What I Cleaned in March

In March, I cleaned our living room, "dining room" and hall closet (cue scary music).

I feel a little dissatisfied with my progress because one of the things on the list was to steam clean the carpets and my steam cleaner has a broken piece.  The website and owner's manual are in disagreement about the piece.  And I'm confused.

And not sure I really want a steam cleaner anyway.

I can think of 25,000 things that are more fun than steam cleaning.

I feel marvelous about the coat closet though.  Here's how it looked "before":

I'm not proud.



This doesn't look vastly better, but believe me.  It is.

Other than that, the room was mostly easy to clean.  I vacuumed all the corners and cleaned all the nooks and crannies and deep into the couch cushions.  (I found zero money...I need richer family members and visitors.)

One rainy Friday afternoon (I actually don't know for a fact it was rainy, I'm just guessing) we were cleaning the house as is our custom.  I got fidgety and told Braeden and Emma I wanted to move furniture.  They're used to me by now.  Since we're cut out of the same cloth, Braeden and I started scheming and measuring furniture without the benefit of a tape measure...who has that kind of time to go all the way to the garage?  Braeden had been sweeping so he started measuring with the broom.  Would the piano fit here?

Emma went for the tape measure.  She's like that.

We decided against a complete overhaul of everything and just switched a few things.  First, we had to see if we could make the piano budge.  We could!  Hurray payback for all that milk I buy those children from Costco!  While we were in the middle of heaving the piano across the room, Braeden's friend Adam stopped by with his trumpet in hand.  He and Braeden were going to have a sort of jam session with a trumpet and tuba and if you haven't witnessed that my friends...

Adam was completely befuddled by our actions.  "What are you doing?"

I pointed to the final destinations of all the furniture.

He said, "But why?"

Braeden shrugged and said, "My mom just moves furniture."

Adam said, "But that's the optimum spot for the piano," and he pointed to where the piano used to be.  Totally irrelevant.  Change is what we were after.  I could tell Adam thought we were crazy and by we I mean me but I just enlisted his help in moving furniture.  He's a strong kid.

Next Hannah stopped by.

"What are you doing?"

I guess what I was doing is making neighborhood children grateful for their more sane mothers.  You're welcome.

Here's the optimum spot for the piano, where it no longer resides (pretty roses courtesy of Adam--the husband, not the bewildered neighbor--on my birthday):

And I also moved Horace Vandegelder to a new perch.  He seems really happy about it.

Best pet ever!