I’ve never claimed to be technologically or equipment savvy.
Ask anyone in my family how I struggle to turn on a television or get ice from the ice-maker.
But yesterday, my little adventure with a Hoover just about took the cake AND crumbs.
You see, I need to clean my new home. Nooks and crannies type of clean. The vacuum utensils type of clean.
I can’t wash, paint, move in my clothing and furniture or LIVE without this kind of clean.
Yesterday, I scrubbed to my knuckles worked on my kitchen cabinets… ripping off 50-year old contact paper from every shelf (if I never see another piece of sticky shelf paper, it will be too soon).
When I couldn’t take another strip of this torture, I decided to clean the closets… and man, does this old home have closets. Not complaining. No-one who’s seen this home can believe the closets.
I couldn’t find our new vacuum cleaner (which, by the way, I need to rip new muscles to even pick up)… but I knew I had seen our old one somewhere… the one we now use for every really dirty job – our trusty Hoover. Ah, there she was, standing proudly in our little sunroom, just waiting for me to put her to use. She’s a powerful, stately old queen and I could almost see her smile at the adventure of this royal cleaning job ahead.
I picked her up and brought her to the front room…
(Part One of Renovation: Under this carpet is beautiful hardwood flooring, circa 1880. Carpet’s coming up tomorrow. Floors refinished. Dark trim painted semi-gloss white and the wall color to-be-announced.)
So OK, old gal. Let’s get to work.
OK.
How the…
Where does the attachment hose go?
Oh, inside CLEANING TOOLS…

This is where it became almost comical. I couldn’t figure for the life of me how to insert the tube for the cleaning tools.
The old gal Hoover was taunting me for buying some newfangled, too heavy, monster of a machine and using her for the dirt work. She was exercising her reign over her subject – me.
She won the battle.
And I went back to stripping sticky contact paper.
This morning, I asked Barry to help me with a battle plan figure out the CLEANING TOOLS war between me and Queen Hoover.
He looked…
He won…
Then he quietly and calmly offered his BATTLE PLAN: “Honey, you can’t fit a square peg into a round hole.”
Truth be told, yesterday I had that hose attachment IN every way but CORRECT…
I told you I’m not equipment savvy.
Well, at least I got most of the kitchen cabinets cleaned.
And for today… conquering the closets.
The old gal Queen Hoover and I are friends again… as long as I remember who reigns.
SHE does!
(And I don’t think she’ll mind if I ditch the other vacuum and get a brand new Hoover… in proper succession, of course.)