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What, you might be thinking, is this child and cat looking at? (well, what were they looking at before they realized I had the camera in my hand and instantly turned to look at it instead?)



You've guessed it folks, I got myself a robot vacuum!



Isn't she pretty?

Now, you're saying, "Yes, Brooke, she sure is pretty, but does she really work?" To which I will answer with a resounding, "YES!" I bought it at Costco a couple of weeks ago, on a whim, sure that it wouldn't really work and that I would soon be taking advantage of Costco's generous return policy. But, once I got her home and out of the box, once I watched her as she busily vacuumed my carpet, going under beds and tables and every other place I could never get with my upright vacuum; once I saw her realizing she was running low on battery, and thus promptly returning herself to her charging dock; once I saw all that, it was just love, and there was never a thought of returning her. She has become family, she is a vacuum after my own heart.

I come from a long line of vacuum lovers. My grandma LaRue prides herself on owning nine different models, and as a child I can remember her using the small handheld vacuum to clean the inside of the larger canister vacuum. I have an early memory of my mother teaching me to vacuum...showing me how to follow the lines the vacuum made in the carpet, repeating each sweep four times to achieve the maximum cleaning effect.

This love of freshly vacuumed carpet has been passed onto my own children as well...Yesterday, upon returning home from church to our neat and tidy ROOMBA'd home, Harry said, "It's just so nice to come home and see the carpet look so nice."

Yes, Harry, it certainly is nice.
(And I'm apoligizing right now to your future wife.)

So, welcome home Roomba. You will be well loved and well taken care of. We hope your time with us is long.

(If you don't know me well enough to know, let me tell you I'm half joking about this subject. But only half.)

In other news, Maggie participated in her first "Strings In The Schools" recital. Here she is with her viola. Isn't she just lovely?


And finally, one image from yestderday that I captured and wanted to share. All the children playing together, acting out a scene from Indiana Jones. I don't know which scene it was or who was who, but I do know that they were happy for at least five minutes while they were playing...and sometimes you need to savor those five minutes...