Houseguests: Preparing for them, then enjoying them

Enjoying company is a little easier for me these days. Now that I avoid overhostessing, things are better. There is still a tremendous amount of energy required to prepare for house guests; even a generally clean household needs a few extras before guests can comfortably be absorbed into the home.

I feel like I have read a lot about Christian hospitality and how our attitudes are supposed to be welcoming and how we are to show love to travelers and friends by opening our homes to others. We read in the Bible about how the early church met in homes, about how Chloe (wasn't it Chloe?) opened her home so believers could meet, learn, and worship together. And then there was that couple in the Old Testament who had Elisha over to eat and sleep often on his travels through their village. As I prepared for house guests this time, I thought about that couple. They really were not just fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants hospitable, they were organized. As you recall, they built Elisha a room onto the side of their house, so that he would have his own special place to stay whenever he needed it. Wow. Now that's hospitality.

Hospitality is hard, at least for me. People don't talk about this aspect of hospitality, at least not while I'm in earshot. Maybe no one wants to seem unfriendly, so they gloss over all the upheaval hospitable behavior can cause. We need to be hospitable anyway, because God told us to be. While I was preparing for guests, here are some things I did:

-Planned our flexible menu and grocery shopped accordingly.

-Baked some breakfast treats that are fast "before rushing off to the 8a.m. church service" food options for everyone.

-Talked with my toddler about our guests to prepare her.

-Moved our potty training area to a guest-free zone.

-Put a welcome sign up on the door of the guest area, along with some welcoming toddler masterpieces.

- removed often-used items out of the guest room, in our case this consisted of baby care and baby clothing items

- gave the guest room an extra dusting, sweeping, and overall freshening-up.

- Washed the quilt and linens on the guest bed and brought the air mattress out of storage.

- Washed the guest bathroom really well, after removing all the children's bath toys and towels from it.

-Set out fresh towels and new bars of soap and extra TP.

-Prepared the dining area for guests.

So while I did all that, over the course of the week which led up to the arrival of the guests, I thought about how truly hard it is to do all of that in addition to keeping up with the needs of our household and our family. Because that little list I just wrote doesn't cover any of my usual must-do housekeeping activities, and all of those household cycles (laundry, dishes, meals, childcare, joyfully repeat) continued throughout all that preparation.

And people ask homemakers what we do all day! *smile and chuckle*

Anyway, the act of opening our homes to others requires work, organization, creativity, and then when the guests come we need to show them patience and kindness and attention (yet not overhostess, of course) and enjoy them.

It seemed like a great deal of the preparation involved physically removing our own things from the guests' space, anticipating what their needs would be, and providing for them accordingly. It felt like an object lesson, like I was learning that hospitality is putting someone else's needs first.

So now the guests have been with us a couple of days and I'm realizing that despite the enormous

amount of work, it is so great to have 2 new personalities in our daily routine. They have transformed our household into a place with a lot more laughter and a lot more goofing around, it is really enjoyable. The visit is a treat for all of us. I am glad they have come.

Now I'm off to go prepare for a company dinner and a company breakfast while the little ones nap.

My Retro-Themed Kitchen: the tea portion of the garland.

Happy little people drinking tea! This is right over the section of my counter devoted to tea-making. I often stand at this spot while pulling together everything that goes into making and serving a nice spot of tea. And this sign below always cracks me up!
And now let's all sit down for a good cup of the wonderful brew. Shall I pour?

Once More into the Breach! My Retro-Themed Kitchen: the Betty Crocker illustration garland.

Don't you just adore old cookbooks? The thing is, though, in my own experience I have not found them to be particularly great sources of recipes. However, I have a soft spot for the illustrations in them. So one day this winter, I got out my scissors and attacked this old Betty Crocker - - and made a garland for my kitchen cupboards. It is right at my eye level, and is nice and inspiring to see as I cook and clean and such around my little kitchen. Here it is:
The story seems to begin with a lady in an apron planning, then shopping,
then stocking her fridge,
then working in the kitchen,
then taking the fruit of her labor out of the oven, then presenting it to loved ones,

and then repeating that age-old process. Thus, the life of a homemaker! This garland of illustrations reminds me that I am joining the parade of women homemakers who have gone before us. They may have had kitchens that appear slightly different from ours, but they were doing the same thing: serving their families and making (I hope) tasty and healthy food. Onward, my fellow cooks, mothers, wives, homemakers! Once more into the breach!

Plum Puffs at Teatime

This is another entry for Anne of Green Gables Fashion Week founded by Bramblewood Fashion.
I had a new friend over for tea yesterday afternoon, which was the perfect excuse to try out the Plum Puffs recipe from the Anne of Green Gables Treasury. Here is the recipe:

1/2 cup water
3 T butter
1/2 cup flour
1 t white sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup plum jam
1/2 cup cream cheese (optional)
confectioner's sugar for dusting (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 425 F. Grease baking sheet.
2. In large saucepan, heat water and butter until boiling. When butter has melted, turn heat to low, and add flour and sugar all at once and mix them in thoroughly with wooden spoon. Beat mixture over low heat until it leaves the sides of the pan -- about 1 minute or less.
3. Remove pan from heat. Add one egg, beat until smooth. Add next egg, beat until smooth.
4. Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. They should be one inch around and will double in size as they bake.
5. Bake 15-2 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven, turn heat off. Close oven door. With a toothpick, poke a tiny hole in each to allow steam out. Return the puffs to off-but-warm oven for 5 minutes. Remove and cool on rack. When cool, gently split puffs in 1/2 and fill each with a spoonful of jam and or cream cheese.
6. Arrange on a serving tray and sprinkle with confectioner's sugar if you like.
This recipe makes 2-3 dozen puffs.

I thought this recipe was much simpler in practice than it first appears! And it is not an overly sweet teatime treat at all, so at a future tea if I need a recipe to offset a bunch of sweeter confections, this would round things out quite elegantly. Anne and Diana would approve!

The Household Guestbook

The road to a friend's house is never too long.

That saying always makes me think of the S. family, a family whom I greatly admire for their big-hearted hospitality and cozy home. Their house is a huge distance from everywhere, completely inconvenient to find, and nearly hidden in a posh wooded neighborhood of coastal New England. Yet, their household is like a people magnet! Their guest book is always stuffed to the gills with names. They must know some secret of how to attract crowds of fun, wonderful people, because I've been to more gatherings there than I can shake a stick at....appropriately, the S. family gave my husband and I a guestbook as part of their wedding gift to us in 2007.

I've been shyly collecting guest signatures in this book, and it is sweet to sit and admire the names and comments that guests leave. This book will serve as a nice record of the friends and family who visited us over the years.

Two days ago, however, the guestbook served me in an entirely new way. And feel free to chuckle at me, dear reader, when you discover how it did so. One of my new neighbors, whom I had met by way of delivering a big smile, a welcome, and a mini loaf of banana bread in January, came over for supper. For the life of me, I could not recall her name. To my shame, she remembered mine, as well as my daughter's! Gosh.

The visit went beautifully, we all had a grand time. And at the end of the visit I pulled out the guestbook and asked if she would do us the honor of signing it. (You see where I'm going with this?). She was thrilled to sign, and wrote her name very clearly, along with a happy comment.

So, now I know her name, yippee! Yet another use for guestbooks. I really think that if more people knew about the joys of guestbooks, more households would have them. Tee hee.

Your friend,
Heather

An Unexpected Visitor

Last Thursday morning at about 8:45, our doorbell rang.

Startled, I sped to the front door to answer; and as I had just put our daughter down for her morning nap, my arms were uncharacteristically empty. Through the window I could see that our caller was not a delivery man, as I'd assumed it would be, but it was a new acquaintance of mine. It was my neighbor's mother, a small gracious lady from central Asia who has been staying next door for about six months. During these special months she has been household support to her daughter, who has just given birth to their firstborn.

I opened the door and smiled, a bit embarrassed that she'd caught me in my robe and slippers. Certainly I am not accustomed to receiving guests while in nightclothes. I welcomed her and motioned for her to come in -- fully expecting her to see that I was not prepared and excuse herself until a more convenient time. However, she came right in and thanked me, and as is their custom, immediately took off her shoes. And as she did so I saw that she was close to tears and very much needed a friend.

How could I be a friend to her? We don't speak the same first language, and we didn't have either of our usual translators with us this time, and we didn't have my dear baby daughter nearby to serve as a sort of common-ground conversation piece....and I was in my robe! But, I just took a deep breath and ushered her into the living room, glad it was in great shape and silently thanking all the Lady Lydia posts I'd read about keeping things ready for guests *see http://www.homeliving.blogspot.com* Quickly I whisked out a box of tissues and tried my best to be a lady (despite my robe!)

This dear woman really just needed a hug and a listening ear. She didn't stay very long, and it didn't seem to matter too much that we didn't always understand one another's exact words due to our language barrier. From what I understood, she was simply overwhelmed by her impending departure; it would be difficult to leave her daughter and son-in-law and only grandchild. These are universal concerns, there is nothing in that emotion that is unique to her culture, nothing in my culture that prevents me from understanding. My heart was heavy for her, and I think she saw the comprehension on my face.

After she left, I held our guestbook - which I'd had her sign - and thought about what had happened. It was a small thing. Yet, I was glad to learn that this acquaintance of mine counted me as a friend, and that our home appealed to her as a place where she would be welcomed at quarter to nine in the morning for a little cry and some kind words.

Hospitality: that word crosses my mind all the time, it is a goal of mine, something I want to offer people and so often I don't know how to make it happen. It intimidates me and I end up being too formal or - perhaps worse, I postpone asking someone over for tea or lunch or a visit, and instead I wait for circumstances to be ideal. I glanced up at the foyer wall to a cross stitch sampler I made. It reads Friends and Neighbors Welcome. How much more authentic that early morning visit was than so many of my other attempts at hostessing hospitable gatherings!

When the pastor prayed at our wedding in 2007, he blessed the marriage with a prayer that included these lines:

"Send therefore your blessing upon these your servants, that they may so love, honor, and cherish each other in faithfulness and patience, in wisdom and true godliness, that their home may be a haven of blessing and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen."

This line especially came to mind as I mulled over the visit that morning: it seemed like our home had been deemed a haven of blessing and peace. I also remembered how the girls at one of my bridal showers had all surrounded me and prayed that our home would be a haven, as well.

I really would like our home to be a haven every day - for my own little family and for those who visit us. It seemed to me that any home can only be a true haven by God's help and our cooperation. What do you think? How do you authentically prepare your homes for guests? Not just the outward trappings of being prepared, which are of course necessary and important, but what is it about the haven-like homes you have visited that makes them havens?

Honored Guests at Tea

Yesterday our household was honored to recieve two visitors from afar. I suppose that makes them sound like the Magi! Not so. It makes me so happy when they are able to visit us, as they are so special to me: these two guests are my maternal grandfather's first cousin and her husband...and to both shorten and sweeten that distant-sounding explanation of relationship, we have recently decided to classify ourselves with the following titles: Great Aunt Kathleen and Great Uncle Walter, and they refer to me as their niece. These designations are far cozier than before, when we didn't really call one another anything. Interesting how names and titles succeed in making people dearer to each other.

Another part of the reason I was so excited and honored to have my Great Aunt and Great Uncle over is because we all have so much in common. We are really kindred spirits, my Aunt and I. It doesn't seem to make a whit of difference that she was born in the 1920s and I was born in 1979 -- we really may as well be sisters. We're both readers, Christians, interested in American history and our family history, we're both quietly anti-feminism, we laugh at the same things, and simply enjoy our visits and our intermittent letter correspondence.

My Great Uncle is a real hero in my opinion, as he is one of the most gentlemanly husbands I've ever met, and he is a World War II veteran. They were passing through our neck of the woods on their way back from a visit to the World War II memorial in DC. I was fairly overwhelmed, inwardly, at the significance and the great honor it is to ahve a veteran of WWII over for tea! I hold such great respect for the work that generation of Americans did. It was good to hear their report/impression of the monument, as their good opinion of it seems to matter. The monument was created to honor him and his fellow veterans, after all. My Uncle Walter and Aunt Kathleen said the monument seemed very triumphant and respectful, and everything it ought to be. This was good news! Also, they approved of its location in relation to the other monuments and buildings of the capital. (I haven't been to DC since 2000, which was before this was complete, so I was especially curious about things). Its off in a wooded area near the Lincoln memorial. And of course, we all smiled at one another and nodded approvingly, it is always good to be in the vicinity of Lincoln!

My honored guests and I enjoyed our short time together greatly: they gave gifts to my daughter, she smiled and was sweet to them in her baby way and happily let them each hold her. I think instinctively she knows how wonderful they are, even though she's only 12 months old. I shyly brought out my last several sewing projects to show Aunt Kathleen, who finds joy in looking at such things. And I showed Uncle Walter the gardening project that my husband and I have undertaken, and he was very impressed. All too soon the tea was over and my relatives had to be on their way. We waved from the driveway and sighed after their vehicle turned the corner. If only we lived closer!