Meet Jeeves, our fabulous new helper.

As far as we can tell, he gets along well with the other help, primarily the dishwasher and washing machine, who remain unnamed. Quite frankly they don’t have the personality that Jeeves does.

Much to my disappointment, we are unable to assign a male British voice to our squat little robot; all the voices are female. I settled on the Australian accent after deciding that the British lady sounded just a titch whiny.

To start out with, Jeeves took a little walking tour around our main floor, sauntering casually here and there, mapping all the details. This took less than 15 minutes. We did our own work on the map, naming rooms, setting boundaries, and then set Jeeves out on its maiden voyage.

It informed us cheerily of the work ahead: “Starting cleaning.” I followed it around for a while, completely fascinated and a little awestruck. When Jeeves encountered a few entry mats on a tiled floor, it switched from sweeping and mopping to vacuuming. Between jobs, it would say “returning to dock,” where it would settle in and do some housecleaning. Cleaning out its own dustbin creates a wonderful flourish of noise. If it’s been doing some mopping, it goes back to the base and tells us “Cleaning mop heads,” so we don’t have to worry that it’s just slacking off instead of working.

When I saw Jeeves industriously working on cleaning two of our dirtiest entry mats and then sweeping and mopping around them, I was so moved, I nearly wept.

We had it do the whole main floor that first afternoon. I reassured poor Jeeves that this was the hardest day of cleaning it would have, since normally we would not be cleaning every room at the same time or even daily. I wanted to get a feel for how it would clean each room, and the work involved in preparing each room. Yes, there’s still actual work involved in using a robot vacuum. Things have to be taken off the floor and put back after it’s done.

By the time Jeeves had done all the rooms, its battery was down to 17%. It went wearily back to its base and said, “Charging.” You take all the time you need to charge up, little guy.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

(Our old vacuum is upstairs sulking, by the way.)

This post will return to base and delete itself in the morning.

Several of you put forth some ideas for my dilemma about wanting to step up a notch or two in the way I set my table for guests. Thank you! Here’s what I ended up with:

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Now I find that a table setting mania has settled over me. One of you mentioned the idea of using a bold splash of yellow and I found a couple items that I might purchase in the future.

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I was surprised to see that you can get attractive paper napkins like the above (which tells you just how far out of touch with this part of the world I’ve been). There’s some appeal to this because these don’t need to be washed and ironed.

Last but certainly not least, an old friend and loyal reader of this blog contributed a quilted table runner that she had made! It’s gorgeous! Thank you, Lori!

All in all, this has been a very rewarding experience and I’ve been blessed by your contributions. I thought you might like to hear (and see) the rest of the story. You just never know what’s going to show up on this blog, do you? I don’t, that’s for sure.

If the table runner doesn’t catch up with the napkins, I’ll be deleting this in the morning.

I’ve always appreciated a beautifully set table – you know the kind: cloth placemats, cloth napkins, perhaps a nice table runner and centerpiece, maybe even a tablecloth. But I’ve never really done that myself. On a purely practical level it didn’t make sense to do it on a daily basis with six children making all manner of mess while they eat. Sometimes the adults made messes too. But I didn’t do it when we had guests over either, partly because my proclivities just didn’t run that way and partly because we didn’t have the stuff. I’ve realized now that I’m beset by some insecurity in this department, too. I’m not sure how to do this thing and do it well.

Here’s your chance to give some advice. Below is a photo of the dishes we use when we have guests over, a pattern called (wait for it….) Blue & White.

Give me some ideas about what design and color elements I should be thinking about if I want to put placemats and napkins with those. Solid navy blue? Solid white? (That makes me shudder, honestly). Simple neutrals? Do I need a tablecloth? Table runner? Centerpiece? I’m putty in your hands.

I’ll probably set this blog table poorly in the morning.