Archives for October 2012
31 Days to Hospitality::Day 29 Below my Feet
This is day 29 in a 31 day series on hospitality. Start from the beginning here.
Well, it’s been a good run. I’m glad I took this journey with you. And the timing of my trip to Sanibel Island tomorrow couldn’t be better. I’ll be reading Plato on the beach. My life is nothing, if not a study in contrasts. I’m hunting down margin and nailing him to sandy ground.
This song by Mumford and Sons is my series in a nutshell. Listen to it more than once. Feel his passion. Let the lyrics dip deep.
{The truth is gnawing at him too.}
Let us sit for a while here. Let us confess that for all our sweat, our ‘blood runs weak.”
And then we plead together, “Keep my eyes to serve, my hands to learn.”
Hospitality is our soul offering to others.
Hospitality is that margin of ourselves that we set aside so that love can happen.
Hospitality is the best of ourselves, broken and spilled out and lavished on our neighbor.
We live to serve.
Keep the earth below my feet,
For all my sweat, my blood runs weak
Let me learn from where I have been
Keep my eyes to serve, my hands to learn.
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I have 4-5 good posts left but I’ve run out of days. I have 1-2 posts on table setting, the post on the well-appointed hostess, several recipes that we didn’t get to and a post on difficult guests. I’ve been discussing this with my people and we’ve decided to turn this series into a printable pdf/ebooklet.!!!! The work has already begun. The new ‘days’ will be added and the content will be maximized for printing. We hope to finish before Christmas. I’m so excited about this!!!! But it will be a lot of work so bear with me. I’ve added a few more pins to the Hospitality Board at Pinterest so feel free to peruse it. Also, don’t forget to add links to your recipes to the comments on this post-–some of those will be used in the booklet!
Also, the 12 Days of Christmas is supposed to start tomorrow but I have a prior posting commitment that totally slipped my mind (please forgive me) and the first tutorial (WHICH IS AWESOME) will be posted early the next day. Get your glue guns and your sewing machines ready!
Also, our online book club begins Plato’s Republic tomorrow and the post for Antigone, along with an introduction to Plato will be added later today! To join, just buy the book, start reading and check the forum and my blog occasionally for updates.
Antigone
It is with deepest affection that I welcome my wonderful bookish friend Michele, who blogs at The Great Read, no less, to give us some insight into Antigone! I love her dearly and consider her a true friend. She’s been such a wonderful source of wisdom and encouragement to me and has graciously agreed to help with book club. Welcome, sweetie Michele!
31 Days to Hospitality::Day 28 What to Cook {when company comes}
This is day 20 in a 31 day series on hospitality. Start from the beginning here.
1. Keep a list of great recipes.
The big question is always, “What should I cook?” Isn’t that the bane of the existence of every mother? Don’t you get tired of trying to figure out what to cook? That’s why I started keeping a collection of my favorite recipes on my blog—like a hope chest for my daughters someday. They’ll have all mom’s recipes at their fingertips. I’m always trying new recipes but there’s nothing like a few that are tried and true.
And what could be better than soup? I’m kinda like the soup whisperer. I LOVE soup. I make it every week, even in the summer. It’s comfort food. It feeds a crowd. You can make it stretch. It’s not expensive. Soup is your friend when you’re having company.
Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Cheeseburger {in paradise} Soup
Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sea Salt
2. Plan ahead.
Make a menu. Right it down. When I’m having company, I plan every meal ahead and plan for plenty of snacks, cocktails, cookies, etc. I plan for things that can be at least partially prepared ahead. This allows you plenty of margin—-which translates into time, to visit with your company.
3. Cook ahead.
Almost everything can be frozen. I cook ahead and then freeze what freezes well. Soups freeze particularly well as do cookies. I almost always have those things in my freezer, just in case.
4. When all else fails, make homemade bread.
I always try to bake bread when company’s coming. The house smells amazing and everyone knows how much you love them. The end.
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If you have any favorite, tried and true recipes that would be great for showing hospitality, link to them in the comments. I will add some of those links back to this post!
Mwahhhhhh!
31 Days to Hospitality::Day 27 On Listening and Margin
This is day 27 in a 31 day series on hospitality. Start from the beginning here.
When we listen to another, we catch a slight glimpse of their soul. We create an open page where they are free to write their story. We help people remember who they are.
If there is one gift you can give another human being, it is a listening heart. Nothing validates us, makes us whole, helps us become who we are meant to be, as much as to be heard.
But we don’t listen well, do we? We are busy, distracted, stressed, overworked, overburdened, anxious, and selfish.
We don’t listen because we don’t have space for others.
Our lives are chaotic and cluttered and full.
We lack margin. We don’t know how to quieten the buzz. We don’t really even want to.
But when we lose margin, we lose our humanity.
Margin is the space between us and our limits. It’s what gives us the time and compassion to listen.
Margin gives us time to play…..
time to paint pumpkins…..
time to learn to crochet…….
Time to bake cupcakes….
Time to be sisters…..
The margin of our lives is where the garden grows….
and the sun sets…..
It’s where we learn to stargaze and bird watch.
It’s where we sing and dance…..
It’s where we linger to feel the magic of the everyday.
It’s where we remember so keenly that these moments are fleeting…..
It gives us the space to breathe……
To read……
Or even nap….
Maybe every good thing that happens, happens here, on the sidelines, in the space between us and our schedules.
And we miss them because we haven’t learned to listen.
Because we’ve made lives with no margin. No room for what might be. No room for the soul to breathe.
And this place, as you might have guessed is where hospitality lives. In the margins. Where we make room for others and their beautiful struggle.
Where we learn to really listen—-to incline our hearts to someone else.
So, my question for you is this?
Is there any room between you and your limits?
Are you exhausted? Always on the verge of tears? Spent? Irritable? Lacking joy?
You need margin. And you may have to fight for it.
I gave my family the gift of margin when I quit working.
And everytime I am willing to listen.
To slow down. To learn to say no to all the noise. To stay home. To choose the path less traveled.
But it’s not natural in our modern world so I fight for it everyday.
And some days I fail miserably.
But some days………
I see it. I hear the beautiful symphony of life. I hold onto joy and I listen well, like my life depends on it.
And I’m starting to wonder if maybe, in some ways, it does.
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I recommend this book if you long to create space in your life. Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives
31 Days of Hospitality::Day 26 Hospitality, Square Dance Style
This is day 26 in a 31 day series on hospitality. Start from the beginning here.
You know you’ve raised your kids right when they ask for a square dance party for their 16th birthday.
And that’s just what my niece, Hope (or Hope-y, as I call her) asked for. Isn’t she adorable?????
And here is the hostess with the mosses, in the flesh. My sister, if I do say so myself, knows how to throw a party. She knows how to feed people. And she does it with grace and with a big smile on her face. She’s always doing it too, so I suppose the practice has paid off. If you’re having an event or just blessing people in your everyday, you need to learn from the master. She is hospitality extraordinaire.
She’s smart too because she surrounds herself with her people. Which reminds me that it takes a village to raise a child host a square dance. We discovered during the setup that Aunt Shawna is little OCD with her decorations. They have to be PERFECT! Which was a great balance to my, “Oh, everything looks great!” attitude. The three of us were a mean team of decorating and serving and cleaning up. You need your people. Hospitality is seldom a solo sport. We made Hope-y pose with the aunts. It’s only fair since we’ve half raised her!
And the girl cousins—so completely adorable!
The hillbilly couch got put to full use. Just set up some hay bales in the rough shape of a sofa. Instant photo booth!
The food was beautiful to look at and yummy to eat.
When sissy texted me a picture of one of these sunflower cupcakes the day before the party and said, “Just 74 more to go”, I got a little panicked for her. Except then I remembered that she’s a machine. She can just churn out the work and get .stuff. done. I LOVE that about her. Nothing intimidates her, nothing rattles her. She’s a work horse and knows how to do EVERYTHING.
She simplified the drink list to include sweet and unsweet tea and lemonade. She also has tubs of water bottles sitting around. Perfect and simplified.
The chocolate fountain was a huge hit. Cleaning it out the next day, however, was not. I said that we should just take a vote on whether to throw the whole thing away or clean it. I’m sure my vote of ‘throw the whole thing away’ was tempting but she cleaned it out, God love her. Every last drop. I vowed to never buy a chocolate fountain. EVER.
We decorated mostly with burlap, bandanas and mason jars.
The tables were set with simple flowers (in mason jars) and small votive candles. She served BBQ, baked beans, cole slaw and chips.
And you can’t have a party in our family without Grannie and Poppa G to help you. They work like crazy, in the background, to make everything perfect.
Grannie’s got that look on her face like, “Did we remember to unload the mums?”
Hope and her friend Paige decided to celebrate their birthdays together. Their cake was todiefor!
(Side note—when you’re having a big party like this, it’s a great idea to do it jointly to defray some of the costs and some of the work. Paige’s family was awesome in helping us get all set up and torn down and since we had the party at a barn, there was a lot to load and unload.)
And then there was the square dance. If you’ve never been to one, find out if there’s a local caller in your area and book one right away. It’s the perfect family activity because all ages can participate. You don’t have to know what you’re doing and it’s easy to catch on.
It’s THE MOST FUN, EVER! I’ll let the photos speak for themselves!
Take your partner and do-si-do!
These two boys were HI-LARRY-US. Trevor showed up in a mullet and they rocked the square dance floor all night.
It was the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Maybe even since the last square dance.
And watching my sister work her magic was just icing on the sunflower cupcakes.