My new vacuum

This is my new vacuum. It is a Bissell PowerForce Bagless Vacuum. The other one we have is awful. It is a million years old and it smells so I would rather not use it than stink the place up. Basically, it has long ago had it's day.
This new one is great. I wasn't expecting miracles because it was under $50 but oh my god it is amazing. We have a husky who is shedding big time right now and I was hoping it would at least pick up some of the dog hair. What I wasn't expecting was for it to fill up after I had just done the living room. I was actually amazed the suction was that good. The living room is the worst room for dog hair definitely and because I hate the other vacuum I have been cleaning it up with the dog glove which is good but means I have to get down on my hands and knees. Not being a fan of housework you can understand how much I don't enjoy doing that job.

I realize now that I am old. Why else would I be this excited over a vacuum. It's sad really but I love my new vacuum.

Apple chips

So I had the urge to bake something nice and since I have a lot of apples that are about to turn I have been looking up apple recipes.
One that caught my eye immediately was for apple chips (or crisps as I call them). So I decided to make them today. The recipe was beyond basic and I love fruit and veg chips.
My husband had asked me to make him chocolate chip cookies so I was doing that straight afterwards. It was one of the Betty Crocker mixes so I hate them as they have six billion too many chocolate chips in them.
Anyway, my chips required a lower temperature than the cookies did but I was getting fed up of waiting so I upped the temperature and the plan was by the time I was ready to put the cookies in my chips would be done.

Here are the chips:I bet you are thinking....mmmm they look delicious. Well, who knows. They have been disguising their secret scrumptious flavor underneath the charcoal smell.

The cookies came out great by the way. Shame I don't like them. I have just pulled out of the oven an apple cake creation which looks pretty good. I'm just waiting for it to cool down so I can taste it.

A really crap day

Wednesday July 8th 2009 - seriously crap day.

Just nothing went right. I felt like shit from the moment I got up and it just went downhill from there. I had been slacking on the housework stuff and had a mountain of laundry to do. Like you could not believe how much laundry two people can produce. So, I stuck the first load on and took the dog for a walk. I got back and had a cup of tea and watched some rubbish on telly and thought...oh I better get cracking and pop the next load in. So off I went to put the first lot of washing into the dryer and as I pulled my hand out I thought...shit, why is there so much water in here. The bloody washer had stopped mid cycle and wouldn't work. I was well hacked off. After half an hour of trying to fix it an huffing and puffing I gave up.

Something else broke. I can't remember what it was now but that annoyed me too. I was in a foul band and thinking back now I must have just sat stewing all day because it seemed to go from morning to afternoon very quickly.

Anyway, I just gave up on the day and decided to write it off, go back to bed and watch a dvd. Well, I couldn't get the flippin dvd player to work which just complimented the rest of the day really so I got a book (can't really break one of them can you?) and hibernated until dinner time.

Oh, the dvd player just wasn't connected to the telly because the netflix box was plugged in so later we watched The Unborn. It was good. The bit where the old dude and the dog had their heads on upside down...very freaky. They blatantly made the ending an opening for a sequel. It is so tacky when films do that. We know movie makers are all about the money but at least try and disguise your greed somewhat.

I am AMAZING

Last night we had a lot of lightning. I hate thunder and lightning so of course I was terrified especially when our power went out. It was only off for a little while but after it came back on it went out again. This time when it came back the power to the bedroom didn't. Not fun since it was so hot.

We checked the circuit breaker thing and nothing had tripped. I was exhausted because we had stayed up til 4am the night before watching Dexter so I just went to sleep. The plan was to call the office today to get them to come fix it but this afternoon after doing a bit of searching online I wanted to have another go at fixing it myself. I had to wait until my husband got home though because although I thought I was going to be okay I didn't really want to mess with electricity without someone else being here in case I blew myself up or something and ended up lying paralyzed on the floor. I am extremely paranoid about getting injured because I don't have any medical insurance at the minute.

Anyway, I fixed the problem. GO ME!!! I unplugged every thing in the room then pressed a reset button really hard and flicked the trip switch again. It worked! I am amazing!

God I was (am) so proud of myself. I love messing and fiddling around with broken things but it is very rare that it ever pays off so yes I am extremely impressed with myself today.

My brush with death

I hate ironing. Really hate it. However, since I am attempting to be a good wife I told my husband I would iron all his jeans. He has about 50 pairs so this is not just a case of ironing one pair so he can go out. Anyway, after delaying the task for pretty much the whole day I decided I needed to go do it and quick smart before he came home from work. So off I went. I had my ipod with me so I had something to distract me from the tedium that is ironing. Well, I listened to an entire Eagles of Death Metal album and had just started it again when I discovered I was on the final pair. Hurrah I thought to myself. Just then disaster struck. It was as if the entire ceiling was falling in on me. Everything around me seemed to be falling. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it was going to explode out of my chest.

What was it that had caused this near tragedy? I thought. As I recovered myself and started to see clearly again I realised that I had been hanging all the ironed jeans on the shower railings and that, rather than being a handy hanging spot as I had thought, it was in fact a big mistake and it had collapsed bringing the shower curtain, jeans and all down with it.

So, rather than appearing to be a helpful wife when my husband walked through the door, he came home to find an extremely flustered woman doing battle with a curtain pole.

I might add though that all the ironing got done and shortly after the oven pinged to sound the arrival of dinner so I can't be all that bad really.