Literally. I have the Dyson DC25 Upright Ball and I can’t begin to tell you how much I love this thing. I know, you’re thinking it’s lame to be blogging about a stupid vacuum, but I’ve had this post as a draft for months. Every time I vacuum, I remind myself that I need to finish it. ((This should tell you how often I vacuum, and explain my need for a really good one. 😆 )) I think the world should know how great this vacuum is.

Hate to vacuum? You wouldn’t if you had this baby. The ball was a brilliant idea and I can’t believe it took this long for someone to think of it. Like my favorite prostitute said about the Lotus Esprit, “This baby corners like it’s on rails!” ((Let’s see who comments with the movie reference.))

And suck? The ball does! My Dyson picks up dirt from the lady who lived here before, and we’ve been here over three years. With 2 kids, 1 dog, 1 husband, 1 cat, lots of dirt, sand and dust, I don’t know how I survived before I got this thing. It also goes easily from carpet to bare floor at the touch of a button at the top of the vacuum and not the bottom.

If you can, do yourself (and your floors) a favor and invest in one. It’s the last vacuum you’ll ever own. This site has the DC24 for $399 and free shipping–not a bad deal.

We’ve been conducting an experiment in our kitchen the past two months, ever since watching a segment on Sunday Morning about the dishwasher (and ever since receiving that $426 Progress Energy bill. As it turns out, we’ve been washing our dishes completely wrong!

I’d be willing to bet that many of you out there have been doing it wrong, too. 😛 So, unless your dishwasher was built during the Reagan campaign, here are a few tips for saving energy, water, and time in the kitchen.

1. Don’t hand wash your dishes. Of course, there are exceptions. ((Like my vintage Pyrex collection.)) But unless a dish specifically states that it’s not dishwasher safe, toss it in the machine. You don’t have to be Al Gore to know that you will waste more water by using a sink full of it, or by letting the water run, to hand wash dishes than you will by loading and running your dishwasher.
2. Scrape, don’t rinse! This has been the hardest habit for me to let go of. I’m a rinser. My mom even commented once “You’re the only person I know who puts clean dishes in the dishwasher.” She was on to something. If your dishwasher was made within the past 10 years, odds are it can handle the crap you leave on a plate. ((If it can’t, it’s time for one that can.)) This one change has cut my kitchen cleaning time in half–which is just as important to me as saving energy. It’s been almost two months and I’ve only had to re-wash one dish that was scraped. I still have the urge to rinse, rinse, rinse. But I resist, resist, resist!
3. Change your settings. Do you really need to heat dry your dishes? I’m guessing, like most people in America, you set your dishwasher to run at the end of the night and you don’t empty it until three days later the next day. So why do you need to use energy to heat dry the dishes? Just let them dry naturally overnight. Sure, that annoying little reservoir that’s held in the indent of coffee cups will be there, but we do have this amazing invention called a towel.
4. Load that baby up! I am the queen of loading the dishwasher. When Chris does the dishes and proclaims he’s done, but can’t fit in the last three glasses, who rearranges everything and makes them fit? It certainly isn’t Zachary. 😉 This is one tip I’ve always followed. The dishwasher uses the same amount of water and energy no matter how many dishes are in it, so why not get the most bang for your buck?
5. Know how to load that baby up. If you still have your manual, check out the manufacturer’s recommended loading instructions. Following these guidelines will help you optimize water and energy usage, while still allowing for proper water circulation. If you don’t have the manual, you are obviously online. Let your mouse do the walking.

I can honestly say that following these tips has really reduced the amount of time I spend cleaning the kitchen, meaning I have more quality time to spend in front of the TV. Our Progress Energy bill has gone down too, thank God. For a while there I was concerned that one of the kids was going to have to go on eBay.

This post was generously brought to you by some cool tv stands. I know this has nothing to do with washing dishes, but hey, I did mention TV. 😉

I was thinking it again the other day when The Goose talked about not having his lunch at school. School dismissal was early, and the school calendar said NO LUNCH for these days. Understood. Oops, maybe not. The Goose informed me that a fellow kindergartener shared his lunch, and his teacher gave him a juice and some chips since he didn’t have a lunch. HUH?? The damn calendar said NO LUNCH. I understand English pretty well, and took NO LUNCH to mean that the students were released for a half day and lunch was my problem. I was obviously wrong. NO LUNCH really means BRING ONE FROM HOME. Couldn’t they have just said that??

It’s times like this that I feel like an idiot and wonder why I’m so ineffective. Today, I stopped myself, and thought of all the crap I did over the past weekend. Here’s a recrap:

• 7 loads of laundry (thank goodness I have a laundry hamper. Or two. Or two dozen)
• cleaned the living room
• cleaned the dining room
• cleaned the kitchen
• cleaned the turtle tank
• went grocery shopping for 3 boys, a dog, a cat, 2 birds and myself
• sent my mom a package
• kept the family fed
• did some online work

And that’s just two days (with a head cold, by the way).

This all has reminded me of those cheesy Enjoli ads from the 70s and 80s. Check it out:

Good stuff. I’m still not going to win any “Mother of the Year” awards, but I’m probably not going straight to hell, either.