Simple Pleasures

I'm not much of a host.
Chris does a pretty good job as a hostess, but gets a little stressed over things like the house being clean enough (it never is), the grass being cut, everything being perfect -- to really enjoy having people over.

Last night we invited some friends over for a simple meal.
The house was just cleaned on Wednesday and I was taking care of meal prep and clean up.
There was a minor incident of knocking a jar of salsa out of the refrigerator right before guests arrived that upped the stress level (glass and salsa all over the clean kitchen floor), but we managed most of the clean up in time and were just finishing up as they arrived.

The time really sailed by quickly!
It had been a long time since we have had the chance to visit and much has been happening in each of our lives that the conversation never lagged.

Maybe we need to do this kind of thing more often.

I'll be open about my fears of hosting people. Most of them have to do with my anti-social, introverted tendencies.

Although I want things to go smoothly and for the food to turn out well, I don't really worry about that kind of stuff. There are other things that stress an introvert.
In my head ('cause I'd never say it out loud) I'm wondering how long they are going to stay and if we going to have to play games or something.
With one couple (like last night), things are pretty easy. When you have a larger group, people tend to break into several smaller conversations and (if I'm the host) I feel like I need to make sure that everyone is engaged and nobody is left out.
I don't really enjoy small talk. I can engage in it and feel comfortable with most any subject, I just can't say that I really enjoy it.

Our company last night was easy.
The couple relationship is a little different in that I worked with the woman in the other couple and we became friends over the many years of working together. Even though we had met each other's spouses, we never really did anything together as couples until after we retired. Neither of us was much for socializing with co-workers before we retired (me, much less than her). She gets along well with Chris and I get along well with her husband. Both are easy to talk to, but we do stay away from politics. In spite of having much in common on many core values, our political views are quite different.
There was plenty to talk about with our kids and health issues and just catching up on life.
The night went by way too fast and they were called away a little early.

I'm calling it a good night and sharing this as a Good Friday post.
What is something good in your world?

John <><

Another thought:
Maybe I need to brush up on my people skills a bit and have people over more often.
Eh ... maybe not.
We'll see.