The ladies’ luncheon went well. We had a lot less people than usual due to so many people being out of town or having family obligations. Even as busy as the May schedule is around church and school, it seems to be a better time for this, so I am going to go to the church office this week to try to secure a date.

I think I mentioned before that the theme was “The Heart of the Matter” taken from I Peter 3:3-4, “Whose adorning…let it be the hidden man of the heart.” Our colors were pink and chocolate brown. I have a tendency to go kind of Victorian with decorations for things like this, so I was trying to make it look more contemporary. Several ladies spent a couple of evenings “adorning” hearts with scrapbooking paper (what’s funny is that I didn’t even make the connection with adorning until Saturday) and putting them on wire stems for use in the centerpieces. I posted pictures of some of them here, but here is one shot of them.

Then I mentioned earlier that my original idea for centerpieces wasn’t going to work because it was too tall — and I didn’t realize this until the Thursday before we were to decorate on Friday evening! So part of Thursday was spent scrambling around trying to find an alternate solution. I did find some smaller vases at Wal-Mart for 97 cents and some smaller sprigs of greenery at Michael’s for 99 cents. I really think the bigger centerpiece looked better and I liked it better and it could incorporate more of the hearts — but the little ones “fit” better on the tables.

I forgot to bring my camera when we decorated Friday night, so I just took a couple of hurried pictures Saturday. I wish I had taken the time to get better shots, but here is one of the tables.

I found those pink and brown napkins at Hobby Lobby — thought the brown ones looked delicious, just like chocolate. 🙂 We scattered around some of the heart cut-outs from some of the different sized craft punch things I had around the center of the tables (we had also used some in decorating the individual hearts). Above each place setting we set the favors, little heart-shaped tins from a company called beau coup (they have scads of heart-shaped items!) I special ordered M&Ms in brown and pink and had the pink ones printed with different kinds of hearts found in Scripture (a merry heart, a pure heart, etc.). The picture I took at the time didn’t show the words on the M&Ms — they were turned over. 🙄 So here is a shot taken of one at home:

By the way, this is what a 5 lb. bag on M&Ms looks like:

I didn’t think it looked like much — but it goes pretty far. We still have some left over.

I had washed out all the little favors beforehand and set them out to air dry so there wouldn’t be any moisture left to cause the candy coating from the M&Ms to melt.

I don’t know if the tins were meant to be ready-to-load — they probably were — but I couldn’t help thinking of all the hands that would have handled them from the manufacturing through the sending processes, and it just made me feel better to know they were all clean (have I mentioned being germophobic?) Then — I had let them sit out overnight Thursday to thoroughly dry. The next morning, Jesse thought he heard something n the enclosed fireplace. Jim looked, but didn’t see anything. When he moved the fireplace insert out a little, a bird that had been trapped behind it flew out — and flew upstairs into the kitchen where these were on the table! And the dog, who was still inside (we bring her in at night) followed the bird up there! My husband assured me the bird flew around the outside of the room and not across the table, and the dog was too interested in the bird to pay attention to the table. Honestly, if there had been time, I probably would have washed the tins out again just to be safe (I am that fanatical about cleanliness in relation to food — sadly not about cleanliness in general, as my floors and desk can attest), but there just wasn’t. I didn’t see any feathers or dust or debris or anything on them, so I carried on as planned.

But to get back to the luncheon…

Our speaker was Beneth Peters Jones, for those of you who know her. She is always a wonderful speaker, very down to earth and funny, yet always drawing the focus back to God and the grace He gives to fulfill what He requires. One of the most gracious people God created. We had tried to schedule her for a couple of years, and she was very willing and interested, but she was always out of the country when we had asked before. So that was one plus to having the luncheon outside of our normal time frame. Some of the ladies there said they had never heard her, so I was glad they were able to.

Overall everything went very well. We always have this catered, and the food was great. I am so thankful for ladies who helped set up and clean up. To those of you who prayed for calmness of heart, mind, spirit, and body for me as I had asked earlier — thank you. The Lord abundantly answered!

And though I enjoy doing this — it is nice to have it over. 🙂 My mind is till buzzing, though, and I jotted down a couple of different theme ideas to consider for next year along with a few ways to implement them.

I want to come back later today to talk about a book I finished last week, and I have a couple of other posts simmering on the back burner. I need to catch up on housework today and sort out the receipts to turn in to the church office and other assorted tasks. And I need to figure out what to do about those curtains in my family room! I received the fabric I ordered a while back but haven’t even opened the box. I hadn’t thought about lining them when I ordered the other fabric, so I need to decide about that before I can get started, plus look at trim to match the fabric. So my next project is all lined up and waiting…