Meet my new best friend

I never, ever, ever, ever thought I could get so excited over a vacuum cleaner. We've only been the proud owners for a few days, but I'm pretty confident that this is the best purchase we've ever made.

It might be hard to tell, but it is TINY - it weighs around 11 pounds. But it's amazingly powerful. Here, I'll show you:

That's after running it over the rug in the living room; I'm not going to tell you the last time it was vacummed, because I can't remember. We apparently had enough hair in it to make another cat.

Before you judge us for spending such an obscene amount of money on an appliance we don't really need, let me explain. Cleaning the house, before the construction, was never really an issue. We didn't have a lot to keep clean, and honestly, any cleaning was pretty much pointless. Now that we're living in the house again AND work continues on the house (slowly, mind you), I'm always pulled between cleaning or working on the house (mainly painting these days). We just don't have time for both, unless we give up sleep, which ain't happening, because we will take advantage of sleep as much as possible until we have kids. Painting usually wins because I always tell myself I'll clean the next day or the day after that, and then I never do. Also, we both have full-time jobs, and lives.

I've mentioned the fatties several times; they're also extremely hairy, even though they're shorthairs. Both of them shed really bad. As do I. I'm amazed I'm not bald; the bathroom floor can't stay hair-free for more than a few hours. So between the amount of hair, cat and human, and dust, our floors get pretty gross. I have a canister vacuum from my little apartment days, which worked just fine, but lugging that thing around our house, up and down the stairs, is such a pain. We also have a shop-vac, but I hate using it. It's dirty in and of itself, and even more awkward than the canister vacuum. I got a Roomba for Christmas last year, and while it works great, it's not something you can just run whenever you feel like. It is LOUD. And I have to supervise it because it gets stuck on our thresholds, which are the size of speedbumps. So letting it run while we're away may or may not work. I also don't think to run it in the mornings when I'm rushing to get a million other things done. So, it came down to either buying a better vacuum cleaner or getting a maid service. The Dyson seemed to be cheaper in the long run.

What I did with my evening

Here's the story of our sofa: It was mine to begin with. I bought it from IKEA five years ago and it served me, and some guests, well. I moved it with me to Richmond since we needed a good sofa. One of Michael's roommates had left a couple couches at the house, but they were pretty gross. I have no idea where they came from, and they looked like they used to be white at one point. Also, I just don't trust couches owned by single guys. So those went straight to the dump, and my couch was now our couch.

Then the sofa met Tanga. His claws, specifically. We tried everything to keep him from using the sofa as his scratching post, but he always managed to find a way. So I gave up on that and resigned to buying a new slip cover for it when we fixed up the new living room. It probably helps to mention that the sofa is actually a frame plus slip covers, which is fantastic because if you want to change things up, you can buy a new slip cover for a $250 or so and voila! New sofa! Yay for IKEA!

Then the sofa met an insane amount of dust from last year's floor finishing and drywall sanding. Since the slipcovers are easily removable and washable, I washed them. Then I got impatient and put them in the dryer. With heat. BAD idea. They totally shrunk. Which wasn't THAT big of deal, since I'd planned all along to buy new covers anyway; I was just trying to hold out on that since we have more important things to spend money on.

Then came the idea that buying a new slip cover is pretty pointless with Tanga around. He will destroy the next one just like he did the first one. We decided to save up for a leather sofa, since the cats aren't that interested in destroying our leather chair. So we threw some blankets over the couch to tide us over until we could afford a new sofa.

Then I got tired of living in a house that looked like recent college grads lived in it (seriously, I'm almost 30 years old - I'm tired of the whole hand-me-down furniture look) and bought a drapey kind of slip cover. It actually looks pretty nice...until you sit down and move just slightly. The cover shifts, the cushions shift, and you have one pretty white-trash-looking sofa on your hands.

And by now, several items have popped up that we need more than a leather sofa, like redoing the second bathroom. I'm also THIS close to going out and just buying a Dyson already; I want to punch my current vacuum cleaner in the face. So, we've just been dealing with how awful the sofa looks, and really only caring about it if people come over; only then will we actually fix it. I did some research (i.e. typing "how to fix slipping couch cushions" into Google and hitting Enter) and found several options for keeping couch cushions from shifting. I went with the velcro option.

Which brings me to a couple of weeks ago when I spent part of an evening literally velcroing the sofa cushions to the frame...and crossing my fingers that it would work. I bought industrial strength velcro, too, just to be safe. I also had to tape up the cushions themselves with some packing tape, in lieu of fabric glue, because the fabric came loose. So now whenever you move, the couch makes a crinkly sound. Lovely.

So far, so good. The cushions seem to stay put, and I've gone almost two weeks without cursing at the couch.

And yet, despite this improvement, I can't get over how white trash our couch is and it's still sitting in the house, a prominent feature in our living room. Let's run through the list, shall we?

• Corners clawed to death by cat
• Original cover shrunk in dryer, rendered useless
• Cushions taped together so they don't fall apart; holding out until I buy some fabric glue.
• Cushions that won't stay in place plus drapey slip cover that won't stay in place, leading to the bottoms of the cushions being velcroed to the frame

Now I'm asking myself why we didn't just suck it up and buy that leather sofa. Ah, hindsight.

When lolcats and real life collide

Read this.

Then check this out.

I don't know about you, but it made me lol.