Weekending

We awoke to rain pattering on our roof this morning and a still-sleeping Liam. After taking a long shower, I checked on him downstairs only to discover him sleeping on his stomach in the middle of the rug on his bedroom floor. He's still sleeping that way one hour later.

It has already been a nice weekend.

Friday evening my mom came out to visit and watch Grey's Anatomy, good episode, by the way, and she surprised me with a Shark Steam Mop of my very own. This is unbelievably exciting. You have to understand that our tile floors in the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room have been a constant battle that usually ends with me on my hands and kness with a scrub brush, a pail of soapy water, and a back ache every month or so. Between the dog, a messy little boy, a messy big boy, and all the cooking I do, that floor gets gross quick. And I'm not exactly in the get-on-your-hands-and-knees-to-scrub-the-floor-condition these days.

Enter the Shark. I don't usually like gadgety contraptions, but this one is worth every penny. You plug it in and it is ready to go within 30 seconds, and it uses only water to clean the floors. It literally steams them clean. It even cleaned all of those dips and grooves in our natural-look tile floors. And it does the wood floors, too. We, meaning my mom and Gabriel, took turns mopping the entire house yesterday morning.

I'll feel so much better having another little one crawling on the floor in the not-too-distant future without having to worry about the grimy floor.

Hurray!

Last night, Gabriel and I left a sleeping Liam with our neighbor Trish so we could go to see Ladysmith Black Mambazo at the Walton Arts Center. I won tickets from NPR (just call me Miss 25th caller...), and it was so nice to have a date night. The music was amazing. Thanks again, Trish, for being such a great neighbor.

Apparently, listening to the radio really pays off. Look what was in my mailbox a few weeks ago:
That's right, $5 cash. All I had to do was fill out the simple survey about my radio listening habits. Actually, I could have just pocketed the cash and forgotten about the survey. But I didn't, don't worry.

So now I'm off to enjoy the last of our weekend, coffee in hand. We made doughnuts yesterday to satisfy the very unfortunate problem of what to do with leftover pastry cream. Another is calling my name :-)