Honey, I think we need a new vacuum cleaner...

"Honey, I think we need a new vacuum cleaner..." 

These words escaped my mouth last night as I was vacuuming, err, moving the dog hair around on the floor.  One swipe with the vacuum would look fine, but then the second swipe left TRACKS of dog hair (we have a black lab who sheds all the time).  As I was doing this, I'm wondering to myself why I'm even bothering... I'm just relocating the dog hair. 

Finally, after struggling to clean the livingroom, I took my vacuum into the kitchen and started proding around.  30 minutes later I had taken the bottom off (4 screws) and cleaned out the hose (where everthing comes through to the tank), emptied the filters, and wiped the whole vacuum down.  You should have seen the pile of stuff that was stuck in the hose!  No wonder this thing wasn't actually sucking up dog hair.  I tried it again, and voila, a like new vacuum cleaner!  Works great, and now I should be back to my 5 minute once a day (or every other) vacuuming routine without thinking it is pointless! 

Moral of story... try to clean out/fix things before assuming you need a new one... =)