Practice Makes Imperfect Giveaway (And Announcing an Online Study!)

Special Note: Be sure to join us tomorrow when former Victoria’s Secret supermodel Kylie Bisutti joins me telling her story of giving up modeling immodest clothes because of her faith in Jesus. You will love her story and admire her courage!

Welcome to those of you who have joined after reading my Proverbs 31 Encouragement for Today devotion. If you haven’t peeked at it, click here to get caught up, but be sure to come back for the announcement and giveaway!

Does the phrase “Company’s coming!” send you running for cover? I can sooooo can relate.

I married into a family full of interior decorators, caterers, and Bed and Breakfast owners, while I myself could hardly boil water!

On weekdays beginning Monday, March 19th, we’ll be having ourselves a 15-day online study based on my book A Life That Says Welcome: Simple Ways to Open Your Heart & Home to Others. (It will run weekdays for three weeks and end on Good Friday)

With special guests, great giveaways, doable, practical ideas, and YOUR recipes, decorating tips (perhaps even a few hospitality horror stories?), this inter-active online journey will enable you to:

·      Recognize the difference between “entertaining” in today’s culture and biblical hospitality

·      Identify the top excuses for not opening your home and apply simple solutions to overcome them

·      Acquire weekly, quick-cleaning strategies, a proven system for de-cluttering your house and easy, decorate-on-a-shoestring tips

·      Arm yourself with delicious cooking-for-a-crowd recipes, make-ahead meals and kid-friendly favorites

·      Discover “hospitality on the road” ideas for living a life of welcome wherever your daily life takes you

This study will take place here (but also have all of the links to the posts on my Facebook study page.)

Sign up is a simple two-step!

#1–Just click on the little envelope icon in the top of the sidebar here to get my posts delivered to your email box each day. (If you decide you don’t want to keep getting my posts via email after the study, simply click on the “unsubscribe” link in the email) You can do this today or just before the study launches. (You might forget so I suggest you do it now.)

#2–And, get yourself a copy of the book. (Click here to get it from Proverbs 31 Ministries) You’ll need to start reading the book (have chapters 1-4 done before we begin, if you can. PLEASE don’t fret about keeping up with the reading. This will be a relaxed study, full of grace!)) and have it to refer to during the study (for discussion purposes and for crazy giveaways like: “The first person to leave a comment telling me what recipe is on page 176 wins a prize!)

Now, as a little pre-view, check out this hospitality giveaway. It includes:

~ A pair of fancy-pants cleaning gloves. (Won’t you be stylish scrubbing those toilets for company?)

~ A “Greener Clean” Scotch Brite non-scratch sponge

~ A new sage green dish towel

~ A plum spatula (as in plum colored, not one made for plums, although it certainly will work if you need to scrape yourself some mashed plums out of a bowl).

~ A set of collapsible measuring cups

~A Ghirardelli Sea Salt Dark Chocolate bar

~ A triple layered candle (apricot, mandarin-cranberry & tropical twist)

~ A signed copy of A Life That Says Welcome

In order to be entered in the giveaway, leave us a comment telling us the last time you had someone over for supper or a snack. Be honest. If it hasn’t been since 1997, that is okay!

 

ALSO: If you mention this post on Facebook or Twitter today, leave a second comment letting us know to have a double chance to win.  (Here is the short link to the post: http://goo.gl/kMlGu )

 

Oh yeah—and the winners of the 7 Ebooks from Amy Bayliss are:

Carissa, Sylvia, Polly Knehr, Kamya, Beth Cranfrod, Amy S and Ann :-) You’ll be receiving and email from my assistant Kim at the address you left when you commented so be watching for it!

 

Now, be sure to come back tomorrow to meet Kylie. Happy hospitality!

433 Comments

  1. We have people over almost every Sunday after church. We invite the young couples (one of which is our daughter and son-in-law) and sometimes throw in another family as well. I try to have something in the crock pot or have the oven set to time bake.

  2. The last time I had anyone over was back in Jan. I had my in-laws over for dinner after my daughters middle school play. ? They had dinner with us, and I was to be quite honest nervous the whole time. I just did not feel that my house was pulled together enough.

  3. Hospitality is something I love doing.
    However, because I have a chronic
    illness, I have to do a little each day
    to prepare ahead, or I end up overdoing
    it when company comes. I try to keep
    things simple and easy. The last time
    I had company was in January, when
    we invited several single girls from our
    church over for a movie and food. We
    had a great time. We need to have
    company again soon.
    time! I need to plan for company soon.

  4. The last time we had someone over was at Christmas. I can’t wait to do this study. My hope is to get better at opening my home and my heart to others.

  5. Other than our kids it’s been quite a while since we had anyone over. I work nights and with only one night off during the week it’s hard to have company. Although I’m sure I could have someone for Sunday dinner, I just haven’t. I know we need to and I’m really going to try and start doing this. I guess we just get in a rut and do the same things over and over. I like what one comment said about having friends over for a game night. That sounds fun. Would love to try that. Thanks for encouraging us to do better. I’m posting this on my facebook page. Thanks again.

  6. I host a lot of our play groups at our house – does that count? The moms come and talk while the kids play. A hodge-podge of snacks are offered – whatevers on hand. Personally, I think having kids over should count double as the clean up afterwards is always worse….oops…no grumbling, right :-)

  7. It has been at least a month or so . . . but I have a St. Pattrick’s Day playdate planned and I am hoping to spend some extra time making everyone feel especially welcome :)

  8. I don’t have people over that’s not immediate family, feel inferior and that my house is not “nice” enought & that the food I prepare is not acceptable. Looking forward to the study.

  9. February 13, 2012 I had 7 ladies for a game of PoKeNo. We had dinner played 15 games and then had dessert and coffee played 15 more games. Lots of fun and they are forgiving of the messes I sometimes have. Look forward to this study. I have the book and I’m gonna start reading.

  10. A mom friend came over to do a traveling garage sale with me last week, but I didn’t give her a thing to eat=we are in biggest loser together, so that is why, I’m sure! I have ‘company’ every day as I have a home child care and my home is theirs (it’s napping time). I would love to have a family over so the kids could play and adults enjoy each other as well, but we haven’t done that yet.

  11. I usually do not have people come over because I am a full time student and my home does have a lot of clutter. Since my grown sons were forced to move back home things went from manageable to awful. Now I just find others homes to have meetings and dinners.

  12. Hospitality is something God has gifted me in and given me a love for and blessed me GREATLY for it!! I bought my first house at 20 and loved to have people over. One of my goals was to make sure others my age (including my brother) saw we could have fun without drinking and other things common for our age group. Who came. changed through the years as people came and went, got married and had kids (though spouses and kids were always welcome!). It became tradition that my house was the gathering place for new years, 4th of July (I lived in the country so we could shoot fireworks and have fires ect). A formal Christmas party also became an annual tradition (the guys griped about it leading up to the party but before leaving they were confirming it would be an annual thing!!)

    I kept having friends whos kids are my age tell me i needed to move to a bigger town/ church if i was ever going to meet the guy God intended me to marry. I told them just like Rebecca in Genesis, if I was doing what He had called me to do, where He called me to be, in his timing i would meet the right guy. This was June of 2007.

    4th of July 2007’s gathering changed my life in unexpected ways. One of my friends called and asked if she could bring a friend and as always I said yes. A month later her friend Neal asked me on our first date (we had hung out in groups since then). A year later we were married. Now 3 1/2 years into our marriage we are 3 weeks away from the due date of our 3rd child. Our lives have changed a lot but one thing that remains a huge priority is hosting. It has changed some but that is something that we both know we should do and we love to do. I pray as our kids grow our house will be the one where all their friends call a 2nd home and feel the love of Jesus through our home. We are blessed!!

  13. March madness 2011. I do love to entertain and used to have spaghetti suppers quite often when our kids were younger. We are empty nesters and seem busier with elderly parents now than when our kids were at home. Lost my precious MIL Feb 3, been busy grieving and cleaning her house. But do sincerely hope to get back in the groove of hospitality soon. Recently joined a new church and with new church family would love to host some get acquainted times.

  14. I can’t believe how long it’s been since I had someone over for dinner (or a snack) and until you asked this question, I had not even thought about it or realized it. Oh, how I long for this to change. I miss those days of fellowship in my kitchen.

  15. hosted a group of men and their wives from my husbands fraternity group at Christmas. We had a great time but I was so stressed. Getting prepaired for the dinner was not fun for me.

  16. We have people over often…people drop by all the time. I’m looking forward to the book and the study for new ideas on making people feel “at home”.

  17. Yippee! Karen I am SO excited about this upcoming study. I love the idea of hospitality, and sometimes seem to be ok at it, but my house is often in such disarray, that i hesitate. yes, the problem is the house – I don’t want it to be perfect, but it is such a problem, for many reasons. However, because i like to cook – we often have others over for dinner – family, friends, etc. Saturday night we had a couple of guests – for takeout pizza after a kids later basketball game!

  18. Ps. I believe the Lord always wants us ready(our homes too) and willing for guests…this is true hospitality! Not holidays or the such, it’s more about those friends and/or family with a need or encouragement, somebody who (at the last minute or just because wants to stop by)! This is just speaking from experience lately! Seems the Lord is opening up opportunities left and right for me to open up my home, sometimes all it takes is us slowing down and recognizing it as so!

  19. The Lord has been convicting me of this lately. To be willing and ready to open my home on the drop of a dime! It’s not always easy and it seems being tested from every which way these days! Just went and invited that friend coming into town over for pizza (it’s all I have In the freezer lol)!!! Thanks for the reminder :-)

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