornament, and those sunglasses went along with the prize for being Fabulous. C got the prize for her red-heart-marked Fabulous ornament-- a porcelain bowl decorated with handpainted hearts, and the red-heart sunglasses, which matched her all-red outfit. And R picked the tiny jeweled candy box with the red heart on the back of it, and her prize was a set of four Valentine placemats and napkins, along with a book titled "The 50 Most Romantic Things Ever Done." I had a bunch of prizes here, so I tried to give the winners something that I knew they would like.

The ladies got to keep all those ornaments.... plus everyone got a goodie-bag at the end of the night, so everyone went home with a Valentine gift.... and I also had red-heart beaded Mardi Gras necklaces for all the ladies. I usually find Mardi Gras necklaces for all of our parties...... somehow it just adds to the fun, and there are so many different designs that you can find a Mardi Gras necklace to "match" any occasion.

I could go on and on here.... but I'm really getting tired. It's 2:55...... time to get to bed. Once again, tomorrow is another day, Scarlett. What a great party, honestly.