I feel like an IDIOT!

I have not owned a vacuum for over 10 years! A decade! My home has wood floors, why would I need a vacuum, right?

My husband came home from Home Depot a few months ago with...what do you know?..A VACUUM! I thought it was ridiculous, initially.  He was being nice because we had just gotten a new throw rug and he thought it would be healthier for the baby if we could vacuum it instead of taking it outside & 'beating' it.

I had to force myself to get into the habit of using it. Then I discovered the 'attachments'.  I grew up in a house that owned a vacuum and it had attachments but they were NEVER used. I certainly had no idea what they would have been used for anyway.  I thought they were just fancy items the marketers put on it so they could charge more money for it.  I didn't think they actually had a real purpose.

That's the thing. I HAD NO IDEA! I've never known how to properly use vacuum attachments.  NOW I do. Boy do I feel silly. All this time, I've used a broom for things, like dusting the corners of the walls and ceilings, trying to clean ceiling fan blades were always a nightmare for me.  I avoided it.

I always figured that ladies whose homes never had dust on their ceiling fans or a cobweb in a corner were just way better at 'keeping a home' than I was.  I was just a horrible house keeper.  

The truth is, I grew up in a house that did not include *instruction* like that.  I don't remember being taught how to do things, like keep a house.  I was just expected to DO them.  I remember many meals were simply Kraft macNcheese or oatmeal. One or the other, that was the dinner, not a side dish. I don't blame my mom or anything.  She was busy trying to survive & hold things together best she could, instructions on how to properly dust a home, I'm sure were not high on her list of priorities.

All I can think now is that you just never know a person's history.  If you enter a woman's home and things don't seem quite in order, things that seem obvious to *you*...perhaps it's not that she's lazy, maybe she *really* has no idea.  Maybe she truly does not know how to use a vacuum!

Well, I certainly know how to use one now. (only took me 37 years!) What a difference it has made. I LOVE it.