St. Patrick’s Day 2019- Making the Effort

Every year, my sister and I think about doing something to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.

Every year, we browse Pinterest for recipes and party ideas.

Every year, stuff happens and we don’t make the effort.

So many of my past years have been spent “not making the effort” to do things. I cringe when I think of the precious years that have been lost to my dieting obsession and to my self-imposed isolation. I’d always reasoned that I’d make the effort when I felt better about myself. Because of this, so many fun opportunities have been missed. Sadly, there are very few pictures of those years and even fewer memories. So I’ve vowed to make the effort to throw the parties and to take the pictures and to make the memories.

So finally, this year, we threw the St. Patrick’s Day party.

Finally.

It was a small gathering.

It was absolutely thrown together.

It was utterly a hot mess of a party.

Here are a few highlights from the day’s events…

When I woke, I texted my go-to girls, Jen and Holly, to make sure that everyone was on board to celebrate. Since I had no festive decorations, Holly picked me up and we made a Dollar Tree run. Since the Dollar Tree produced nothing more than green plates and a couple of random decorations, we braved Wal-Hell. I did snag the last pair of leprechaun leggings (making it totally worth the trip) and under Holly’s watchful eye, I did learn to use the self-checkout. Yay, me, for trying something new!

The rest of the afternoon was spent baking Lucky Charms cupcakes with my new Kitchen Aid mixer (YAY!) and making an ugly leprechaun cheeseball. I’m not sure whether the leprechaun elicited more bouts of laughter or my left-handed carrot peeler. For the life of me, I don’t know why I’d ever purchase a left-handed peeler….anyway, our leprechaun turned out far uglier than our Pinterest inspiration. Don’t ‘cha think?

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Our selection of drinks included Irish mules for the guys, sparkling Midori for the gals, and green sherbert drinks for the teens, who did make a brief appearance.

We wore our festive Walmart finds and threw up a quick backdrop for pictures. Please tell me I’m not the only person who keeps a spare curtain and rod just for that purpose….

I’m so glad we made the effort to throw a party. No one ever wishes they’d laughed less, right? My heart is happy because we finally threw the party, we took the pictures, and we made the memories.