Cleaning for Company

Yesterday we celebrated our April family birthdays with dinner and cake. As I wrote last year, this is one of our favourite ways to commemorate birthdays. In case you missed it, you can read about last year's birthday party here.

To make dinner parties special, I like to spend extra time cleaning the house. It's not about 'showing off' how clean our house can be, it's about making the house feel more welcoming for the party. 

I personally love a clean house, but can go ages without cleaning when busy with crochet projects. Since there are just so many hours in a day, I have to prioritize. I figure, it's more efficient to clean before company so it's nice for the evening plus feels great all week.

With this in mind, I started right after my morning coffee and crochet session yesterday. I made a shopping list for my husband to get him out of the way and got busy shaking mats, vacuuming, dusting and mopping. 

I realized early on that my initial plan to clean, walk the dog, bike and complete food prep was going to have to be scaled back if I wanted to be ready for the party on time. My husband wanted to try out his new cross bike, so I suggested he ride while I carried on cleaning. Having him out of the house makes cleaning easier plus I figured it would help tire him out so I could keep up the next day when I knew I could fit in a ride.

In case you're wondering how my husband got off so easy, let me tell you, he didn't. He did all the shopping, prepped the winter wheels from the Santa Fe for storage, cleaned the garage floor, got his Z4 out of storage and cleaned the TT. Actually, I suggested he wash the TT, partly because it needed cleaning and partly because I wanted to keep him out of the house until I finished getting ready for the party. 

So you see, he was busy too. For dinner, he managed the barbecue and did a great job keeping drinks topped up. 

As always, our family birthday dinner was tons of fun.  The menu included chicken drumsticks cooked on the barbecue, small roasted potatoes (boiled then finished with butter in foil also on the barbecue), baby bok choy sauteed with onions and roasted broccoli with garlic, olive oil and Parmesan cheese. Everybody said it was delicious.

For dessert, we had a yummy "Gourmet" Banana Cake from Metro in Byron.

My Mum-In-Law (April 8th) and Dad (April 10th) shared blowing-out-the-candles duties on their cake. We all sang Happy Birthday.

Blue candles were out in one go. I think our poodle interfered with the red ones.

 We all laughed as the candles stayed lit after at least two attempts.

Three tries and still one candle burned brightly ... too funny. One more try did the trick.

My husband's cousin Graham and his wife Erika joined us for dessert. It was so good to see them and catch up. 

We have been lazy about inviting people over and socializing for the last few years. I think we need to change that. We have such a good time when we get together and share food, drinks and laughs with our family and friends. Besides, I seem to need a good reason to clean more often.

Cleaning for Company is the best reason to clean as far as I'm concerned. What do you think? Do you enjoy cleaning just because or do you need a good reason too?

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