The Housewarming Party

I finally had our housewarming party the other night, so now, I can get on with the rest of my life. Thank goodness.

I don't particularly like hosting parties, but I felt such a strong impulse to share the house with others, that it had to be done. Because, as I've said before, the homes we live in are important. I really, really like to see how other people make their home... how it looks, how it feels, how it smells, the energy inside of it. You can tell a lot about a person by the inside of their home (and not in a judgmental sort of way either, just in a nice getting-to-know-you-more sort of way). And I like to know a lot about people (this is why I enjoy reading memoirs and facebook... status updates are like little mini-autobiographies), so I wanted people to know me and my home as well.

Anyway, so about the housewarming party...

I conducted these kind of cheesey and official house tours every 15 minutes (maximum of 5 people per tour), complete with tour badges:

I didn't ask anybody's permission to use their photo on my blog, because I just thought of using it right now,
so that's why I put black boxes over their eyes. Don't they look nice?

People either humored me by participating in the house tours, or where genuinely interested. It's hard to tell the difference.

Oh, I also made a couple of my Unique Pizzas, and this cheesecake:

Then, we played a Housewarming Trivia Game.

I handed out these sheets:

And asked these questions (feel free to play along at home, or to use these for your own housewarming party):

HOUSE MEDIA
1. Lori Laughlin joined the cast of this sitcom, set in San Fransciso, during its second season.
2. Tobey Maguire starred in this 1999 Oscar-winning movie based on a John Irving novel.
3. What actor played the role of the title character in Fox network’s House, MD?
4. Patrick Swayze plays a bouncer in this 1989 movie.
5. In this Emmy-award winning Showtime original series Claire Danes plays as a CIA officer with bipolar disorder.
6. What 1990 movie features an 8-year-old boy who is accidentally left behind while his family flies to France for Christmas?
7. A 1978 movie that has John Belushi wearing a sweatshirt that says COLLEGE.
8. Chad Allen and Shannon Daughtery played Wilford Brimley’s grandchildren in this 1988 tv show.
9. In this movie, Martin Lawrence stars as an FBI agent who disguises himself as an old lady to ­protect a federal witness and her son.
10. Zachary Ty Bryan, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and Taran Noah Smith starred as the children in this 1991 television sitcom.

THE PERSONALS
1. What year was this house built?
2. Where did Allison and Vernon get their bedroom set?
3. Before this house, how many homes have Vernon and Allison owned?
4. How long have the Kuznia’s lived in this house? (come within 7 days)
5. What Minneapolis neighborhood are we in now?
6. How many feet long is the living room?
7. The labrador blue paint color used in the upstairs hallway is featured in what current ABC sitcom? (Which is where Allison got the idea from, because she looked it up.)
8. Besides the spice magnets, name one other magnet that is on the Kuznia’s refrigerator.
9. How many square feet is this house? (come within 100 square feet)
10. The homes Allison and Vernon grew up in were located how many miles away from each other?

And then, for the last category, I played these songs:

Track 1 - song
Track 2 - artist
Track 3 - song
Track 4 - song AND artist
Track 5 - song
Track 6 - song
Track 7 - song AND artist
Track 8 - song
Track 9 - song
Track 10 - song AND artist


The team Unassisted Co-Sleepers won, getting 32 out of the 38 questions correct. Second place went to the Maladjusted Non-Adjusters (or something like that), with 29 points, and third place went to the Cleveland Cadets with 20 points.

I also had people write one word of blessing for our house/family, and then I strung the up, like this:

There was only one wise guy in the bunch (writing down "plastics"), but I included it anyway because I thought it was funny:

So, that's about it, I guess.

Now, throughout the rest of this week, I'll give you a tour of the home through this blog. Come back tomorrow for some BEFORE pictures, and we'll go from there.