Cupcakes and Hospitality

A week ago, I went to this event at a local church where the speaker talked about hospitality and how it is not just a gift that some of us have, but a command given to all Christians.  Her challenge to all the ladies in the room was to have at least one person or family in the next 30 days.  I began to think of all the people to invite in to our home.  My excuse for each of these people was that it would be weird to have this family or couple over when my husband is out of town.  So, for the time being, I decided I would still practice hospitality but would take them something instead of having them over. 

Lilly and I made cupcakes - fancy ones, too - not just the ones from a box.  These were snicker doodle cupcakes with cinnamon icing!  They were delicious! I had decided I was going to take some over to a few neighbors.  I got ready to take 2 over to one set of neighbors and just before decided I would go and check the mail.  I am glad I did because I noticed that they had out of town visitors at their house.  So, I was able to call and find out how many visitors were there so that we had enough for each person.  The visit was short, but it was the first time we had been in our neighbors home and it was so nice to meet their out of town family. 

Next, we took a few over to another neighbor down the street.  We are getting ready for their pool and cats while they go out of town so we had to go over and get the information.  It was such a warm feeling to go over there with the cupcakes.  It's amazing how giving can make you feel so much better than receiving.

The next day, as Lilly and I were walking our dog, one of the neighbors came out of their house, in their pajamas to tell us how yummy the cupcakes were.  Another neighbor stopped us on the trails to tell us how great they were.  I am super glad they enjoyed them, and I am loving the warm fuzzy feeling of knowing connected with each of them in a new way. 

It is so amazing how much more fulfilling it is to give than to receive. We decided we are going to do that a little more because it did give us a warm, fuzzy feeling.to give to our neighbors.

Spoiling my Husband

This weeks marriage challenge is to "spoil" your husband by cooking his favorite meal, dessert and drink for him.

It isn't that I didn't want to do this part of the challenge, but here are my set backs:
1) We didn't really have a lot of $ for this weeks grocery shopping for me to buy the things needed for his favorite meal.
2) My husband is kind of on a diet (his idea) and he works out Mon-Fri at work..well, this week he has been in "class" and hasn't been able to do his work outs plus he hasn't been eating very healthy so he asked me not to cook his favorite meal because it would just add to the unhealthiness of the week.
3) I'm not a great cook (i'm getting better) so there are only a few meals that I cook that he actually likes - I keep trying new recipes to see if they are a hit and usually it is a miss.

The plus side of this challenge is that I had a chance to talk with my husband about what he does like and it turned out one of his top 3 choices was something that I made when we lived in Japan but haven't made it since - chilli. So, I know it is too warm for it now, but I have that in the back of my head to make in the near future. Plus, I want to keep an ongoing list of the meals I make where he goes back for seconds so that I'm sure to make those more often.

As a side note, I did get this book from the library called Once a Month Cooking and I love the idea of spending a day cooking and already having meals prepared for your family. The recipes in the book look faily simple and so I'm going to start using some of them. I shared the book with a friend who wanted it also, so she bought it for me as a birthday present. Now I can mark in the book which ones hubby likes and are good to make again. :)