So let’s just get this out of the way.
That football game didn’t go exactly the way I wanted it to go. Specifically, I would have preferred a game that didn’t involve our quarterback throwing three pick sixes. But since I have grown as a person and also lived through some truly horrendous Aggie football seasons, I will give you my mature perspective. The Aggies were originally picked to finish 6th in the SEC West and here we stand at 5-1 midway through our season. There are still good football times to be had.
Ultimately, I’m proud of our team because they never quit, we have a defense that’s for real, Kyle Allen had one bad day (Bless his heart) and I believe we can regroup and give Ole Miss a tough game this coming Saturday. And, no matter the outcome of the game, Kyle Field has never looked better or sounded louder on national T.V. than it did on Saturday afternoon.
Other than the game, it was a quiet weekend around here. P and Caroline headed to the coast to go fishing and had originally planned to come home on Saturday night, but were having such a great time that they stayed until Sunday.
(Could the two of them look more alike than they do in that picture? They’re even dressed exactly the same.)
For those of you keeping score at home, this means that I was home alone all weekend long with just Piper and Mabel. The three of us caught up on Homeland, Scandal, and The Mindy Project. Mabel is a huge Mindy Kaling fan and who can blame her? And our relationship is now more co-dependent than ever since I was the only person around this weekend. She even woke up a few times in the night to walk over to the bed and check that I was still there. There is nothing quite as startling as waking up to a dark-colored dog staring you right in the face, especially because all you can see in the dark are a pair of glowing, amber-colored eyes. It’s disconcerting.
But after such a busy month it was nice to have some truly quiet time to rest and regroup. I even felt industrious enough to clean the light fixture in my kitchen that had so much dust on it that it looked like it was about to grow hair. And I felt so accomplished after that feat, I decided to run to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and buy a new vacuum cleaner.
I know. It was like Girls Gone Wild over here. I won’t even tell you about how I went to Central Market on Friday night and bought myself an assortment of dips and crackers to eat all weekend long. Ain’t no party like a 44 year old woman at home by herself party.
Anyway, this vacuum cleaner.
Can we just take a minute for me to say somehow I always knew it would come to this? That I would one day be a person touting the merits of a vacuum cleaner on the internet because it was the most exciting part of my weekend.
So I’d needed a better vacuum for a while. But I kept putting it off since we have hardwood floors and only two rugs in our house as of this moment because I could tell you a whole long story about how I only like certain rugs and I’ve never been able to commit to one for our bedroom or Caroline’s bedroom or the playroom. Yet, the two rugs we have are in the living room and dining room which are the highest traffic parts of our house.
But I kept limping along with this sad vacuum cleaner and since I have a lady who cleans the house a couple of times a month who brings her own vacuum cleaner, I continued to live in lack of vacuum cleaner suction denial. Occasionally, I’d look at a Dyson or some other pricey vacuum and wonder if it might be worth the money and ultimately decide no because I’d rather buy shoes. Or jeans. Or basically anything other than a vacuum cleaner. That’s just a hair shy of buying a shovel.
Then someone told me about a vacuum called The Shark Navigator and how it’s incredibly powerful and can be used on rugs and hardwood floors.
(Side note: This is in no way a paid advertisement. I’m just a girl standing in front of a vacuum telling it that it completes me. And, yes, I just combined lines from Notting Hill and Jerry MacGuire, but that’s how much I love my new vacuum.)
So I continued to research the Shark Navigator and it had great reviews, plus it’s just $159.99 at Bed, Bath and Beyond AND I had my 20% off coupon. This adds up to practically free.
I was super excited to get home and try it out because I am just that lame these days. And, y’all. I’m almost embarrassed to tell you how much dirt and grime it picked up out of my rugs, except I was in awe. It has a clear canister where you can see everything going in it and that is, in short, my appliance love language. In fact, I texted Gulley after I vacuumed and said, “You wouldn’t believe the amount of dirt my new vacuum picked up. It’s almost embarrassing!”
And she texted back, “What’s embarrassing is that this is a topic. Time for someone to have a glass of wine.”
She makes a valid point.
My only regret is that I didn’t read the instructions before I used it because why would I waste precious minutes of vacuuming time reading detailed instructions? You know how most appliances now include a single sheet that reads, “Quick Start Up Guide”? I barely skim that and call it a day. This always works beautifully. Except when it doesn’t.
And so I am sad to inform you that I opened up that clear canister full of dirt, dust and grime to empty it out, but failed to open it the right way and dumped over three quarters of its contents on my kitchen floor.
I guess that’s the 44 year old woman’s version of throwing three pick sixes in a game.