And what are you doing this weekend?

This weekend will be such a nice, relaxing weekend dedicated to finishing up everything in the house and playing with the pups. They have been neglected with this move and everything; we usually get out to the doggie park a number of times a week, but since the move, nada. I'm thinking we will be able to get to the mountains, I'm sure they'd love that. Ruby has never been, Juno has but she's been to the more "desert-type" where we have to be careful of rattlesnakes, scorpions, and mountain lions; she thinks that she can just run around and in front of us with no worries. I would love to get them up to the more "green" mountains, lots of trees, higher elevation, cooler temps, etc.

I really want to get my spare room done. It's kind of a "catch-all" for the moment, so I really want to get it nice and organized. I need to get the floors in house clean as well. I have to Swiffer them everyday for dirt and fur (UGH!) and they are just looking plain gross so I'm whipping out my Steam Mop to tackle the mess. :)

Anyway, goals for the weekend include:

1. Get spare room organized and cleaned.
2. Mail off package to BFF in Florida.
3. Clean the floors.
4. Find an old sheet at Goodwill to cover Washer and Dryer (getting filthy!)
5. Clean out puppy wading pool so they can play or just stand there confused.
6. Organize bathroom storage (or lack thereof!)
7. Donate used goods to Goodwill.
8. Clean up yard furniture, find good place to get them powder-coated.
9. Take Ruby to vet for shot.
10. Take chairs from storage to get cleaned and put in spare room.

Whew! I think I'm going to stop there before I get overwhelmed. I'm hoping most of this can get accomplished this weekend, that would be really lovely. Saturdays BF works during the day so I can get most of this done without him, hopefully I can really get my spare room cleaned out, that would make my weekend.

I hope you all have a great, safe weekend! Let me know your plans.. :) Blessings, LL

Shark Steam Mop Verdict

*Drum roll please*

I LOVE it!! :) I bought it Saturday and went home to use it as fast as possible. It recommends distilled water to prolong the heating element but I didn't have any and I wanted to use it (I will get some before I use it next time). Put it together fairly easy but I thought adding water to it was difficult, this was before I noticed the little funnel it came with!! Oops.

You have to prime it to begin with and once the water heats up it really creates a lot of steam. Pushing it across the floor wasn't as easy as I had hoped, especially since I have stone floors, but once the steam gets going, the floor gets nice and clean. I also noticed that the handle wasn't that sturdy either, just like everyone else was complaining about.

Luckily the pad wasn't as dirty as I expected, this is a good thing, obviously my floors weren't that bad to begin with! I did my entire house (minus roomie's bedroom) on 8oz of water. This is definitely better that the standard mop and broom, interestingly the floors were sticky when I was mopping, meaning sticking to my shoes; this is probably due to the chemicals it was picking up. But once it was done, it was no longer sticky! I am now able to walk on my floors barefoot, before this grossed me out, but they feel so clean, even after one use!

Even bf noticed a difference, in one place I didn't move a piece of furniture and you could tell. I definitely give the Shark an A-, the minus is for it being hard to push across the floor and for the pad being difficult to stick to the bottom of the mop, and for the flimsy handle.

I highly recommend my Steam Mop! :) I'll post a pic of the pad later.

Shark Steam Mop

I am a sucker for informercials; always have been, always will be. I remember watching them as a kid late at night. There's just something about them, I'd rather watch them than regular TV. Have I ever bought anything? Nope. Just like watching them :)

After seeing the one for the Shark Steam Mop, I thought it looked like it was a definite potential for the stone floors throughout my house. I HATE using chemicals and I've been using an environmentally/people/pet friendly cleaner on my floors, but still, YUCK.

So, I hit the internet looking for reviews on the mop to see how well it would clean. Surprisingly they are more positive than negative (yay!). The only complaints are that you have to fill it up quite often (better than going to put a mop back in a dirty bucket, so I'm not concerned), you should buy extra pad refills (I think Target carries them) and that the handle seems flimsy...boo, nothing I can do about it. The reviewers say that it takes about 3 times to really see the difference because it's getting all of the chemical residue off of the floor (YUCK) but once it's clean and you maintain it, the Steam Mop delivers. I can't hardly wait!! :)

This weekend I'm hitting up Bed, Bath, and Beyond to purchase my Shark Steam Mop for $79.99 (with a 20% off coupon for a whopping $16.00 discount!). I think by using the steam as opposed to chemicals, it's going to clean my floor a heckuvalot better than the mop. I'm also hoping that it may control the odor, but I don't know. I went out last night and bought some OdoBan Pet spray that I can use in the air and on fabric. I think you can use it on the litter as well, so we'll see.

Tonight I'm going to attack the litter box by scrubbing it (again) and giving it a good spray with OdoBan and putting in fresh cat litter. Maybe the combination will eliminate the odor, cuz the cats aren't going anywhere!!