The Vacuum

Hello, dear readers!

Sorry I haven't written for a few days. Life has kept me busy. As the baby becomes more mobile, I have to constantly chase after her so that she doesn't hurt herself or do something bad. She's not walking yet, but she's getting better at pulling herself up on furniture and standing up for longer periods of time. Her preferred method of transportation, for now, is crawling on all fours.

And playing on the bed!

Though it may not seem like a big deal, I finally got a new vacuum! For pretty much the last year or so, I've been using a shop vac to vacuum our home. While it was good about picking up surface dust, hair and kitty kibbles, it simply could not get down deep into the carpet to get the ground-in dust and hairs. I needed a better vacuum, specifically a pet one because of the kitties, so I set about researching different brands and reading the ratings/reviews on Amazon. My hubby wanted me to get a Kirby vacuum, but I was NOT going to pay what we spent on our car for a damn vacuum! I found a pet vacuum by Bissel that was rated pretty well, but when I saw it at Walmart on a recent excursion, it was more than what I was willing to pay.

Fast forward to yesterday. While running errands, we stopped into a local refurbished tech shop. My hubby has a long history with this place as he used to hang out in this shop working on his various Linux projects, conversing with customers, etc. He even had his own little work station set up next to the register so he could do his computing. As such, we've gotten to know the staff pretty well and some of the regular customers too.

This is what I wound up getting. Pic found here

In addition to computers and other bits of outdated technology, the store also gets donations of furniture and appliances. It's less of a tech shop than it used to be and more like another thrift store. One donation they acquire pretty regularly are used vacuums. The proprietor had somehow acquired a whole bunch of Shark brand vacuum cleaners, and a few others. I noticed there was a fairly modern Hoover pet vacuum in the mix. Since it was priced at $45, I almost didn't buy it, until I saw on the announcement board at the front entrance that vacuums were on sale 25% off. Needless to say, I bought it. $33 is not a bad price to pay for a vacuum.

When we got home, I decided to try out the new vacuum on the living room carpet. It picked up the kibbles and kicked up a ton of dust...except they weren't going into the dirt canister (this vacuum is bagless). I tried out the hose extensions and felt almost no suction. It was then that I noticed the "idiot light" (it's not so much a light as it is a system check indicator. The term "idiot light" comes from my husband who uses it to describe the indicator lights in modern cars in which a light on the dashboard goes on saying that something's up, but provides no specific details about the problem; hence "idiot light") starting to go from green ("good") to red ("bad"). I figured at this point that there was a clog somewhere in the machine since this would occasionally happen with the shop vac, so I took off the bottom plate of the vacuum which covers the belt and brush roll. The belt and brush roll looked ok, but a small pile of dust and dirt appeared on the floor from the intake hose. I emptied out the hose, replaced the plate, and turned on the vacuum again. Same problem. My husband was itching to return the vacuum the next day, but I told him to hold off until all troubleshooting had been completed.

I then proceeded to look up the model number online so that I could download a manual. As it turned out, this was the Hoover Windtunnel 2 Rewind Pet vacuum, and despite the lackluster reviews I read regarding Hoover's other pet vacuums, this one rated pretty well for performance. Sure enough, the manual described the idiot light changing to red as indicating that there was either a clog or the filters were dirty. I checked the filters and they were fine, but sure enough, when I detached the main hose from the dirt canister, I saw the clog. I had my husband run a conduit pipe through the hose (the same way he'd unclog the hose in the shop vac when it needed doing so) and he was surprised by the gobs of dog hair that came out. Needless to say, once I reattached everything, the vacuum worked perfectly fine. The dust, hair and kibbles all went into the dirt canister like they were supposed to. It disappointed me to think that somebody had gotten rid of a perfectly good vacuum cleaner all because of a clog that could easily have been removed. A glaring example of disposable consumerama at its finest...

Seriously, we could have MADE a dog from the amount of hair that came out of the hose! Pic found here

So now that I have my new vacuum cleaner for the home, the shop vac will be designated to the shed where it will be utilized to vacuum the car. Now, I must research who's got the best rental deal on a carpet cleaner. I have no idea how long its been since the living room carpet was washed and cleaned. It's good to do that at least once a year. I wonder if my mom would send me her ancient Bissel carpet cleaner. She hardly uses that thing anyway...

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Turkey Day

Happy Turkey Day to all my American readers. Yes, I call it Turkey Day instead of Thanksgiving because I refuse to recognize a holiday that marks the start of a bona-fide genocide. Besides, as a Catholic, I know of two Thanksgiving celebrations that happened here in the US BEFORE the Pilgrims ever set foot on Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts. They don't teach you that in school now, do they.

Her first Turkey Day. I was never crazy about sweet potatoes, but she seemed to like them, in addition to making a mess with them

While the rest of the country gorged on turkey, engaged in family feuds, watched football and participated in the high holy day of consumerism known as Black Friday, I stayed home and cleaned house. Since my hubby would be at work till God-knows-when (a temp-emp agency got him this job), I wanted to surprise him with a cleaner home when he got back. I'm not, nor have I ever been, a clean freak. But, I figured it would be a nice surprise for him to arrive to a home that was more orderly than when he left it.

I have a little monkey on my back!

Unfortunately, I could only do so much housework. Though I was carrying the baby in her papoose on my back, I had to take regular breaks cuz my back was hurting. I'd planned to clean the whole trailer from top to bottom, but settled on washing the mountain of dishes and vacuuming. I didn't even get the stuffing done like I'd planned, but on his break, my husband called and told me not to worry about it cuz he'd score some Jimmy Dean sausage. I'd been researching stuffing recipes online and found one that was appealing, but called for ground sausage which we did not have.

We did have some of the turkey we spent hours roasting and slow-cooking all night. I'm proud to say that my marinade did the trick and made it tasty. The hickory and pecan chips helped too.

And that was how I spent my Turkey Day. 

My New Desk

Hello again, dear readers!

Today my workspace received a major upgrade. I got a desk!

Prior to this addition, I had my laptop and cooling table perched on top of a set of plastic drawers with the speakers behind the drawers. This rather ramshackle arrangement served its purpose fine, except we needed to get a printer cuz there are a surprising number of institutions that absolutely refuse to do anything digital. Rather then set the printer in the living room with the rest of the computers in my husband's work area, I decided it would be better set up in the bedroom since there's less cat hair flying around back here than up front where the kitty door is. Cat hair killed the last two printers we owned, though I suspect the fact that they came from a local furniture store doubling as a refurbished tech shop probably had more to do with that than anything else.

It took some rearranging of the furniture in the bedroom, in addition to vacuuming an ungodly amount of dust, to accommodate the desk, but after about an hour of work, we'd come to a workable arrangement. Besides, this won't be the first room rearrangement to occur since more will inevitably happen as the baby gets older and our family expands. Though the desk's proximity to the bed meant that I didn't have room for a formal chair, there is a mountain of pillows that I sleep on which can also double as seating.

My upgraded workspace with the new all-in-one printer, speakers, cell phone and computer with accouterments. The desk itself is an antique we inherited from the friend of a friend. It would be very expensive to find something similar to it nowadays.

I'm very pleased with my new work area. I have a proper workspace for which to write, cruise on Facebook, comment on other blogs, etc. Having gone without this bit of furniture for so long, it feels like a luxury to have a desk in the bedroom again. This also means that my hubby can finally build me a desktop computer since I now have a place to put it!

At some point in the future, I would like to either repaint the desk white or varnish it in a totally new color. Though it wasn't especially pristine, moving this desk from the owner's home to ours scratched up the paint. You can kind of see in the image above a worn spot near the mouse where the paint has worn off through to the wood.

For now, I'm riding high on Cloud 9. I love my new desk!