Housekeeping Question!

I've had about enough of the milk on the hardwoods. Enough! Makes me want to pull out that taser that I don't own.

My question is what do y'all use on your hardwoods to get the milk up completely with no tell-tale residue shining back up at you? Right now, I use the Swiffer Hardwood stuff but it's not cutting it and by not cutting it, I mean, I'm done with sitting crossed legged and pulling myself around the main floor scouting out milk stains and scrubbing them off with a sponge. Of course, this is after I sweep up all the cat fur, bebe food & Matias is the cook remnants.

I'm done with it being a 3 part deal to clean the floor. And yes, I do wipe up the milk after he "spills" it so it's not a question of me not doing it right away.

A few qualifiers though first:

I do not like mops. I do not like to use a bucket or fill my sink. I do not like to wait for stuff to dry. And I do not like crawling around my kitchen cursing everyone else who lives here for making this mess for me. I would like to get it all clean with one product but I think the cats, my Liam's love for tossing things overboard instead of eating them, and my husbands inclination to get 1/2 of his preparations on the floor...so something beyond a broom please!

So far my favorite choice is A MAID.

This is why I make lists.

I had three of my own loads of laundry to do before we leave tomorrow & I had to wear a skirt today since I had no clean pants, right?

Finished one load, threw the other load in the dryer, put the new load in the washer and walked away.

Ran some work errands & came home to switch the loads again, for the last time & be packed before dinner. Sounds good, right?

I didn't start the dryer. So now, I cannot pack until after dinner & after Liam's asleep for the night & basically right around the time I feel like doing a whole load of nothing.

NEW Patio Furniture!!

Our new patio furniture just ROCKS. We love it. We spend so much time outside now on the deck because of it. Just love it!

We didnt' have the umbrella at this point but it's HUGE & rectangular so it covers just about all of the deck & our mornings out there are just fabulous.

Come on over & we'll have coffee :)

And you may ask yourself...

....how did I get here?

So after Jen visited yesterday, I found myself mulling over my totally suburban lifestyle. When asked what we were doing this weekend I answered "getting a lawnmower" & Jennifer, who lives & works in DC proper, slightly grinned at me I'm sure wondering "when on earth did this happen?"

After getting a freezer for our garage, a lawnmower for our front AND backyard, flower box planting & patio furniture shopping I started asking myself that same question. We've quickly become Suburbanized. And it's hitting me like a ton of bricks. I don't mind, all that much, but it is quite a shock & I do not doubt that we would NOT be doing ALL of this if it weren't for Liam.

I love it though. I really do. It's just amazing how quickly you Grow Up once you have a baby. Pretty stupid thing to realize, right? Stupid but interesting in a sociological sort of way. I'm my own test case.

And I think & write all of this while I'm making Liam's spinach - fresh from the Farmer's Market & glorious in its Freshness.

When on earth DID this happen to me? I won't be running out to buy any gardening shoes or a kneeling mat because I don't think I've crossed over that far BUT I also love the time we are spending as family, with Liam in his backpack helping Daddy clean up the yard, & it makes me want to MORE.

Things I Did Last Weekend!

I was very busy & got a lot of good stuff done so I thought I would virtually pat myself on the back :)

Besides CDN taxes I also got the following done:

• went to Lowes & bought a freezer for the garage - hopefully Matias won't bring a whole cow home or something!
• bought PLANTS TO POT! My Very First Time ever potting anything! Then on Monday they committed mass suicide so I had to repot them - they seem to be doing ok though
• Cleaned the entire house (minus our bedroom)
• Got all ready for my Memoranza on Sunday
• Sunday I held my Memoranza and completed about 15 pages (!) of our Honeymoon album & also completed a whole other album (cannot talk about it since it is a surprise)
• Organized a mess load of photos in my Memory Manager software then realized I was running it off of my C Drive & was now running low on disk space. Whoops. If I transfer it (need help from CM for that) to my D Drive I will not have that problem as I have 12 gigs of space on there & only 200 MB left on the other. Whoops.
• Printed off pictures of Liam after editing them myself in my Memory Manager software (LOVE IT!) for his frames that go in his room. I changed them all to black & white & cropped a bunch of them so that the picture was more "Liam Centric" but still a 4x6!
• I think somewhere in there I made Liam's apples...still haven't taken them out of the ice trays yet though...kind of waiting for room to clear up after Matias takes Our Food out of there & transfers it to the new freezer!

This weekend we have fun stuff on tap also :)

• My good girlfriend, Jennifer, whom I worked with at ASP is coming over tomorrow afternoon with her little girl so we can catch up :) YAY!!
• Matias has a soccer game at 4pm
• We are going to the Farmer's Market in Old Town to get some veggies for Liam Fellow & MEAT for us :) There's an organic farm that brings beef & another local farm that brings lamb, chicken, eggs, cheese...so we are very excited to go do that tomorrow morning!
• We are going to start composting (thanks Nikki!) *soon* - we picked out the spot out back, now we need to get the materials at the local hardware store (Lowes doesn't carry composting kits so BOO HISS to them) & get composting

I also got Liam's 9 Month Updates all ready to go out now I just need the pictures cut & they will be dropped in the mail :)

Watch it, I'm on a roll

Only 9 months later & I just unpacked the four boxes that got putstuffed into our bedroom closet.

That leaves only ONE box to unpack. And for some reason that's been sitting in the dining room & I think it's my snow globes.

At least I know where I'm going to put them, which honestly has been a huge part of the not unpacking them issue...cause why unpack them if I have no clue where I'm going to put them?

Did that convince you? cause it sure as hell worked for me.

Good thing we are staying here another year.

In other boring home news, I bought some new baskets (5 set for $11.99 at AC Moore) for Liam's "things"...new book basket, new basket for his farm blocks, new basket for his dirty bibs, new basket for his little things lying around & new basket for his toys that live in front of the fireplace...starting to feel organized about keeping that stuff under control too.

But, I really like that our bedroom is feeling more "homey" even though it's only been a couple of hours, I liked the vibe I got when I just walked in a few minutes ago...cozy, warm, welcoming...

And I also added my purse lamp to our guest bathroom/Liam's bathroom & Matias went in there (he hates that lamp) and I could hear the TSK from the other room. Oh well, I think it's really cute & it adds a little something to that bathroom that is just so boring and dull. But I'm to blame for that since I have not done anything to it at all beyond get the brown towels I wanted.

I added a few things to the guest room too...and I have further plans for that also with stuff from around the house...and I honestly, just now, got another AWESOME idea for that room! YAY!

I'm finally going to put my snowmen away - even though we still have some snow on the ground, I'm getting a little tired of looking at 'em ;) Plus, I have my Easter stuff to pull out - for Liam's sake, of course!

And lord, speaking of Easter stuff - even after my horrible Valentine's Day Card debacle, I could NOT resist the $1 bin of stamps at the craft store. So, I bought two for St. Patrick's Day & I am still brainstorming through ideas for them, although it's basically a done deal since the stamps are making it so easy to create an easy layout. RIGHT. Plus, I have green ink I need to use. RIGHT?