My birthday is February 10th, and having a birthday in the dead of winter means that I’ve had a lot of snowed-out birthday parties. All my family and friends have heard me whine about this for years because it gave me a paralyzing fear of party-throwing for a long time. Growing up my hometown always had a week off in February right around my birthday. More than once it snowed hard the week before, giving me a snow day for my birthday and an extra-long vacation as a present. It also messed up my parties!

So I’ve been trying for years to get over my party-phobia by planning parties. I’ve had nearly-empty rooms, nights spent entirely in the kitchen making elaborate meals, snow. And then I got married and threw the party of our lives, and it’s been easier ever since. I’ve sort of found my groove and started to actually love throwing parties. Christmas is a new tradition, and my lasagna birthday party was so much fun.

And lately I keep getting ideas for new parties. I want to have a wine tasting sometime this spring. One of the reasons we’re learning how to do all this gardening is so we can throw cookouts in the backyard all summer. I saw this fantastically charming How to Throw a Button Party! post from Susan Beal, and now I need to rope together some crafty friends for that. I was also reading on The Small Object’s Steno Pad about her One Quilt group. It’s through the mail, but I love this idea. And it renewed my desire to have a crafty circle to meet regularly for potlucks and sewing circles.

Not to mention that my mother’s Rotary Club is hosting their annual Beefsteak Dinner this Saturday, and we go every year. Adam and I have been planning and coordinating our group for a while now. I will post pictures, last year we made the local paper 2 weeks in a row.