House guests.  Especially the unannounced or last minute ones can be a bit stressful.  I just try to make sure that I have a few essentials always on the ready.

• Wi-Fi Password
• Water – Bottled or in a Carafe
• Clean Sheets
• Extra Blanket
• Bud Vase and some greenery
• Extra toiletries in a basket (new toothbrushes and paste, etc.)
• Extra Charger
• Snacks
• Pain Reliever
• Notepad and Pen
• Coffee and tea selection

I find that having guests in your home is less about how picture perfect your guest room is but definitely all about making them feel well cared for.  As long as your guests feel comfortable, they usually don’t care if it’s a pull-out couch in the den, a blow up mattress, or a separate guest room.  Creating an atmosphere which shows them they are genuinely welcomed makes a host/hostess appear to have the mostest.  Even if in reality, you are scrambling to squeeze in a few extra seats at the dinner table.

So let them come! And invite them to stay.  Just maybe not forever…

Happy Entertaining!

-K

 

It’s the middle of the night.  I’m 8 months pregnant with my first son and I have to pee. Again.  I stumble out of bed to the bathroom and basically fall into the toilet.  WTF?!?!  A shit-storm ensues as I flip out on my husband.  I’m sure the neighbors think I’m cra-cra.

– – – Fast forward 4 years. – – –

It’s the middle of the night.  Against my better judgement, I ate 1/2 a watermelon before going to bed and I have to pee.  Again.  I stumble out of bed to the bathroom and am greeted by a light spraying sound as the lid of the toilet seat automatically goes up and I don’t even have to turn on the light, for there is a soft white glow emanating from the throne.  I sit on a comfortably warm seat and start humming the Jeopardy tune.  I’m certain the neighbors still think I’m cra-cra.

Dear friends.  Go and get yourself a To-To Washlet.  Do it today.  As a matter of fact, stop reading this silly post and do it now.  If you can only get one, put it in your master on-suite.  It’s the best damn money you will ever spend in your bathroom.  Not the fancy rose-gold fixtures you hunted down or the luxuriously fluffy, white hotel/spa towels.  The toilet seat is all you need for bathroom bliss.

I have friends that come over and tell me it feels gross sitting on a warm toilet seat. There are others who proclaim that they can’t get past the “ick”-factor of the bidet feature.  Still others say the automatic toilet cleaning function is too loud and the self-opening and closing lid freaks them out.  To all of the nay-sayers, I say, “poo-poo.”  Ha!  I don’t give a F—.  I will never, ever look at my toilet with disdain again.  I frickin’ love my toilet seat!

With boys in the house, I never have to nag them about closing the damn lid.  My thighs never have to touch a cold toilet seat in the middle of winter.  The bidet function, (though not used every time) IS SANITARY.

In Japan, the automatic toilet is a standard.  Every newish home, in every toilet room, in malls, airports and restaurants for over 30 years, the automatic toilet has greeted millions of butts.

1980 – Invented in Japan.

1990 – Comes to America  (It’s been here.  Why are they not all over the place?)

Get. With. The. Program. America!  This is the land of the best of the best!  We have cell phones that do practically everything but cook our meals.  Graduate from the cold, porcelain/plastic seat.  Put a damn GFI plug in every lav and call it a day!  I swear you will never look back.  Even my 2 year old who is not even close to being potty trained sits on our To-To.  His tiny legs dangling above the top of the step stool, he has a huge smile on his face.  My 4 year old would sit on the darn thing for an hour or more if I let him. And believe me, in that hour, I get a lot of housework done in semi-peace.  And let’s not even get into my husbands “rituals.”

Get yours here.  Call your favorite plumber and take the plunge.  I seriously wish I could offer you a sweet discount but…

Do your nether regions a favor.

-K

 

If you live in Southern California, you know what I’m talking about.  I swear I live on an ant hill.  Summer is the worst when those pesky suckers are looking for water or whatever they are doing, but I’m already battling them in trickles this spring.  And let’s not even mention the swarming A-holes that I had to thwart this past winter when we had our “torrential” rains…  I am not an exterminator so I have no clue how ants colonize, but there are definitely ant colonies in our walls.  (I’m pretty sure they share space with the termites that live in there too…)  The ones that come up from under our raised foundation find their way through tiny cracks in our ancient hardwood flooring, but last year, we had an incident where ants were actually coming out of an outlet in the kitchen.  Ghaaaaaa! Writing about them gives me the serious heebee-jeebees but I have to share a few things.

Keep your kitchen clean.  I wipe down the countertops and the stove every single night and there are very few occasions when there are dishes left in the sink.  But ants smell everything.  I mean, I don’t know if they can actually smell, but the little f-ers that live in our house have radar or something.  If there is a rogue dish with even the tiniest scrap of food left in the sink, they will find it and come morning, I’m raging with the portable Dyson, and cursing (not so discretely) under my breath. The hardest part about “keeping it clean” is that when you have kids, there will be crumbs.  And undetected crumbs bring in the troops.  Last summer during the height of my battle with the ants, I kid you not, I saw one carrying a 1/4 of a cheerio.  One ant!  It must have been five times its body size and it was trudging along in line with the thing.  WTF?!?!  I admit that I don’t have the energy to vacuum every night so undetected crumbs happen, but if you are serious about the war, keeping your countertops and the floors wiped and swept at the end of the day will save your sanity – because I feel like ants do most of their scouting and heavy lifting in the dead of the night.

Check your potted plants.  I always have orchids in my house and for some reason, ants looooove to live in them.  Why?  I don’t know.  But just be aware that if you spent a fortune on that rare phalaenopsis or prized cymbidium, that ants don’t discriminate and can ruin your investment in a flash.  You can set the pot outside and flush the colony out with a good dousing, but several times, I was just so fed up that I threw a few perfectly good plants away.

Opt for natural extermination if you are going to call an exterminator.  For obvious health reasons.  But honestly, we did this and the ants still proliferate amongst us.  It seems like a losing battle and it drives me ABSOLUTELY bonkers.  I think we were ant free for a few months but like what they say about cockroaches, ants seem to be bomb proof.  I don’t have a sound recommendation for annihilating the unkillable.

My current battle strategy.  Sevin.  I swear by the stuff.  I sprinkle it around the house perimeter at the beginning of every summer and it keeps the outsiders out.  The ones that live in the walls and under the house, I can’t seem to control, but at least I know there are no newcomers from the outside.  If I find a line of ants in the house, I remove the bait, vacuum the line, find the source and sprinkle Sevin where they are coming from, then I vacuum again. This usually stops the assault.  I know I sound like a crazy person.  I guess when it comes to ants, I am a stark raving lunatic. It’s because I feel like I am constantly cleaning and I don’t have a dirty house, but they still manage to infiltrate and I feel angry and hopeless about it.  If you are an ant, you are on the “other side.”  I feel zero remorse for the thousands of lives I have ended and probably as retribution, their brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, and 5 kabillion children keep haunting me.  Spiders, flies and other pests are just as gross, but nothing gets my blood boiling quite like a black line of marching evil.

Our new house…  We are going to have a boat foundation.  That’s the type where you basically pour concrete across the entire breadth of your home.  Because we are building on sand, it’s typical.  I. Can’t. Wait.  I can’t frickin’ wait to tear this old, ant ridden house down, haul the debris and the ants that live in it away and bury the ant hill we currently sit on under the glorious, crushing weight and expanse of concrete.  I imagine a celestial beam of sunlight will shine on our property the day the cement trucks pull up.  The remaining survivors better retreat to… wherever… because I will make for damn sure that the new house is sealed from the ground up.

I don’t want to put it out into the universe, but how much do you want to bet that there will be ants in our future second floor kitchen.  I can’t quite fathom what I will do when that day comes…

May you win the battle.

-K