My Croppy Summer Photo Assignment #2

It seems no matter where you set up your "staging area" for gatherings, people always migrate to somewhere else. In my family, it's usually where the food is set out. (If there's not food it's not a gathering.) The gathering spot in my house is in the kitchen and breakfast nook. I'm blessed to have a large, open floor plan along the back of the house. I can stand in my kitchen and see straight through to the family room. It's great. It's a large area that when we built the house I envisioned people would spread out in and still feel connected to the party. But nope, they group in the kitchen (around the food) and spread into the nook. I've set the food outside on the back patio and yet, people ultimately end up in the kitchen. They lean against the counters or around the table (they don't sit at it, they stand beside it, LOL) and hold drinks, nibble food from the platters and chat. They lean one way or the other to get out of the way of the running kids, but they rarely move outside this space. I've stopped fighting it, even when I'm still working in the kitchen, which is a good size kitchen when it's just me. I imagine it must be a bit like what it's like to cook on a submarine, when all those bodies are sharing the space I'm still working in: tight. That's okay. . .I don't know that I'd have it any other way. Well, maybe at clean-up time, which oddly is the only time the "gathering space" is emptied. Huh?

Take a photo of your gathering space. This along with any other photo assignments are due, including a layout using the photos, August 15th.