For the last 9 months (yep, just like birthing a baby – ask my family & close friends!) I’ve been working on a book called, The Reluctant Entertainer!

I’m so happy to announce this exciting news today and share the beautiful cover of this hardback book! (Bethany House, August 2010)

When I started my blog (3 years ago) I wrote about my own set of Ten Commandments to Hospitable Living, and I explained them in detail. Exploring those further, my book will offer a simple yet savvy approach to entertaining where I’ll be encouraging and sharing advice for apprehensive hostesses.

The book also emphasizes the forgotten goal of entertaining – connecting deeply with others! And practical tips, techniques, advice and …. recipes!

Did you catch that last word? Recipes? Yes, my book will have easy recipes – some popular oldies, some brand new ones (many that I’ve held out of my blog – like this easy chicken recipe!)

I’ll be sharing my RE book journey, in future posts, on how the Reluctant Entertainer came to be. It wasn’t a piece of cake! It’s been hard work. But very worthwhile. So stay tuned …

My hope and prayer is that lives will be richer, doors will be opened, and hearts will be changed.

In this month of Thanksgiving, in particular, I am humbly grateful for all of my supportive RE readers and for your participation and comments on my blog! Thank you! And thank you Bethany House for believing in the RE message!

(The winner to Lisa’s Hat Giveaway is Chrys (no blog). Congrats, Chrys!)

Last night was memorable. I told our family we were having a “no utensil dinner!” What were they going to say? No, Mom, we’re not eating? Not my family!

How could you pass up this chicken?

Corn on the cob? (A pinch of sugar, boil for 5 minutes, and serve!)

And delicious bread? (Costco comes through once again!)

Since we’re still in the last stages of our kitchen remodel, I pushed 2 tables together, set them, and added paper towels.

It didn’t bother anyone that we had sticky fingers!

And we ended the night with great discussion around our imperfect kitchen table. You see, what happened was more than the eating of good food. It was the “talk” and the laughter and the fun that took place. At times I wish we had a hidden recorder under the table, to preserve the talks that take place.

I love family. And I’m trying to cherish each and every opportunity that we have together, many times around food.

No utensils and sticky fingers? No problem!

This post was sponsored by Viva Towels. For fun, fork-free recipes – including videos – and snappy entertaining ideas, get over to the VIVA® Diva Café.

Last week was Spirit Week at my kid’s school. It seems like girls get into dressing up more than boys. And for sure, what Abby made really made me smile.

Not only do I LOVE my new kitchen’s recycle drawer – inspiration from this post – (garbage in the front, paper products, plastic and cardboard in the back), but Abby pulled out all the food boxes she could find.

For Synthetic Day (or Go Green Day for junior high), she made her own cardboard jumper, with pink duct tape.

Wouldn’t Betty Crocker just love this new hip, cool skirt?

I appreciate how our kids are being taught about the environment and encouraged to recycle, as we try in our home as much as possible.

My friend Barb and I have a standing joke: Never let chocolate go to waste!

What kind of recycling do you do in your home?

Don’t forget to check out my very fun GIVEAWAY! Winner announced on Friday!

For my birthday this year, I got this classy cadet hat.

Now it does help, I must say, to have the cutest hat-maker in my family. Lisa, my niece, has not only been busy making customized hats, she’s a really good dessert maker too. (I have never attempted to make ice cream cakes like these! Beautiful!)

I really like to support small businesses and L Dabrowski Designs is a perfect-gift-giving idea. And I love the way that Lisa customizes her hats. Since the hat you purchase will be created just for you, you get to specify color changes or amount of rhinestones or glitter.

Love this idea for birthdays, girl’s groups, or even Christmas gifts!

If you live local, Lisa will waive shipping fees. New items are being added all the time! So don’t miss out.

Let’s get on with the GIVEAWAY!

COMMENT
Just leave any comment to win.

WIN

The winner will win one cadet hat from L Dabrowski Designs!

Tweet and Follow
Tweet about the giveaway or sign up to follow RE, and your name goes in the drawing twice (let me know).

I’ll be announcing the winner on Friday, so come back and check to see if you won! Good luck and thank you, Lisa!

Oh, and check out Lisa’s beautiful work at the holiday bazaar at the Naz church, up on the hill, this coming weekend (if you live in my town)! Come on by and tell Lisa hi!

(Edie, from Life in Grace, and Cindy, from Skip to my Lou, are both featuring my coasters today! I love these girls, and if you haven’t seen their wonderful blogs, you’re in for a real treat!)

After Fiona wrote this beautiful post as my guest, my nudging came literally one hour after the post went live.

The night before I made a HUGE pot of Chicken Noodle Soup. As I started to make the recipe, I felt like I should double the ingredients. I wondered if my kids would even like the soup, as I was secretly adding 2 ingredients (homegrown parsnips and dill!)

Chicken Noodle Soup
2 quarts chicken broth
4 cups pulled chicken (I buy Costco’s, pull off the bone, and freeze ahead of time)
2 cups chopped onion
2 cups baby carrots, cut in small pieces
1 large (or 2 small) parsnips, peeled and chopped
2 tsp. minced garlic
1/2 tsp. pepper
4 cups uncooked medium egg noodles
1/4 cup snipped fresh dill
1 bag frozen peas

Put broth, chicken, celery, onion, carrots, parsnips, garlic and pepper in large saucepan.

Cover and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 25 minutes, or until vegetables are tender.

Add noodles, cover and simmer for 10 minutes, or until tender.

Add fresh dill. Serves 12.

Then the nudge came to share this meal with our neighbors. Neighbors who just heard devastating news this past week.

Breast Cancer.

I hate the “C” word, as I lost my Mother to cancer. It robbed me of more memories I could have had with my mom.

I knew I couldn’t sit back. And that’s when I knew why I had made extra soup.

After putting bread in the oven and getting the pot of soup out of the refrigerator, I printed out a note for the family, grabbed a quart of Apple Pie in a Jar and made a dessert, and off to the neighbors I went.

A friendly nudge can go a long way. It says ‘go the extra mile’ and ‘reach out to others’ and ‘think beyond yourself.’

Along with prayer, I’m glad we could bless another family on this day.

What do you do with leftovers, when you double a recipe?

My long-time friend Linda and her family have donated part of their income to World Vision for years.

The money went into a jar, until they had enough to send.

This is how they did it: It started with every Friday night at dinner.

Linda would prepare a $1 dinner for her family, and the remaining money that they would normally spend on a meal would be put in a jar and saved for World Vision. Their 3 kids were totally in to this. Even at their young ages (starting at 3), they understood what they were doing: Changing lives.

Then Linda’s business started giving money to WV for loans to women in third world countries to start their own businesses. She feels very humble about what they have done. They’ve even been interviewed on Good Morning America two years in a row, and have been written up in USA Today.

At first it was hard, with attention that Linda did not want for her little family. But now she sees that telling their family’s story is a way to benefit World Vision.

Humility is good. But we sometimes have to be willing to open up and share what God is doing in our lives, if that means it will inspire others to jump on board.

Here are some tips, if you like this life-changing family idea:
~ Keep the meal VERY sparse, on purpose.
~ Eat something that someone who has little to no money would eat (no extra fun stuff)
~ Baked potatoes (no fixings), Top Ramen with an egg or two, and rice and beans, etc.
~ Pray for people whose meals might look like ours or even less.
~ Give thanks for what the Lord has given us.

Thank you, Linda, for partnering with RE here and here.

Here’s the  story that started it all.

View the ABC News clip, The Gift of Charity, here. Or check out, Got a Goat?  Change a Families Life,  here.

I’m over at Blissfully Domestic today, reminiscing about past Halloween nights (written a couple of years ago).

And in the meantime, I have my chicken cooking on the stove (in salsa).

And my cans of beans laid out.

And a very special friend dropped a “new kitchen housewarming” gift by (perfect timing).

We may do Halloween differently this year. We may just put on a pot of Chicken Chili and open our doors, and stay home!

Cider on the stove. Chili in the pot. The kids are older and doing their own things, but our house is always open.

What are your plans for the weekend?

(Photos taken by my husband last Halloween in the corn maze!)

Want to try a yummy dessert? Check out Grace’s (A Southern Grace) Easy Bars, Halloween Style! YUM! And I’m linking to Melissa’s Beautiful LIfe today, because opening our homes to others is a beautiful thing!

One thing about our kitchen remodel that has freed me from the idea that “we can’t have people over,” is that things will never be perfect!

If I would have let “perfect” stand in the way, our lives, individually and as a family, would not have grown in the way they have, when it comes to relationships. Because from Day #1 of living in our house, we’ve always had a project going on. You could always look around and see something “unfinished.”

Last week I’m happy to announce that my Dad and his wife, Ginny, completed our pantry. Yes, the two of them made a great team (I helped a little here and there), and what really took the time was installing the animal-door. And now getting our animals to use it is another story!

My friend, Deb, shared with me from this post, these 2 tips about the pantry:

1. Shallow shelves. No deeper than a dinner plate, at minimum for the shelves at shoulder level and higher. Items tend to be forgotten when you can’t see them.

2. Write expiration month/year in big black sharpie on items. Doesn’t look much like a Williams-Sonoma catalog that way, but works!

Great tips, Deb!

As we were semi-cleaning up, I got my favorite cleaner out, Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day (basil scent), and wiped down the shelves. (I gave a bottle away in my 3-year Anniversary box!)

As boxes and tools line the dining room, we’re still waiting for another cabinet, and the wood floors aren’t down yet (won’t happen for some time, since we are doing it ourselves), but we still gathered around the bar that night, and we ate yummy homemade spaghetti …

Delicious cake – my FIRST CAKE baked in my oven …

As we held hands and prayed and blessed the kitchen, I prayed for the many lives that would be coming and going, eating and laughing, sharing and investing in each other in the way that God created us to be.

So here’s to a NEW pantry!

And here’s to honesty: My pantry will be unorganized and messy, probably in about 3 months!

I’m trying to keep “order” in mind as I put stuff away. What do I really need in the house, and what can stay out in my garage pantry. I’ll be showing you in future posts how I organized it (I’d better show you while it’s neat and tidy, uh?), using what I had. My budget was small, so I only bought a few new baskets, learning to make use of other boxes and organizers.

It might not all match and be perfectly pretty, but function is what I’m looking for!

What is your pantry looking like these days? Is it organized or does it need a bit of help?

(Check out Melissa’s inspiring pantry pictures over at The Inspired Room!)

Yes, Reluctant Entertainer has changed a bit, thanks to Darcy, who has helped me switch over to WordPress. Let me put it this way: Darcy saved the day. She knows way more about this stuff than I’d ever care to, besides she’s just brilliant, fun and a great friend!

You may be wondering what happened to the “4″ before RE?! Let me explain.

It’s funny, because friends have told me they’re confused by my blog title, thinking that “4 reluctant entertainers” live in my home, when realistically we have 5 people living here! And we are not reluctant entertainers at all, but enjoy having people in all the time.

Where did I get my blog title?

My husband and I came up with this title years ago, well before I had a blog, when we were puzzled about why people are so reluctant to entertain or to invite people into their homes!

How did I come up with the 4?

My blog started as “For Reluctant Entertainers” and then I switched it over to “4″ to make the title a bit more catchy!

Why have I dropped the 4?

I’ve now gone back to just plain ol’ Reluctant Entertainer – it’s simple and more inclusive.

If you want to keep up with RE, make sure and subscribe over on the side bar under “find me.” It’s easy! And feel free to grab my new RE button!

49 jars?

Yes, my sister and I canned 49 beautiful quart-sized jar of Bartlett pears yesterday. The process was so much easier working alongside my sister – 2 is better than 1, right? And we had 4 hours to catch up and share and encourage one another as sisters do.

My sis, Linda, is a huge Balcony Person in my life. I don’t know what I’d do without her.

What do you think of the new RE look?

And if you do canning, do you ever do it with a friend, neighbor or a relative?