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.
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!!
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.
