Please, don't come in.

I've always liked the idea of "having company over." The idea of sharing your home with someone sends warm ripples of comfort up my spine, but when the time comes to actually have company over I turn into a nervous wreck. I worry about forgetting manners or common courtesies. What are the rules for having guests over? Do I allow their cups to empty? Should I always have some nibbles prepared just-in-case? Did I properly clean the lint trap? People will see all my household flaws!

Well, I suppose those are the thoughts that would be racing through my mind if we decided to even let people in the house.

In college it was understood that your place of habitat would not be clean. College kids don't have time to clean. You have people over and they just "got it." So I never worried much about having dirty dishes in the sink, wiping up all the loose cat fur strewn around the place, or picking up various art supplies that littered the floor. It was expected.

Now I'm out of the college phase (in theory) and we're in a house. Something we can call our own and are proud to show off. Except we simply haven't settled in. It still looks like the day we moved in. . . boxes everywhere, half-heartedly sorted piles of random stuff, things searching for homes. I think we're both in shock about actually setting up a permanent place. That and the fact we have no furniture to speak of. So we're forced to say things like "We're just not ready for company" or "Sorry, you're not allowed in. Hope you don't mind freezing on our front porch!"

One day I'll be able to invite people over and not be ashamed of the mess. One day our neighbors will unexpectedly show up and we can open the door wide, welcoming them in. One day we won't be ashamed of our maze of unopened boxes and things will have places. One day we'll turn this house into a home. But for now, if you feel like popping by, don't expect a warm place to stay; we'll just send you to the nearest hotel with a bag of cookies and an awkward apology.

Mind in the gutter

When we moved out west we really just didn't know what to expect. Our first year in the Antelope Valley we were met with blistering heat and clear blue skies day after day after day. Then it rained. Then it snowed. They called it a fluke. Then we moved.

Tehachapi is known as the Land of Four Seasons. Initially I found this to be a strange thing to boast, but now realize it's a great selling point. We happily moved to the land of promise in anticipation of familiar skies.

When we moved into the house, the ground was baked and cracked as if it had never seen a drop of moisture. We thought irrigation would be the big issue when it came to landscaping. Oh, how wrong we were.

Our first bout of rain we realized just how badly we needed to work on drainage. We also realized the house did not, in fact, have any gutters. In the southeast, the only reason people do not have gutters on their homes is because they just got ripped off by a hurricane. I suppose we just figured that rainfall came so seldom to the area that having gutters was seen as an extravagant expense.

Well, after a week of rain and snow, we found ourselves practically swimming across the lawn. Obviously, this needed to be fixed. A phone call and an estimate later, we now have beautiful new gutters. Ok, ok, I know gutters don't fix a drainage problem, but it's a start. Call it a kick in the seat of our overly drenched pants.

Who knew this place came with a swimming pool!?