The little things

So...ok. I have an obsession that not many people know about. Cleaning. It calms me. It relaxes me. It makes me at one with the universe. It is also further proof that I am turning into my Mom. Now don't get me wrong. My house isn't the cleanest house on the block and I don't claim for one minute that taking a white glove across any given piece of furniture would render a dustless touch (especially the places that I can't reach!). However, if our home starts feeling too cluttered then Eric and I feel like the walls are closing in on us. Enter cleaning.

When Eric and I first got married and moved to Dallas, we rented a quaint old Tudor house built in the 1920s. The kind of house which would take a fortune to bring up to code, but that was charming nonetheless. However, as all old houses inevitably are, it never seemed to be fully clean after years of renters.

I think my obsession may have started in law school as a way to calm myself amidst the neurosis around me. A way to have some kind of control over life. I would vacuum until I started to feel like my head wasn't going to explode with knowledge and stress. Then it spread to cleaners. The commercials for the latest and greatest cleaners would make me giddy with excitement. I nearly jumped out of my seat the first time I used a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Pretty soon I knew how to remove soap scum and discoloration from the dirtiest grout. I could clean the gunkiest grime from toilets. I knew how to make wood floors shine like they hadn't been around for almost a century. And cleaning those little diamond shaped leaded glass windows was performed with a painstakingly slow reverence.

While motherhood has taught me that I can't control the level of cleanliness in our home, and I can't remember the last time I made it through the day with a clean shirt, every time I want to bring a little zen into my world, I vacuum. That being said, our current vacuum is 11 years old and has made it with me through A LOT. A lot of dirt that is. The front panel broke two years ago and is currently pieced together with a piece of blue painters tape. But the past year it has been slowing down. I knew that we would need to replace it soon. But it felt like replacing an old friend. Katie B. - I think you understand this!

Yesterday I reached my breaking point when I spent several minutes trying to vacuum up a blade of grass on our breakfast room rug. Finally, Eric gave it a try. Who knew, maybe it required a little manly elbow grease, but to no avail. But as fate would have it, we had been preparing for this moment for weeks. Online reviews, Consumer Reports (CR) articles. It all came down to this moment. We decided which categories most important to us (price, ability to vacuum hard surfaces, noise emissions, attachment availability, weight, ease of use, etc.).

I had spent years convinced that I wanted a Dyson vacuum cleaner and that I would have to sock money away for months to pay for one. Heck, I might have even have to sell one of my less needed organs off. After all, it is described as the Mecca of vacuums. However, as fate would have it, not only did the Dyson not do well in Consumer Reports and online reviews, but our budget would not have allowed for a $400 vacuum anyway! So after a careful process of elimination, we had a winner! A CR recommended best buy...and it was on sale!

Our faithful Eureka Boss. Perhaps we will bury it in the backyard. Or perhaps something more symbolic. Having it destroyed and vacuumed up with our new vacuum?

Our fabulous new Hoover vacuum.
And because I am the sort of gal who has a fascination with before and after pics...

Here is the bagless barrel. Believe it or not, even though we vacuum at least once a week upstairs and more often downstairs, this is what we picked up after two rooms and a hallway! Need I remind you that this entire cylinder is supposed to be completely empty? And our dogs are poodle mixes that don't shed? And I like me some cleaning? Craziness.