Meet Fudge

As if our lives weren't busy enough we decided "Lets get a puppy!!" Those of you who may have recently or can recall having a new puppy will understand that shortly after getting Fudge, I also purchased a brand new carpet shampooer. Note the lovely icy blue shade of my carpet? Not so lovely with little yellow pee spots and other stains I don't want to mention. I have actually purchased two carpet shampooers. I already had an old Sears canister style shampooer that works really well, but is a pain in the butt to deal with when it comes time to emptying the dirty water. So first I purchased one of those little green machine ones for emergency spot cleaning. I thought this would be ideal with a new puppy in the house and 2 little boys plus 1 big boy whom in one way or another find some way to get stains on my carpet on a daily basis. Well it does work wonders for those quickie cleanups, but I found its kind of like wiping a spot off of the wall. You know how when you wipe say a fingerprint off of the wall and then you have this clean spot on a wall that really didn't look dirty until you revealed the true paint color underneath and then you end up washing the whole wall. Well spot cleaning the carpet ended up the same way. I ended up crawling around my livingroom "spot" cleaning over half the damn thing until I was forced to quit to make dinner. So two weeks later I still have a nice 10 x 12 clean section of carpet mocking me everytime I walk through the livingroom. Anyways last week as I'm browsing the through the latest influx of catalogs I receive I came across one with vacuums and cleaners. I found an upright steam cleaner that made my heart beat with abandon at the simplicity of it. One tank that holds the clean water and the dirty water shortening the trips to the sink. My newest addition to my cleaning arsenal arrived today. I saw the box as soon as rounded the curve in the driveway and I swear it had a heavenly glow surrounding it. This is concrete proof my life is in a major rut if I'm getting that excited over a steam cleaner. Anyhoo, I'm really excited to try that baby out.

My bestest friend Diana is coming to spend the night Saturday. Her ex still lives here in town and she is staying with me while her son spends some time with his father. I always enjoy when Diana comes to visit. She has stayed with us off and on enough through the years that she feels comfortable and makes her self at home. The only problem I ever have when I know that she is coming is I feel this urge to scrub every nook and cranny. Note that I said urge, I attempt but it always seems like something halts my progress to perfection. The reason I feel this way is because Diana has always been the ultimate housekeeper no matter the circumstances in her life. I remember one time, when she still lived here, I stopped by her house for an unannounced visit. As we were visiting she was folding clothes in a fashion that would make an upscale clothing store green with envy. She fed Layne a snack and as we talked she washed his bowl and spoon dried them off and put them back in the cupboard. She then filled the sink up with about 2 inches of hot water and added a capful of bleach in with the dishsoap. Using this solution she wiped down his high chair and her already glistening countertop. She checked in the oven to see how her casserole was coming along for dinner. Her vacuum was sitting out which I assumed she had just used as her carpet still showed the vacuum tracks. As I was getting ready to leave she unwrapped the cord from the vacuum and plugged it in and as I was walking to the car I could hear her vacuuming away. At this time in her life Layne was 15 months old, she had 2 active step daughters 9 and 11 yrs. old and a lazy husband plus she was a full time teacher. I walked away from her house in awe. I know this is her natural tendencies because when she is here visiting she will unconciously wipe my counters off and straighten the pile of junk mail I have laying on the counter. If anyone else were to come and start doing that sort of thing I'd slap them upside the head, but with her it just seems normal. Maybe I shouldn't attempt any cleaning and just set my cleaning stuff on the counter and see how far she'll go. Hee!