Seriously?

I can't believe what I did today! I convinced Andy to finally use the fireplace after months of complaining. He didn't want to because we just painted and he didn't want any soot stains. Well, the stains turn out to not be the worst thing that can happen.

The ashes needed to be cleaned from the fireplace and the house started to smell like a campfire, so I decided to tackle it this afternoon. How hard can that be right? Without the proper fireplace cleaning tools it turned out to be a disaster. I had been dilligently saving old coffee grinds because I saw that spreading them before shoveling out the ash will reduce dust..huh. Ok, so I shoveled it out into a garbage bag and decided to use the shop-vac to tackle the remains. (Drew was in the room as this was occuring). So I hooked up the vac, put the nozel in the fireplace and turned it on....(see photo above for descripton if what happened). Yup, I had the hose on the BLOW side of the vacuum.

So after stripping Drew down to his diaper and taking off my clothes I called:

This turns out to be even more of a mess. They soaked everything! The wood floors, Drews toys (which do need to be cleaned anyway), furniture. Plus, the hose they drag into the house was muddy and slushy..not to mention their boots! When he tried to sell me the "deodorizer" I passed (for once I said no to the in-home pressure sale) because I did go to college and can do some quick math in my head so "yeah it's like $.50 a sq foot for the rug and half the price of cleaning the furniture"..."um, yeah like $100, no thanks". But once they finished cleaning it stunk! They said it was the wool rug, I think it was the stinky hoses that they probably clean up dog excrement with. So it took them all of 3o seconds to come in with a fancy pump and spray some baby powder smelling crap all over the furniture...for about $100.

So I should proabably be disinfecting Drews toys and mopping the floors rather than blogging...but it feels good to rant!

I can't leave without a Drew update so on a lighter note, Drew is walking around like mad. He is letting go of things and taking unassisted steps...which is becoming even more hazardous than the "pulling up on own" phase of a few months ago...now I really need the helmet! He has been really gabby lately and now says "dada" (usually referring to both of us) "mama" (but mostly while eating so I think it is really "more" that he is trying to say, "gaga" not sure what this is but I am pretty sure "ga-ge" is doggy (lucy), "nanana" (no), "dat" (that..I think because he usually says it when he is pointing at something). Most of his blabber usually translates into something in my head, so I usually just go with that even if it is inconcievable that he could come up with some of these things. He is also getting pretty clever. Yesterday in the grocery store, he was in the cart and behind him was my pocket book (unzipped). He reached around and rooted through it and found my portable cheerios container, grabbed it out and handed it to me so I could give him some. Toddler here we come!