Today, I’m doubly grateful!  I got the brilliant idea to clean our carpets this week and yesterday, my mom came over to lend a hand.  The process was rather simple, once I got the hang of how the machine worked.  Many refills and emptied buckets of unsightly filth that had been camping out in our carpet later and things looked pretty good.  I finished up about 25 minutes before she arrived home from collecting the kids at school!

Anyone who’s ever cleaned carpets will know that they were still very wet, which meant that we were camped out in our kitchen where we had the dining table pushed to one side to accommodate the temporary addition of the loveseat!  It made for comfy cuddling, but it wasn’t the greatest plan for the entire evening.

With Garth still at practice and Grandma headed home, the kids and I ventured outside to give Carbon some much-needed exercise.  That led to finishing the scavenger hunt we had started earlier in the week, which led to attempting to build a fire in the pit to burn up the last of the old sticks and logs.  We collected whatever paper products we could find (in the kitchen since our paper recycling was off-limits in the laundry room).  We finished off the butane torches from the kitchen and attempted a few matches.  We had some great flames of paper, but nothing would catch that wood on fire.

Finally, with tears and requests for a warm bed, we headed inside to clean up.  That got us nice and warm.  We ate a quick bite in the kitchen and around 7:00, all four of us tiptoed our way across the damp expanse of the living and stairs into our bedroom (thank goodness I didn’t clean every carpet in the house!).  Piled onto the bed, we read a couple chapters of One Dog and His Boy while Seneca promptly fell asleep in my arms (I guess there was some truth behind her plea for bed!).

Everyone settled in, Seneca on a makeshift bed of pillows on the floor, and Calder on the antique couch I’ve had since I found it for my college dorm room.  We were all sleeping soundly quite early.  A few times, Carbon needed to go outside, and at one point, Seneca climbed in with us.  Around 4:00, Calder came over and climbed in as well, at which point Garth took up his position on the couch, leaving me and the kids in our queen bed.

Today, I’m thankful for this house we’ve made a home.  For clean carpets that force us to spend a little more time in closer quarters, and most of all for the amazing man I married.  His love and kindness knows no bounds and his selflessness is beyond measure.