My kitchen floor is sooooo dirty ...

How dirty is it?

After dishing bowls of ice cream, my husband walked toward the family room and stopped at the back door rug to wipe his feet. There was a time when I would be mortally offended by such a display.

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I HATE to mop. It ends up being some sort of frustrating geometry problem and environmental critical thinking problem about my personal environment and the rest of the world's. How do I mop without mopping myself into a corner and having to walk back over what I've just mopped? Do I just stand in the corner and wait for the floor to dry? And mops are just so disgusting in general - bacteria and animal-hair laden sponges. I like the Swiffer mops with the wet pad, but then I'd just be buying pads (spending money) that I would throw away after using (filling the landfill). So I think I may have hit upon a solution. Think Heloise meets Millennium minimalist mom. (Maybe I'll just call myself M cubed. I've been looking for a label with which to harass politicians ... as if they don't have enough identity groups hounding them. HA ... this stream of consciousness thing is kind of fun.)

Tonight, I wrapped a dish rag around a Swiffer mop, wet the rag and sprayed the floor with a bleach water solution that my husband makes. Swiffer does make a mop that does all those things, but this is more fun. And I know, I'll have to use water and soap and electricity to wash the dish rags, but I do have a clothesline (and I use it). The solution at least hits upon some of my own personal environmental priority list.

A. It's reusable.
2. I don't have to spend money on products that take energy to make and transport.
And, finally. I'm not using a harsh chemicals whose names I can't pronounce.

Monkey wrestling

And this story is for Danny's Uncle Paul and Aunt Rosalie who bought Danny a beautiful, large stuffed monkey for his first birthday. As you can tell from the photo, it was love at first sight. Jim caught Danny wrestling with the monkey in his crib after nap today.

Jim asked, "You wrestling with the gorilla, boy?"

Dan looked at the monkey and responded, "Dennis."

So apparently, the monkey's name is Dennis. Cute.