Evening the Score

At last count, I believe modified bed rest (such as it is when I practice it properly) had a grand total of 2 points, and that thanks to two delicious meals provided by thoughtful friends. Well, since that time, the score has increased yet more. My friend Rebecca and her children hopped up (a few hours' worth of hopping) from Pennsylvania to stay at her parents' house and descend on us for three days of conversation, cleaning, and meal-making. She's crazy-- you should know this-- and has strong Martha tendencies, talents, and abilities, so having her step into our house three days in a row meant only good things for our household. She livened our days with conversation, she took four heaping baskets of laundry to the laundromat and folded them before she came back (I don't even do that!) and then she sent the children and I outdoors while she mopped and vacuumed and scrubbed the bathtub (and I don't even do that! ....or haven't in a good, long time). She slipped two yummy meals she'd prepared ahead of time into our fridge and then sailed away on Friday, leaving a clean house and food in the oven. It was like having Mary Poppins over, only loads better, because Mary Poppins doesn't clean or make food or let me sit on the couch and blab at her for hours on end.

Here are the three pictures I have from those three days. I took them while she stood in my bathtub scrubbing off a month or two of grime. How's that for friendship?!

Her Panda.




Millie and Corynn as industrious elves.



And Corynn by herself, looking like a buttercup.



*** BREAKING NEWS: I recently received a package from a Rose of Sharon that made me so happy that modified bed rest's score immediately crashed through the roof. Sugar, books, words, pretties, and the coolest maternity shirt, to be seen swaddling a belly in a shot I'll snap whenever the sun shines again. Tomorrow, Sun?