Whoduhthunkit!?

Yeah it’s that time of year again. Normally I keep the fact that my birthday is just ’round the corner a very very tight secret but I have decided to embrace it this year and let people celebrate me. No really…normally I do SUCH a good job even family forget that it’s my birthday. This is a self effacing thing and not really good for the soul since I end up resenting everyone for forgetting (which is precisely what I had tried to get them to do - an evil circle if you will).

Well not THIS year baby! This year I embraced the girl in me and asked for (and received oh thank you Gods of The Shiny Things!) this watch:

 

This was from my Hunny (the Gunny) He rocks. We were just at the jewelers to get my rings resized since I had lost a lot of weight and WHAMO…there was this pretty thing which almost very nearly kinda matches the Seiko that I had bought HIM for HIS birthday. I said "HEY! LOOKIT! MATCHIES!" - just because I AM older doesn’t mean I ACT older…

After a few struggles he got me to admit that I liked it and coveted it like a crow after aluminum foil so he bought it. We do like the Gunny as much as we love him…

BUt that’s not really the STORY here. I wanted to share with you the flip side of age…the patheticness that becomes you…the suckage of what excites you…how you become obsessed with…

CLEAN

I really wish I could get that word to blink and sparkle…

Anyway.

I also asked for (and received oh happy day!) a carpet steamer. Nevermind that I own a Kirby which is one step below the VERY model that Mother Mary uses to keep Heaven up to snuff…which also comes with all the bells, whistles, attachments, and options that make it the machine of the century and will cause your kids to contest your WILL. I mean this thing vacuums AND shampoos and will even GROOM YOUR FRIGGIN’ DOG….but never mind that I have that. Shampooed is simply not clean enough for a carpet that MY precious piddies traipse across. Oh no…I need…

CLEAN

I really think there should be a booming male voice to go with that…

I asked for a carpet steamer because much like the crow and aluminum foil again…I COVET clean. Now initially I was drooling over the idea of a Roomba - for those not clean-tech savvy this is a robot that SELF vacuums your floors. One of my online faves; Mir, posts about it here and she’s why I was heading in that direction (all YOUR fault Mir!). But when I read the reviews and noticed that MOST users, while happy with it’s performance stated two important things

(1) It will not take the place of ALL your vacuuming needs - which for me is basically NEVER having to do it myself again. EVER.

and

(2) The hopper that collects the debris is really kinda small - which is a PROBLEM for me I have 2 dogs, a cat, a rabbit, guinea pig, 4 kids, husband, and run a DAYCARE up in this piece…I need a hopper the size of my GARAGE.

Now why I expected even for a moment that the hopper on piece of equipment the size of a wheelbarrow tire would actually do it for me is till a mystery but I am no longer hallucinating about a robotic clean.

No I had to have a carpet STEAMER. A gal pal of mine had one sitting in her garage when I went to visit and the antennae went UP and I said…"HEY! How does that thing work for you?" She rolled her eyes and started with the GUSHAGE about how she SWEARS by it and it is a LIFESAVER and it totally ROCKS etc etc ad cleaneum. Now the goose bumps start…she is the High Priestess of Clean this pal. I go to her house NOT just for the company and laughs (or to visit with her great kids), I like to stand there and feel the CLEANNESS of the molecules in the air brush against my skin like the caress of a whispered promise. You get the picture now - I am obsessed with clean (relax I wasn’t going with the CLEAN thing again).

I had to have one. That very one very right now.

I made sure I announced it to the Gunny, canceled my wishing for the Roomba out loud, showed reviews for the NEW obsession all around. Told the kids, renamed the cat, posted pictures on my desktop…Oh I was SUBTLE.

Then I dragged them all to the store - Wal-y-world HOH! We shopped and compared, discussed (until eyes were glazing over all around me) the various merits of each and EH-VUH-REE piece…and then I heard it….the three magic words…

"So buy it."

Now not being one to jump in haste I did give Gunny 48 hours to repent - the model I wanted was 2 bills, but he stuck with it and I rationlized agreement in the form of - "OK…so it’s $50 per kid a gift from all four kids for my birthday."

So I picked it up this weekend. Oh this is a solid piece of equipment and it will suck the shell off of a turtle crawling past your house a block away….

But this is not the Lameness that is Me which you are surely waiting for yes? THIS is it - Gunny and the Kadiddles were out there celebrating the GLORY of my birthday coming soon (by which I mean they did NOT forget and heaped gifts at my feet causing extreme siezures of happiness in me and thereby they avoided the dark roiling cloud of discontent that results from not having remembered my birthday) and the BEAUTY of our world and me? The cleanaholic in me got this:

So while THEY were outside doing THIS:

and THIS:

I was INSIDE doing THIS:

and THIS:

While taking pictures of THIS which I got out of the machine and consequently out of the carpet:

Oh I gloried as I cleaned and I celebrated and I laughed…

like Renfield…

I’m so lame.

But my carpet. She is

CLEAN