How Not to Hostess

When you are about to have friends over, it is important to provide them with an environment that will be both relaxing and conducive to social enjoyment.  This environment is made up of many factors, only one of which is the physical environment, or in layman's terms, your place of residence.  As a hostess, the harmonizing of all of these elements to create a pleasant setting for your guests can be overwhelming.  But don't worry!  Just follow these simple steps to ensure a memorable event.

Of course, your place of residence should be clean.  Guests do not enjoy sitting on piles of trash.  Clear out the piles of trash.  If you do not have piles of trash to start with, begin by obsessively tidying.  If this concept is alien to you, never fear, just concentrate on your nice trash piles.  If you are uncertain what "obsessively tidying" means, here is a guide: did you hide your sanitized recyling bin in the storage closet?  Did you rearrange the sofa cushions?  Did you clean the bathroom?  Did you clean the bathroom again?  You may have been obsessively tidying.

Take a deep breath!  Put on some relaxing music for your guests, such as Alternative Rock From the Nineties.  Or just put your music playlist on shuffle and hope for the best!

Look at the clock. Five minutes to go! Enough time to vacuum. You know, just in case your guests choose to sit on the floor and object to the occasional small piece of dirt or lint.

Decide to embark on a cooking project so that your guests will be greeted by both the overpowering smell of lysol coming from the bathroom and fresh baked goods!

Realize you don't have a key ingredient. Decide to wing it! What's that, you say, pudding usually needs cream and all you have is almond milk? Is this really the time to try and combine a zabaglione recipe with the creamy part of tapioca pudding that you only kind of remember, actually have the recipe for, but haven't bothered to consult? Pish tosh! Guests love the spirit of adventure wafting from the kitchen.

Feed your guests, who are late but you didn't notice because you were busy making

grey pudding. (Yes, it really was grey. I didn't do anything to this photograph to make it look more grey, either. Those yellow things are peaches. You know, just for reference.)