Saturday, July 6 2019

Dear Journal,

After cooking and cleaning the house into the wee hours of the night, it felt good to sleep, and to wake up to a fresh hot pot of coffee. Marissa stuck it out a little longer, and when I got up this morning, I was tickled to see the caution tape, work zone signs, and a big chocolate cake assembled in the fridge. We had a good time prepping everything yesterday. We listened to just about every album I had on my phone, and we even rewarded our efforts with a late night order from Domino's.

Rodney is pretty excited for the party. It was gratifying to watch him confusedly wander around the house looking at all the decorations and food, quietly whispering wow to himself. At the moment, he seems most excited about the construction vests and hard hats he ordered. He even brought me up a hat and vest to try on as I was climbing into the shower. And when a three year old gives you a hard hat and a safety vest, you don't question it - you just drop everything you're doing and put them on.

This morning, just have a few more things to do. I'm picking up the keg from the liquor store, finishing some laundry, then I'm going to start cutting up some food. Last night's batch of gazpacho turned out really good, as did the burger meat. I used a scale to remove all the guess work, and borrowing from my favorite meatball recipe, I added beaten eggs, breadcrumbs, and garlic to the meat before making the patties. I had about a half ounce of ground beef left over, so as a taste test I fried it up in some peanut oil, making what must have been the smallest hamburger in the universe.

Alrighty - so that's what I got this morning. Let's have a birthday party, and if you're reading this and you're planning on attending, I can't wait to see you there!