That Time I Forgot About Dinner
Allow me to tell you a tale that will shake you with fear, move you to tears(of laughter), and solidify the awesomeness that is Team Courtney & Jim.
This is precisely the sort of thing that happens to me. I swear it. Akin to the time I had a court date. Or the time I walked into the wrong house.
If you follow me on Snapchat you already know exactly what happened. But, for those of you who don’t, here you go.
Last Saturday was a glorious lazy day at home. You know the ones. The kind where you have absolutely nothing going on.
I had just transferred my blog over here the day before, so I was busy editing and working away on getting things up and running. We had had a huge breakfast filled with every kind of food item you can imagine(primarily, bacon) and had managed to make our house look like a large bomb had gone off somewhere on the main level.
The girls toys had run over every room and we spent the day playing and watching movies.
None of us ever left our pajamas, brushed our hair, and nary a stroke of makeup had touched my face.
Jim worked all day out in the yard on the HUGE job of cleaning up and trimming alllll of our shrubs. They line our driveway and the walkway up to our front door.
^Mucho many shrubberies^
By Saturday, we’re always running pretty low on groceries so we didn’t plan much in the way of dinner.
Around 5 o’clock I asked Jim if he wanted me to order some pizza?
He said, sure! (through the window, since he was still outside raking/mulching/weeding)
So I did a few other things and sat down at the computer to place our order.
Literally at the same time as I’m pulling up pizzahut.com I notice a text message light up Jim’s phone. It’s from a guy from church. It says, “Hey! We’re so sorry! But we’re going to be about 15 minutes late!”
And it hits me like lightning. The absolutely worst, most dreadful, horrific sinking realization. That thought that had tugged at my mind when I first woke up that morning- the one that said, “Don’t we have something today?” but when I looked on my phone and saw a completely clear calendar the thought went away. But then it resurfaced all at once.
We were supposed to be hosting our church Dose Of Dining group. That means four families + ours. That means we had promised to make hamburgers and hot dogs and provide toppings and drinks. We had scheduled it for 5:30.
And here I was, in my pajamas. In my wreck of a house. With a shirtless, shoe less, dirty husband working outside in the yard. At 5:15.
I ran outside and called “Jim! JIM!” (He later told me that when he saw me “excitedly” come running outside calling for him, his first thought was that we had won a free pizza lol) and immediately told him, WE ARE HOSTING OUR DOSE OF DINING GROUP TONIGHT.
And y’all. For all of my days. I will never forget the look on that man’s face. Completely and utterly PRICELESS.
So anyway. We had 15 minutes before people started arriving. We sprang into action.
And do you know what we did?
We made that flipping dinner happen.
Jim raced upstairs and got dressed(he said, “I’m going to smell SO BAD” so I said, just turn on the grill and stand in front of it!! #solutions) and peeled out of the driveway to race to the store(thank goodness we live in town now!) and he said he literally ran down the aisles at Walmart grabbing food.
Meanwhile, I dressed two girls, myself, did my makeup and hair, lit candles, opened windows, did dishes, put away all of the toys and general mess of the house as quickly as I could possibly manage.
Abigail told me she thought I was mad at her when I first said we had to clean up the entire house NOWWWW. I was like this video. I have to say though, she was my champion. I said to her, just throw it all in your room! And she did!
Our first guest arrived and I coolly let her in as I started getting out absolutely everything that we had and could use for dinner. And shortly after that Jim got back and went straight to the deck and started grilling.
And by the time everyone was at our house the food was done cooking and we could have totally played it off like we were prepared and ready and it was no big thing.
But that’s not how we do. So before we prayed for dinner, we made a little announcement and totally came clean. And everyone just died laughing because, how do you get ready for dinner for 12 people in 15 minutes?
I honestly felt like we had a Joshua stopping the sun moment in our own little house- because, how.
And then everyone said they had wondered why there were shrubs and rakes and tools sprawled everywhere.
Because when you looked outside of our house, it was an explosion of dirt and shrub limbs and leaves and tools.
I can’t stop laughing.
I also can’t stop thinking about if 1) Alex hadn’t texted us. or 2) If I hadn’t happened to sit down next to Jim’s phone at just the moment that the text came in to be able to see it.
I’m pretty sure that if that had happened and someone showed up, I would have shut the lights off and pretended to not be home. And yes, that would mean stranding Jim outside in the yard. I see how this would probably fall completely apart, but I can’t hardly even consider how horrifically awful it *could* have been.
Instead, somehow, we totally pulled off a great dinner with great friends and managed to make it so that everyone was laughing constantly over it Sunday morning.
Also, it’s Tuesday and I think I’m still recovering from the rush.
And just for additional laughs, here is the picture Jim took of me shortly after everyone left and the children were in bed. #mood 
Oh my word. That is the funniest thing ever! I’m so glad that it all worked out. You & Jim make a great team!
Hahaha! I saw this on snapchat but I loved reading about it too! You guys are rockstars, getting ready in that short of time! Great story 🙂
HAHAHAHA Dying. I was laughing hysterically at your snaps when I watched them…. but go team SPENA! Totally would not have been able to pull it off in our house!
This is my favorite thing ever. Seriously ever!!!! You are a rock star for making it happen, I definitely would have hidden inside!
This is the stuff my nightmares are made of…*shudder*
Well done, y’all!
This is hilarious! I can so see us doing something like this!
Oh my goodness… rockstar couple you are. I probably would’ve just ordered pizza and said the grill is broken or something. HAHA. Actually no I wouldn’t because I’m that type of person who HAS to make things happen. Especially if it were at my own house. This is hilarious. That wine was much deserved.
I am laughing. That is so funny and I can just see you running around like a mad woman! 🙂 lol
Not even kidding, I do have tears running down my face. GREAT work pulling it off though, Score one for the Spena’s
Oh my goodness, this is hilarious!! Thank goodness you only promised hamburgers and hotdogs!! Imagine if it was something more elaborate!! So freaking funny!
Oh. My. Goodness. I laughed so hard when I read this! I can only imagine the panic you must have felt when you read that text. 😀 But hey, you totally pulled it off even if you had to run around like a mad woman to get ready and it makes the best story to tell so completely worth it. Right? 😉
This is the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time. I can’t believe you guys managed to pull everything off without a hitch!
This is FANTASTIC. I like to think I would have been able to throw it all together too but in reality I would have piled everyone in the car and driven away very quickly 😛
Oh my goodness! This was cracking me up! It was terrible and hilarious all at the same time. Goodness sakes, I can imagine something like this happing to us. Thank goodness you saw that text and that he even sent one in the first place! I would have been running around like a crazy person too! It sounds like even though it was a little nuts at the time, that it went well … and you have a good story to tell after it 🙂 yikes! Too funny, I’m still laughing [sorry :].
Oh. My. Gosh. I saw your video on Instagram (I don’t have Snapchat, womp womp). But I had no idea how EPIC it would really be! I couldn’t help but LOL when you mentioned all the yard tools sprawled everywhere!! Hahahaha
Oh my word! I am dying! This is something we would so totally do. Thank Goodness you guys had planned on Hamburgers and Hot Dogs and not some fancy elaborate dish! Although, I am sure you guys probably could have pulled that off too. And, I think we need to swap Snapchat names. 🙂
That is hilarious! Thank goodness they called to tell you they would be late. Can you imagine if the doorbell rang and you had no idea?!? Haha! I’m glad you made the most of it. I would have confessed, too! 😉
LOL!!!! That is amazing. I love it. You guys are rock stars. There is NO WAY I would have been able to figure something like that out. I’m so impressed you made it all happen. Problem now though… your friends are probably going to randomly text you saying they’ll be 15 min late on a day when you know you don’t have plans, just to see what you can come up with! Haha!
This is too much! I don’t know if I would have come clean or not ha! But the frantically throwing stuff to clean up sounds like my everyday routine 😉
Love this story so flipping much. This is one that you will FOR sure tell you grandkids one day. So funny and cute! (Although, I’m sure you were not thinking that in those 15 minutes you had to get ready, lol!) Kudos to you, mama, for pulling that off. Majorly mucho impressed:)
You’re a rockstar! I don’t know how you managed it. I would’ve been a mess. Also, the way you tell a story is fab! So funny!
This is hilarious! The best part is when you came running out and he thought you had won a free pizza. Ha!
Oh my gosh! I think I would have completely lost my cool! I’m amazed y’all pulled it off. But the funniest part to me was the free pizza. Totally worth shouting and running for!
Such a cute story! I forget to do things all the time, so you’re not alone 😉 I love that Jim thought you won a free pizza, haha!!!
Blessings,
Edye // Gracefulcoffee
I seriously can not stop laughing. Picturing the scene outside or the fact that Jim thought ya’ll won a free pizza. Seriously this post is just too much! So glad it was only hot dogs & hamburgers that were promised!!! 😉 Too funny! Great team work!!
We were one of the guests and we knew nothing until you told us. The house looked great, you looked great. The only thing I remember out of place was all the clippings from the little bushes all along the driveway and tools laying out. I still am amazed that you pulled it off. I could never have done that.