Ramblings: Bacon-y fresh Carpet

I made the mistake of cooking BLT's for dinner last night and I'm still occasionally gagging on the aroma of stale bacon grease combined with new carpet fumes. Barf. That's the drawback that comes with the deliciousness of bacon, isn't it--that  you have to deal with the smell for about 3 days after.
I was googling for a picture of bacon to entertain you with and I found this.  I hope it's a joke. Although I admit that I'm intrigued--combining two of the most fabulous creations on earth...?!

We're almost all unpacked and rearranged. My frantic panic that the carpet wasn't the exact color I hoped for and too shaggy has diminished.  Once they got our old stuff out of here and the rooms were completely done, I relaxed. I think it is a major improvement. Our toesies definitely sense a major improvement. And the fact that the old owner's cat pee stain, the 5 foot area where I dropped an open container of Downy fabric softener that never quite came out all the way, the smashed Milk Dud stains, a variety of random kid pee stains, and other assorted disgustingness is now GONE makes all the craziness and hassle totally worth it. Now we can just focus on accumulating a fresh plethora of gross and unidentifiable stains.

It was going all fine and dandy till the kids all got home around 3 and because of the order of the rooms they were carpeting, we were all stuck in here. Yup. Crammed in with all the living room and office junk stacked in the kitchen. Alex left after about five minutes to go play at a friend's house--he said, "Ugh. I'm getting out of here." I was jealous. The boys and Maddie squished on the couch and watched a DVD on Jeremy's laptop for awhile.Then they just started whining and fighting. And more whining. Lots more fighting. Along with some name calling and generally unbecoming behavior.

It got even crazier that night while Jeremy and I were trying to reassemble all the kids beds and mattresses before bedtime while they ran around like crazy trying to dodge the areas where the poor guys were still carpeting.  Jeremy and Alex left at 6:30 to go to basketball practice, leaving me with the hyper little crazies and tantrum-throwing Maddie to get showered and ready for bed while simultaneously putting their rooms back together. Child abuse never made more sense at the end of that really long day.

The guys finally left at 7:30 cuz they said they didn't want to keep the kids up when they were trying to go to sleep. I'm pretty sure they just had headaches from all the screaming, crying, and yelling. Oh, and the kids were pretty loud, too.

(But for real--I didn't realize laying carpet is that loud. It is. They scrape all the old glue off the floor and then there's hammering, banging, vacuuming, and all sorts of other noises. And so much for all my deep cleaning in all the rooms before they came--it's also a dusty process. I had to redust and wipe down anything near where they were working. Keep that in mind and save yourself the extra work, future re-carpeters.)
All in all in took about a full day and a half of CHAOS and WORK but the house got carpeted and all the kids are still alive. Although Aidan did manage to step on a carpet tack that poked a hole in his foot--but he was afraid to cry or tell us for about 10 minutes because he was walking around in a NO- NO area when he did it.

The naked room with the nasty astroturf before they showed up the first day...and Jeremy on work calls all day while we were moving furniture back and forth.  I didn't do a close up because it was just way too nasty (the floor. Not Jeremy. Well, actually his shirt is a bit nasty. It says, "I Don't Give a..." and then it has a picture of a tiny mouse holding the rope to a donkey. I'll let you figure it out. But can you imagine the horror of the other parents when he accidentally wore it to coach basketball practice for a bunch of 9 year olds? Classy.) And yes, Tyson the Dyson is out because of course I vacuumed the carpet right before they could rip it out. What?! I'm not an animal.

The after carpet. Nice and fluffy with the superpower of camouflage. I really should've taken a before picture of the stairs. There was a really lovely juice stain trail up the entire set that kept reappearing no matter how many times I cleaned it.  And the day before it got ripped out, Alex and his friend tramped all the way up stairs with muddy shoes. And I didn't even clean it up. Even though I wanted to really, really bad. Look at my will power kicking in. Actually, I was just too exhausted. 

See--Look! It's so nice and fluffed that after I wheeled the vacuum to the closet it left a trail. Astroturf don't leave no trail. The kids were making snow angels in it before we moved the furniture back.  Do you like my broken LazyBoy? One day the boys and Maddie came up with a fun game. They would stand on the footrest and then Maddie would close it and they'd go flying off. Until it bent and bent badly when they tried it fully reclined. For the love...seriously.

But in true form, we've already put the rug to the test. Stainmaster, show us what you're made of.  This guy had a rough night--he awoke and came downstairs with a bloody nose.  And then a rough morning with toilet paper shoved up his nose and a death threat to stay on the tile OR ELSE when it started pouring again during breakfast. (Blood removal from carpet--successful. Thanks, Stainmaster.)

And on a totally unrelated note, Maddie's been complaining for weeks that she hates the shower in her bathroom because it "doesn't have enough water." We figured out that she meant the shower head was pretty pathetic and didn't have much pressure--and after checking it out, she was right.  So I hopped online and after reading a few reviews, I ordered what I thought was a decent one to replace it with.

Of course I assumed from the picture that it was about the average size that you typically see--like softball size.

Boy was I wrong. When it arrived today and I opened the box, I started laughing and all the kids gathered around to see what was so funny.

I'm pretty sure this is what the zookeepers use to hose off the elephants. Holy shower head, batman. It's bigger than an iron.  I'm sure she'll want the "total body spray" setting, because the "power spray" may knock her completely out of the shower. Or put an eye out.
Holy Moly that just gave me a BRILLIANT idea for a new time-out strategy--here's a hint. It involves Maddie's shower and the power spray setting.

Have a great weekend--or I'll come after you with the waterpik.