I learned to use a carpet shampooer today!

Yup! That's true. The woman who does anything possible to NOT have to ever clean, actually picked EVERYTHING up off her floor in the master bedroom (which is quite a feat when you live with Chris - his side has all kinds of crazy crap all over the place, but he kindly got most of it up off the floor prior to my cleaning) and FINALLY learned to use our carpet shampooer! Geez, after 3.5 years of marriage, and living in this house, you would have thought I would have learned to use it sooner. After all, Chris had it long before he ever met me... I had avoided it like the plague prior to today. Seriously, I think I was afraid that maybe by using it my hand might fall off or something.

Anyway, what a difference it made! Geez, with three dogs, our carpets were gross. We would clean up the messes with spot cleaners, but they would always leave something behind. So, I did our master suite, the hallway, "my" spare bedroom, and the stairs. Chris helped... he did the regular vacuuming prior to me using the shampooer. Oh, and another thing I found out... you should change the bag inside the regular vacuum *prior* to the bag filling up and weighing almost 5 pounds :) I can't remember the last time I changed that stupid bag. I can't remember the last time I used that stupid vacuum!

When I lived at my old apartment, I had a problem where there was a small separation between where the sliding glass door was and the wall, and that crevice was just big enough for bugs to get through... palmetto bugs (read: COCKROACHES! EW!) I used the vacuum to sweep them up rather than squish them until the maintenance team could fix the hole. What did you want me to do? I lived alone! So, when Chris changed the bag on the vacuum, I was half expecting to see a colony of palmetto bugs come marching out. Thankfully, that did NOT happen :)