Today I made dinner for Zeph, her parents and sister, her best friend from college, and darxus, and it turned out very well. All told, there were seven of us, and I think that may be the largest number of people I’ve ever cooked a sit-down dinner for mostly by myself. (I had a lot of help with final prep. Zeph’s mom makes awesome mashed potatoes, especially with Zeph telling her how much butter to use. You could spread them on bread.) I’ve made scrambled eggs for more people than that for a potluck brunch, but I think this was the largest meal I’ve actually put together by myself, and I felt really good about it.

This also involved cleaning the kitchen and living room (and mowing the lawn and tidying up outside). I confess that there was a certain amount of shoving-into-closets in that process, but I felt OK about having Zeph’s family over, so I think I did a pretty good job. My office is still a disaster area, but I hid that. :-)

Yesterday was fun, too; I drove Zeph up to her aunt and uncle’s house on Lawrence (where her immediate family were staying) and we all went to Hampton Beach in southern coastal New Hampshire.

And if I’m a good boy and don’t try to continue the cleaning roll I was on this afternoon and clean my bedroom, I’ll make it to sleep before midnight. Now, I’m a bad, bad boy, but maybe I’ll do that anyway.

Oh, PS, menu: Kalua pig, mashed potatoes, bread (two boules that we tore apart and dumped the juicy meat on top of), salad. And Zeph’s family brought wine.