"A brief shining moment, and then that..."

yeah, it's been one of those days. Been having problems with my vacuum. took the whole thing practically apart, cleaned all the filters, found a clog low down, cleaned it out. went to use it today...still no go. went to the one place i hadn't tried: the hose. Success! i found the clog. and it was enormous.


while this isn't the greatest photo (sorry it's all washed out), and you can't really tell the size of this thing from this, trust me when i say it was very large and quite gross. i had to use water to get it out because i don't have anything to snake it with.

after some hot water and a little bit of sitting, there was a great big "plop" and there it sat. after getting it out i wanted to use my vacuum, but i didn't figure water and dirt from my carpet was a good combo unless i wanted another clog, so to speed up the process i got the bright idea of drying it out...with a hair dryer...on high.

stupid. stupid, stupid. seriously, what was i thinking??

fortunately, i got the bright idea to try bissell.com before i went out and bought a new vacuum (though it was tempting) and found the hose, and for less than $20 (with shipping). oh well, at least it wasn't a complete waste. i did get my toilet clean, my kitchen clean, and my kids and husband fed.