Two Other Facets

Wow, can't believe I've not posted in so long!  We've been gone on several little trips here and there, but it is always great to return home.  There's nothing like sleeping in your own bed!

I want to touch on two areas of hospitality that most people probably don't think a lot about - coffee and cleanliness.  How's THAT for a combination?

Seriously, now, let's think about the cleanliness part.  If your house is filthy, people do NOT want to come, and therefore you can't be hospitable.  I'm not suggesting that your house must be pristine before you invite people in, but I do think that a dirty house is repulsive to people.  You should know that I am NOT a good housekeeper at all.  My mom worked outside the house, so I was responsible for "maintenance" at my childhood home.  That meant that I did dishes and laundry on a daily basis - and that's it.  Saturdays were the big cleaning day.  My parents would blast some music on their record player (yes, we had a record player!) - usually the Eagles, Englebert Humperdink, or The Oak Ridge Boys, and we would clean all day.  Great fun, right?  Wrong.  Anyway, when I got married and had kids, I didn't know how to keep up the house.  No idea.  I remember a conversation Tim and I had about it.  He asked if I could do better at keeping the house clean (his mom stayed at home when he was young).  I asked how exactly he wanted me to do that.  He didn't know, but knew that what I was doing wasn't enough.  Now, this isn't the time to crab about how horrible my hubby was - because I knew he was right.  I had NO idea how to clean a house - how often should I dust?  Vacuum?  Mop?  How to work in cleaning cupboards?

Enter Flylady.  Even if you think you're a good housekeeper, you need to visit this site and start getting e-mails.  She breaks everything down into small pieces, gives a great deal of encouragement (which I need to have), and reminds you that your house didn't get like this in a day, it won't be fixed in a day.  She helped me to figure out a cleaning schedule (which I don't stick to religiously, but certainly helps!), and also helped keep me focused.  I'm a cleaner that would find something in one room, go to another room to put it away, find something in THAT room that needed to be done, and so on and so on.  Nothing ever seemed to get clean, because I didn't focus for more than a few minutes.

So, how does this go back to hospitality?  The most pressing example in my head is the bathroom.  Flylady encourages you to "swish and swipe" each day.  It takes all of two minutes to swish the toilet with the toilet brush and to wipe down the sinks and seat of the toilet with a rag and cleaner.  And then it's ALWAYS clean enough for company.  I have been to houses where the bathroom is repulsive.  Not just dirty, repulsive.  It takes all of two minutes to clean it...and if you do it daily, it's even less difficult to clean.  It makes me not want to return to houses like that.  And that is most CERTAINLY not giving the gift of hospitality.

Okay, enough of that yucky subject.  I still hate cleaning, but Flylady's made it manageable.

Now, onto coffee.  I hosted home group (a Bible study) in my home for several years.  I remember SO many times people would say, "you make great coffee".  What???  I could never figure it out.  I have now.  I have had several cups of "brown water" at other people's houses.  I will give you the secret to good coffee....it's really hard, so get ready to take notes....are you ready?  Okay, it's....MORE.

Yes, I said more.  One tablespoon per cup.  At least.  I've started adding a bit extra and it's even better.  For example, I normally make 6 cups every day.  So...that's six tablespoons (I've recently started doing seven - yum!).  If you have a coffee scoop, figure out how many tablespoons it is and convert.  It's really that simple.

This goes back to hospitality because quite often, we'll serve coffee to people....and if it's brown water, it's not tasty.  We want people to enjoy being at our house (cleanliness, conversation) and enjoy what they eat and drink (properly seasoned, pleasing to the palate and the eyes).

I'm off to drink MY coffee now (with a bit of hazelnut creamer).