THE BEST LAID PLANS. . . . . . .

Joy arrived a few minutes early and was greeted by my precious grand daughter, Gracie.  I was upstairs blow drying my hair as the morning had not gone as planned.  When you are entertaining a blogger friend for the first time, don't you just want perfection?  I never heard the doorbell ring and I was trying to do my RIPLEY'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT ACT to be ready for Joy.  My little Gracie appeared at the bathroom door and said, "Nana, your guest is here"  I told her to tell Joy to just go into the Great Room and I would be right down.  Well, as real
as children will be, she said, "My Nana is not ready would you come back in a few minutes???"  Holy Mama, I told her to go out to the car and get my friend and bring her in!!

Downstairs I came with all I could muster knowing after the night I had had nothing would be the way I wanted it to be. . . . . . . We exchanged hugs and happy to see each other and she handed me a beautifully wrapped gift. . . . A burlap bag tied with a  Tiffany blue satin ribbon from her daughters wedding, with an angel hair nest at the top!

I explained we had kept our grandson over night so our son and daughter-in-law could take a break together and be free for the night.  As a busy chef, this rarely happens!  They went to Lalapalooza at Grant Park, Chicago.   As luck would have it he spiked a fever about 3 hours after they dropped him off!  (Gracie had also spent the night because she wanted to be with her cousin).  I was in good shape and I knew I could pull this off...................................WRONG.  Didn't expect my little guy would be sick.  I was up with him during the night and the story goes on and on and on and on and on.  I held him all night before putting him down as he just wanted to be held and didn't feel good.
Joy could not have been sweeter nor more understanding.  Lunch in the garden bombed!!!
It was too hot!  So, we ate inside.

The menu stayed the same and all went well. . . . . . . disappointed as I was for everything to be as I wanted it to be, Joy said, "I am so glad you didn't cancel, this is just life and it is all real.  I would have been so disappointed had you told me not to come!"

We brought our lunch inside and our menu consisted of fresh gazpacho, followed by chicken salad on lettuce cups, watermelon slices and homemade banana bread that was to die for!

I had an abundance of peaches and blueberries and peach blueberry crumble was the dessert plan.

ESPECIALLY FOR YOU JOY. . . . . . . the way it was supposed to be. . . .

Mason jars filled with ice water/tea, served with orange wedges and fresh mint

from the garden.

A centerpiece created from hosta leaves, moss and flower frogs.

This great idea came from Eddie Ross, www.eddieross.com. When there is a center poll for

the umbrella , centerpieces become challenging.  Eddie showed us at a

Scentamental Garden event how to do this and it really is so clever.  Miniatures

of these can be used on serving trays.  If you don't know of Eddie Ross' blog, you

must visit his site.  A very clever man, kind of a male Martha Stewart!  His

partner Jaithan completes a fabulous twosome.  Kind and talented gentlemen

in every sense of the word.

Here you can see the flower frog after I pulled the moss back.

Summer at its best!

I also added some Springerei Fern that I borrowed from my hurricane

planting. . . .   

The white Astromeria are in water tubes. . . . don't try to use anything

but the hosta leaves. . . . they are sustainable without water . . . found that out

the memorable day that all went wrong (yesterday).  I had the most beautiful flower frog

arrangement, center table that look fab for about 10 minutes.  I thought, EDDIE,

WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE THIS!  Wrong again!

Joy's company is perfect company and she is the Savvy City Farmer that once

only represented a blog site.  She is now my friend and I will cherish her

friendship always!  We had a ball in spite of it all and I welcomed her company

as long as she could stay.  She left at 4:00, it had begun to storm.  I sent

home banana bread and freshly made blueberry jam for Don.  It all turned out

better than I could have ever imagined.  So much to talk about and so much

to share!