Weirdly out of season hot as you can see when our temps drop back to normal on Thursday. And even though it will only be two days of humid high temps, I talked my husband into installing our window air conditioning units this morning because yours truly has hot flashes… and a hot flashing wife is a cranky wife and a cranky wife doesn’t cook. If my guy wants a hot meal? He needs a cooled spouse.
Anyway, as we struggled to seat them …. I swear they get heavier every year!…. I looked through the grate and realized I hadn’t cleaned the filters.
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Apparently for quite some time.
😳
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Holy Hell!
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The amount of dirt, dust, pollen, fuzz balls, cat hair, spider webs, skin cells, fish scales or whatever else the hell that is… was disgusting.
How the machines managed to work with that amount of clogged air intake last year I don’t know. But they’ll be breathing a sigh of relief this summer.
When we put our new flooring down in February of 2024, I bought a little Dyson stick vacuum to help keep it clean.
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It beat the broom and dust pan…was small, cute, easy to use and sucked up crumbs on the bare floors admirably.
But when we laid our new carpet in the bedrooms last year it made me realize how useless my other vacuum… an old Hoover … had become. The carpet is luxurious and quite thick and my old machine simply wasn’t up to the task.
But I’m a New Englander so if it ain’t broke? We don’t fix it…. or replace it for that matter.
Until last week when my (15 year old? 20 year old?) Hoover breathed its last. She blew up in dramatic fashion with dust and sparks flying everywhere … so even I had to admit it was time for a new model.
Enter the new love of my life.
A full size cordless Dyson V 15 Detect.
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Easy to assemble, easy to use, easy to charge, easy to clean.
She’s easy.
But in a good way.
And may I just say, her suction power is beyond impressive. ( There are a plethora of off color jokes I could insert here, but our relationship is brand new and I don’t want to insult her.)
I’ve honestly never seen a vacuum remove so much dirt, cat hair, dust, crumbs, kitty litter stuff from a carpet before.
Are we really that dirty?
I had to empty the container three times by the time I’d done three rooms, so apparently the answer is yes.
For a relatively simple machine, Vera (yes, I named the vacuum) has a few interesting features.
The Dyson V15 Detect features an LCD screen that provides real-time, scientific proof of a deep clean by displaying the size and quantity of dust particles as you clean. A piezo sensor counts particles up to 15,000 times a second, with color-coded bars indicating sizes: Yellow (allergens/pollen), Orange (microscopic dust), Pink (dust mites/fine sand), and Purple (sugar-sized particles).
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Holy Macaroni Batman! That’s a lot of allergens and pollen… considering it’s winter in Maine and we’re not opening the windows. ( Makes me think I’d better add ‘clean furnace ducts’ to the to do list. )
No, Vera wasn’t cheap.
But I think we’ll be very happy together,
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And I’m looking forward to the day when our allergen particles fall to under a billion.
After the floor was laid and all the new moulding was stained, it was time to arrange the living room jigsaw puzzle.
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I say that because if you’ve ever stained multiple pieces of 10 foot moulding you’ll know they don’t all turn out the same due to variations in the wood.
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Same moulding. Same stain. Totally different grain.
This makes matching and blending a bit of a challenge.
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It had to match an existing door…
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And this slab under the cabinet.
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It’s not easy. And when you use up all the good pieces?
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You hide the bad ones behind a couch.
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Lord Dudley Mountcatten kept a close eye on the proceedings from his temporary perch on a stick vacuum I bought and then returned. You know what $249 gets you these days? A horrible piece of plastic junk.
Think I’ll have to suck it up… no pun intended… and buy a Dyson.
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Living room flooring – done!
Living room moulding – done!
All that was left was putting the room back together.
Autumn is here and it’s by far my favorite time of year. Crisp air, brightly colored foliage, pumpkins, apples… what’s not to love?
Of course if you’re my husband, who just spent countless thousands turning his barn into a man cave, you might not fully embrace the season.
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Because nothing says ‘private domain of men’ more than a strategically placed fall wreath.
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And speaking of turning leaves….
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Ours are just beginning to put on a show. It’s the season I starting twitching for a road trip to the mountains. Whether that will happen is still up for debate.
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Weren’t expecting that?
Neither was I, but it popped up on my FB feed all the same.
🥴
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A photo of Lord Dudley Mountcatten meeting my new toy. He was not impressed, but I am.
Since blowing out my knee last year, getting on all fours to scrub the kitchen floor has been a no no. Enter the Bissell steam mop. Cheap and surprisingly efficient.
How well did it clean the floor?
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So well that I literally gasped at how filthy it had become.
In my defense, I mopped right after a rain storm and had to erase an artful array of the husband’s muddy boot prints, but still.
I like flipping through magazines and finding cocktail recipes.
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Mmm…. this sounds refreshing. Needless to say I shall be adjusting the required alcohol amounts. 3 tbsps of gin? Bitch, please.
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I like finding a decent cat food Lord Dudley Mountcatten will actually eat.
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Three ingredients, you can’t beat that.
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In other news, I like cheese.
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Tell me you haven’t felt the same way. Go ahead… I dare you.
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If you’ve never tried Mrs. Meyer’s cleaning products you really should. Their scents are marvelous. Basil, geranium, honeysuckle, bluebell and the latest… fresh mown grass. Ooh la la! If it wasn’t so soapy I swear I’d use it as perfume.
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And finally, I like Dudley’s laissez faire attitude when it comes to dining. If the human puts your dinner in front of you when you’re lying down? Why bother getting up….
So it took a solid week but the husband finally finished cleaning up the den and put everything back in his closet.
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Well, almost everything.
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I’m hoping he just forgot to put those away.
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But the way things are going in this country? I could be wrong.
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* Disclaimer- the husband isn’t a paranoid prepper and this is probably the only ammunition he has. But since he does have a giant live round in the barn window, I thought the placement was comical *
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had any trouble finding the toilet at 3:00am and certainly don’t need it to glow neon blue like some freaky interplanetary transport system.
Rotating fluorescent colors?
Hell… if I want a rave, I can think of better locations than my bathroom.
Cleaning isn’t a problem?
The scrubbing bubbles may disagree.
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