Oh, Yes, It’s Ladies’ Night

Oh, Yes, It’s Ladies’ Night and the feelings right…Please tell me you know this song. Kool & The Gang? Funky hit from the late 70’s? I love it and haven’t stopped singing it in my head since I titled this post.

Ladies’ Night! We love it. We need it. We talk about planning it all the time but never do it! We have all the intentions in the world to make time to get together with our friends but life takes over and before we know it months have passed by. It’s so sad, yet so true.

I’ve learned that saying, “Oh, we have to get together!”, although being nice, doesn’t really help in your effort to making REAL plans. When we casually say, “We have to get together for dinner,” we haven’t made a commitment to anything, and just like always, life becomes chaotic and we never make concrete plans.

So how do we guarantee that our plans will come into fruition?

Be specific. Be organized and start coordinating it! If you are truly wanting to make this happen, throw out some actual days and times that would work for you in the next week or two. When people start giving specific days and times they are available, others start making the effort to look into their own calendars. Think about it. Don’t you become more serious about something when people start showing sincere interest in it? I know I do.

Find a day and time that works for everyone and put it on your calendar, ASAP. Once it’s in the calendar people are less likely to bail on you. If people make a commitment, and an actual day and time is decided upon, you’re golden! Of course there are emergencies, like a HURRICANE, but those happen few and far between.

The moral of the story is: If you truly want to have a Ladies’ Night (or any other get-together for that matter), you must secure an actual date and time. Quickly!

This specific group of ladies and I did not do such a great job at this. We kept doing the casual, “We have to get together!” for quite a while. And when I say, quite a while, I mean it’s been about 3 or 4 months since we said we wanted to plan something.  It wasn’t until one of us (not sure who at the moment), just started getting serious and holding our feet to the fire. We finally had a date in place and then, as luck would have it, Hurricane Irma hit! Here are are a before and after post about this horrible storm.

Our friend Karen sent another text last week basically telling us that we still needed to pick another day and time to get together since we were ambushed by the hurricane a few weeks back. I looked at my calendar, offered 3 different days between last week and this one, and before we knew it we had a Ladies’ Night scheduled, Yippee! Take control! Be organized! And get it done!

I was so excited to see everyone and even more thrilled to cook some delicious food for them! I knew I wanted to keep things simple and easy. I love to make recipes that can be done ahead of time so I’m not rushing the day of an event or gathering. That’s one of my favorite “time saving” tips and how I organize myself before any party. You can visit my post on How to Throw a Party for Someone Special, Stress-Free for even more tips and tricks to throwing a successful gathering.

So what was on the menu for Ladies’ Night?

• Mandarin Orange Chicken Salad
• Israeli Salad
• Hummus with Carrots and Pita Chips
• Lemon Bars

With just four ladies, that was more than enough food. I provided the paper plates and plastic forks because I’m lazy and didn’t want to do dishes later 🙂 They supplied the wine. And that’s all she wrote. We were happier than kids in a candy store! We sat out by the lake, celebrated some really BELATED birthdays, and enjoyed one another’s company. I’m so happy we finally had an opportunity to get together.

Ladies’ Night was a great night!