Appliance Specialties

I’m a rare type of person, I sort of like to clean, but I could take it or leave it…except for vacuuming. I find something oddly encouraging about running my vacuum over my home’s floors. I suppose it has a lot to do with the fact that, to me anyway, vacuuming leaves a much more noticeable path of completion than many other cleaning activities. I’ve always been the type of person that could encourage myself to do something as long as I could visually see what exactly I was accomplishing.

All of that nonsense about me aside…Recently, I broke my vacuum cleaner. Innocently sweeping up the bathroom, all of a sudden the hose attachment just *plop* fell off. It had already been repaired once and the cord had been run over and was fairly mangled anyway…so it looks like my best option was replacing the old vacuum cleaner. I cannot explain the excitement of the mere idea of being able to purchase a new vacuum for myself.

I talked to my boyfriend about the upcoming decision (it was technically his vacuum before I moved in, anyway) and he gave me free reign to make the purchase on my own. “You’re the one who likes to sweep. So, it doesn’t really matter to me” he said. Then the search began. I looked into expensive pet vacuums (we have three shed monsters of cats), but as much as I enjoy vacuuming the rug, I still couldn’t get past the thought of spending $600 on something like that. Um, no.

I ended up with the small Shark Navigator Upright Bagless Vacuum Cleaner and from first use I was in love. It swiftly propels itself cross the floor and leaves no trace of dirt behind (and more importantly, for $139.99 it left me with money).

“What do we need that for?” I asked my then fiancée as we were registering for gifts at Target prior to our wedding.  He had picked out a toaster oven and scanned the barcode adding it to our list with the remark “because we don’t have one.” True, we did not have a toaster over, because we had a toaster AND an oven, which in my mind covered any need we already had in that genre.  He persisted and a few months later, my bridal shower bestowed upon me the toaster oven of contention.

Within a year, probably closer to six months, I realized why we did need it, because I could cook everything in it. Garlic bread, pizzas, snacks and more came flowing out of its perfectly browning interior. That was seven years ago and the appliance outlasted my marriage (and is still going strong).

Actually, after I got divorced and was back to living alone, I’m pretty sure I cooked everything in it for a solid six months. My oven never got turned on because the ease of cooking smaller meals and the swiftness with which the originally unwanted toaster oven heated up made it my go-to for meal preparation.  

Now I can’t imagine getting by in the kitchen without it. It’s perfect to throw a side dish in or to make a quick dinner when I’m rushing around after work. We (and even more so I) needed that for a lot more than I ever could have imagined that first selective day.