Ants

If the old wives tale that having ants in your house = prosperity,... We ought to go shopping!

Bissell Spot Cleaner

So for the longest time, about 6 months probably, we hogged A's deep cleaner. It tooks us a couple of weeks to deep clean the master bedroom, doing it sections at a time during the weekend, and a few more weeks deep cleaning the carpets in the 2nd bedroom. We spent more time cleaning the stairs.

Okay, here's where I get honest and fess up that when I say "we cleaned", it really means "hubby cleaned" around 98% of the time - he did the actual cleaning while I entertained Swe-cha elsewhere.

Unfortunately, we've been using the deep cleaner to suck up excess water that spills out of the washing machine - ugh! It's been a constant strain on us whenever we wash - are we going to get water or not ? By the time that we gave the deep cleaner back (thank you so much, A!), we had already purchased a shop vacuum. It was one of those small 2.5hp wet/dry vacuums that you keep in the garage. It stayed in our living room, still boxed, for weeks and it gave us the confidence to wash at home and that was good. The not-so-good part was that when we eventually opened it to try it out, it didn't work! It wouldn't turn on so we brought it back to the store.

A few days ago, Swe-cha soiled the carpet on a couple of steps again and that prompted us to get ourselves our own carpet cleaner. I had thought that we could hold out and not get one as we're planning to move houses anyway and we didn't want carpets in the new place. As it has been 6 months since we've started looking at houses and we're still here, it looks like we are here to stay... for a few more months, at least.

Sigh.

I finally gave in to hubby's prodding and ordered ourselves a Bissell Spot Cleaner - I was looking for the Little Green Cleaning Machine but looks like it is being phased out for this newer model.

I was able to get it at a good price so it wasn't all bad. SRP was 119.99, it was discounted at 99.99 and I had a 30% coupon on top of that - this is around double what we paid for the shop vac but since the latter didn't work, I don't feel bad about paying extra for a machine that's really more suited to what we need it for which is to clean up soiled carpeting and occasionally act as a wet vacuum to suck up spills.

Can't wait till it arrives.

Apt 9 Extra Low Cut Liners

For the longest time, I've been frustrated by the "no show liners/socks" that I have been. I've tried different brands, bought at different shops and nothing seemed to do what it was supposed to do - NOT SHOW.

See how the liners are peeking out in the front part of my shoe ? and check out the heel part. And these are suppoesd to be low-cut and extra-low-cut liners.

This afternoon, I had some extra time and decided to surf the net for recommendations. I was about to give in and shell out $33 for 4 pairs of Sheec Solehugger Secrets as they seemed to have the best reviews... but I couldn't find it in my heart to click "check out" because $33 was too expensive for 4 pairs of socks - and since I couldn't see / try them, I didn't even know if they were going to work!

And then... *drum roll please* while checking out Sheec reviews, I came across a thread where people were talking about liners that they wear with their ballet flats and someone recommended Kohl's Apt 9 brand.

I dropped by Kohl's after work and browsed through their selection. They have several variants - no show, low cut, extra low cut - and they have different sizes - size 4-8, size 9-12, one size fits all. I rummaged around and found 2 packs (3 pairs each) of the size 4-8 extra low cut liner socks in cotton. They were the last 2 packs in the store and the packaging was torn, I bought them anyway despite them being white - I wanted cream and/or black - but hey, if they don't show anyway, why should the color matter ?

I tried them as soon as I got home and voila! No show! They really were low cut and didn't show. I tried them with the pumps that I usually wear on "business casual attire" days and they didn't show up either.

These socks/liners retail for $12.50 for 3 pairs.

I got them for Buy 1 get 1 50% off. As I didn't have any coupons, I showed the cashier my MVC (Most Valuable Customer) credit card and she took another 15% off.

I paid around $15.xx for 6 pairs. This is way better than the $33 I was about to pay for 4 pairs earlier today.

I'm a happy camper :-)