Party Planning 101

Welcome to a long overdue edition of Chesapeake Bay Woman's Guide to Home and Garden. Today we'll talk about the proper techniques for planning and preparing for a party.

Before we begin, I'd like to show you the official Blog Fest wine (above) which arrived from California last week. Ms. Foolery, a comic and creative genius, designed the logo and the label and hand-selected the incredibly tasty wine. Not that I've tasted it yet or anything.

And now on to today's lesson. Let's begin.

Lesson #1: The Interior of Your Home
a) Be sure to tidy up your home before the producers of that Hoarders show come calling your guests arrive. Now is the time to call 1-800-GOT JUNK? call the exterminator because nothing kills a festive mood more than indoor insects.

b) I would continue on with this lesson, but let's skip it for now because CBW hasn't really begun Lesson 1.

Lesson #2: The Exterior of Your Home
a) For summer parties be sure your yard is tidied up and your deck/patio/front porch area are free of dead animals clutter and debris.

For example, if an umbrella came crashing through a glass-topped patio table during a nor'easter approximately 10 months ago, and the glass shatters into a million shards, and those million shards are eventually swept into a red bin (below) that subsequently sits on the deck for ten months, so long that pine needles now obscure the contents of the bin, well, this would be an example of something to remove from your deck, assuming you have the biceps of Hercules since it only weighs three thousand pounds. Be careful not to disturb the nice hornet's nest conveniently located in the gas grill to the right.

Another example of a nightmare details to attend to would include any small trees growing through the lattice of your patio (below). That would be the lattice that is affixed, as opposed to the spare lattice which is casually tossed to the side of the charcoal grill. By the way, how does one chop down trees growing underneath a deck when all the accesses are blocked by lattice?
Anyone? Bueller?

Also, be sure to remove the rope lighting and extension cord tossed in the corner that have been there since the Carter administration. The charcoal bags and trash bags loaded with empty cat food cans must be removed in order to get the smell of cat food out of the entertaining area reduce the fly population.

If you happen to have a big bucket that was originally used as a compost "pit" by your children, and there's a bag of potatoes in it, along with a small family of gnomes some other junk, it's time to remove that from the hammock area, because your guests don't want to use the hammock only to be attacked by a family of potato-eating gnomes wonder why there's a bucket full of rotten potatoes at their feet.

If you have decking that has never been properly stained or treated, be sure to start the staining process way more than a week before your event, otherwise you could find yourself in a straight jacket behind schedule on your party preparations. Deck staining requires very strong sedatives a great deal of patience, especially those hateful balusters that make you want to scream, cry and then jump overboard with a cinderblock tied to your ankle move to a nice thatched hut on Bali.

Whatever you do, be sure to paint your deck on a day in February when the mercury is not supposed to reach 100 degrees in an igloo in the shade otherwise you run the risk of hallucinations involving low maintenance homes such as the nursing home which is where you'll be after the heat stroke heat stroke.

This concludes our first two lessons in how to properly prepare for a Blog Fest party. Tune in soon when we'll discuss Lesson One, Interior Cleaning Lesson 3: Outsourcing Your Life Maintenance Work On a Budget.

And yes, that last photo shows another example of my impatience with painting yet another tree growing through the lattice, underneath the steps leading to the back door. Before too long, the house will just lift off its foundation and I'll jump off and head to Bali change the name of this blog to CBW and the Beanstalk.

p.s. Blog Fest is still happening in spite of my lack of communication regarding agenda, activities, etc. If you are interested in attending, we are glad to have you. Please e-mail me at ChesapeakeBayWoman@gmail.com, and be sure to indicate whether you have the patience to paint balusters prefer the Beanstalk Suite or the hammock for accommodations.