Several days ago, I announced that Saturday, at 7PM, I was going to clean the carpets.
This means that all exposed carpet had to be uncluttered, and I needed some sort of carpet cleaning machine. The very best carpet cleaning machine is the Rug Doctor (check out the link above). I rented it at the local supermarket that I never go to for anything other than the Rug Doctor rental. Fortunately, this morning, they also had a bake sale to benefit a great organization, so I gave them a fistfull of change and stuffed a peanut buttered fudge brownie in my pocket first.
Actually - let’s start at the very beginning …
This morning we ate toaster strudels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toaster_Strudel) for breakfast, and I declared that it was time for my daughter to start learning to drive. She’s starting Driver’s Ed soon, and students should have basic driving skills (start, stop, turn) before getting in the car with the driver’s ed instructor. We went to a local elementary school and practice went very well.
After driving practice, we went to the gas station (http://www.haffnersoil.com/locations_gas_stations.htm). After pressing the wrong button on the pump at least six times, I managed to fill the tank with gas and navigate to the supermarket (http://mydemoulas.com/). We had an excellent time at the supermarket, purchasing the fixings for Reuben sandwiches (http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/reuben-sandwich-ii-2/Detail.aspx), Cheez-Its (http://cheez-it.com/), and other wicked good stuff, including strawberries which were on sale. After buying all our food, we went to the other supermarket, and rented the Rug Doctor.
We ate the peanut buttered brownie on the way home and then had bunny mac and cheese (http://www.annies.com/naturalmacandcheese#jump111) for lunch. It was yummy. There was some fruit, too.
Then, it was time to think about carpet cleaning. I noticed my new bike seat (http://bontrager.com/model/08383) was on the floor and felt one of the best things I could do to get ready for carpet cleaning was to put it on the bike. Once the seat was on the bike, it seemed like a good idea to do some other spring fixups, and so I tidied things up a bit. Then, I noticed the front derailleur cable was very frayed and decided I should replace it before it broke and left my 21-speed bike as a very slow 7 speeder. So, I called Goodale’s Bike Shop (http://www.goodalesbikeshop.com/goodales/) and asked if I could bring my bike in, and my other daughter’s bike - since it was due for a free tuneup. Goodale’s is awesome, and now they have both bikes and I’ll get them back in a week or so.
Returned home and made the Reuben sandwiches. They were awesome.
It was finally time to clean the carpets. The kids lifted all the junk off the carpets and helped vacuum. The carpet cleaner extracted an alarming amount of dirt from them and now, I’m going to sleep.
The moral of the story is: Even if you have excellent, formal, official plans like cleaning the carpet, it’s important to attend to stuff like your bike, so you can have fun when you want to.
:)
You can’t click on the links because I’m too tired to change them from text into links. In the incredibly unlikely event that you want to visit them - cut and paste them.
They’re taking the Hobbits to Isengard!!!