Yesterday I finally took some time to celebrate finishing my Master of Arts in Creative Writing degree. John and I invited over three of our favorite couples – Mel and Andrew, Rachel and Simeon, and Ruth and Luke – along with their three daughters.
When I woke up in the morning, I was not feeling very hospitable. I think I'm still getting over being tired from 18 months of full-time grad school, a month of intercontinental traveling, and a month of having my mom here visiting. In any case, it was all I could do to talk myself into thinking how nice it would be to have them all over.
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But everyone showed up excited and upbeat and eager to celebrate with me! All that positive energy flowing around certainly improved my attitude – and quickly.
Rachel, an amazing cupcake maker, made up her own recipe for chocolate cupcakes with a peanut butter filling. My two favorite flavors! Then she decorated them with a big swirl of creamy chocolate frosting and topped them with homemade stars and books! They're AWESOME!!
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Ruth made a peanut butter chocolate cheesecake a couple months ago and let Rachel and I have a taste. I told her it was the best cheesecake I've ever had! (The Cheesecake Factory used to be my favorite go-to spot for cheesecake, but now it's Ruth's house!) So she made one and brought it to the party. I was so excited to eat it, I forgot to take a picture of it. But trust me, it was DELICIOUS!
After a couple hours of everyone talking and eating and laughing – and three little girls under 4 chasing John around our apartment (or was he chasing them? I heard, “More, more!” several times) – we came down from our sugar high. The parents all decided their children needed a nutritious dinner (go figure!) and we called it a day. John relaxed on his computer for the evening and I got to spend another three or four hours reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (I might've eaten another piece of cheesecake, too, but I don't think I should admit it.)
Somewhere in that relaxing down time it occurred to me that I was really happy that I'd finished my degree. It seemed oddly real now that we'd celebrated the accomplishment. I decided that we needed to remember to do this more often – celebrate the things that are important, whether big or small.
And we should all eat more cheesecake.