Growing up I had a lot of supervision through my parents and 6 siblings. Pre stroke I was pretty much on my own. Post stroke I required supervision again. I’m using the Webster’s definition of supervision as “the process of critical watching and directing of activities or a course of action”. This comes primarily from Bob, friends, personal assistants and mine and Bob’s family. Please don’t misunderstand I appreciate the supervision and attention that comes with it; However, when I’m on my own I love doing whatever I want, when I want. To that end, the first thing I did when Bob left for the Middle East on Monday was decide to have a party a week later with 6 friends centered around the Emmy Awards, with a 60’s theme. Thanks to Bob and his contract work, I am able to afford to host such an event.
I had a lot of fun during the week working on my cognitive with the planning the detail, menu decorations, costumes etc., combined the party details with running the household such as making sure pool level is good, clean skimmers, water plants, and managing the yard guy picking up limbs around the yard that could be a fire hazard.
The most challenging for me is coordinating the staging of the food preparation. Fortunately, I was able to solicit the advice of several family members. On Friday, I called my sister-in-law, Karen Matocha, to ask her how far in advance of the party could I make the carrot cake. She said I could make it that day which as a relief because it takes several hours to make. There is no way on this planet I can make the carrot cake on my own because it calls for 2 cups of grated carrots meaning the carrots had to be peeled first. To my knowledge, a one-handed peeler does not exist – but I am looking. The recipe does not allow any margin for error so I had to have a short “pow-wow” with my assistant before we started baking. She tends to read several steps in advance and want to do things very quickly so we agreed that I would read line-by-line and we would methodically bake the cake. She was a good sport about it. The end result was perfection if the reaction at the party is my gauge. Another area I needed help was how to stage the making, rising and baking of the biscuits. Laura Bacon is my go-to- expert on all things biscuits. The goal was to have the aroma of biscuits in the air when guests arrive.
Saturday night before the party, I emailed my friends asking if we should call it off. I felt weird about hosting a party because my friend’s father-in-law died and the Bastrop fires with hundreds of stranded people. I just needed another opinion to help me deal with my mixed emotions. The vote was a resounding “go forward”.
The party was fun, several people came in costumes and we laughed into the night.
Of course I can do this when Bob is home but it is so much more fun when I can do it myself and make it all happen.
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