Shirley, I did a cooking class for the women in my church and although I had an inkling, I was amazed at how little they knew. These were for the most part, middle class, college-educated women in their 20-40's with families. Among many other things, I discussed phyllo and puff pastry (from a box!) and made the asparagus wraps I asked about a week ago. Out of 30 women, none had ever used phyllo or puff pastry. I made a cake and showed how to measure flour... Anyway, sorry to digress! I use my Oscar to mince onions and if the fumes get to me if I'm cutting by hand, I stick my head in the freezer. It really helps.

NYCish, no I never considered a shark. I had one a few years ago and didn’t care for it. The Dyson is pricier but I’ve found you get what you pay for. Those vacuums are far superior to anything else I’ve used. I have all kinds of swiffers and other dust catchers but the Dyson literally leaves a perfect track through the dust, with none escaping to aggravate allergies. It has several filters which must be periodically cleaned, but I don’t mind. The results are worth it.

I've had an Echo mower for about 5 years along with the rest of the Echo cordless ecosystem. This was for a 0.4 acre lot that typically takes about 2-3 hrs to mow and another hour to edge, trim hedges, etc. Overall everything works quite well. My only complaint with the mower is that it does not recycle clippings as well as my prior Toro Recycler. From conversations with others it does as well or better than all other mowers though. Trimmer power head, hedge clipper, leaf blower, and chain saw all work well. I've used many of the Echo attachments on the power head with good success. The only exception is the bed redefiner that it does not have enough power to keep it from bogging down occasionally. The electric-ness is wonderful. Much Quieter and smoother running (no hand vibration). No exhaust fumes. Never run out of gas, never have to stop to get gas or mix oil+gas. No maintenance. I'll never go back to gas. HOWEVER... One issue I've had is the switch on the leaf blower. I'm on my third one. It's simply a bad design. The big issue though is that Echo have an exceptionally poor battery management system (BMS). I own 3 batteries and number them to track how they are doing. I'm currently using replacement batteries 4, 10 and 13. Echo (Gardner Hardware) had been good about replacements since they are in warranty but recently they've tried to not replace them unless I could provide documentation that they said shipped w/ the batteries but did not (I actually did an unpacking video of my most recent to prove to Echo that Gardner are not including what they are asking for). This is likely one of three things; They are charging the batteries too high (should leave about 10% uncharged at top of Li-ion), they are allowing them to drain down too low (should leave about 15% base charge), or they are using too high of charge current (too high of a charge curve or maybe not even using a proper curve). For perspective a battery rated for 7,500Ah s/b a 10,000Ah battery that uses only the middle 7,500. Echo's problems are an issue of poor design, not technology. My Tesla is 6 years old w/ 60k miles and still has about 95% of it's original battery capacity. I expect my wife's Tesla to do just as well or better. Other Tesla owners have had similar experiences including taxi services that are reporting 200k-300k miles with over 85% of capacity still available. The more that they are able to use the middle range of the battery's charge the greater capacity the batteries retain so it's not unusual to hear of people with 100k miles on a 5 year old car with 99% of their original capacity because they use only the middle (charge to 70%, use to 30% for instance). My Echo stuff is all stuck in storage until October (we're moving) so I'm taking the opportunity of needing to buy a new mower to try a different brand. Likely EGO (hopefully @dchall_san_antonio's experience is a one-off.)

Based on the recs I bought one the other day, charged it up, and used it today on the stairs. I thought it did a good job. (it had been a good week since I vacuumed, DH has been on phone meetings most of the day and I hate to vacuum then) I did the stairs twice with the power brush and once with the crevice tool for the corners. While doing the baseboards in the hall the battery died. I was a little disappointed 15 minutes was its limit, but then I looked it up on Amazon and yes, that was about right. I look forward to using it in the car, upholstery, corners, where the litter box is, and of course the stairs! So much easier than plugging in the shark for quick, frequent jobs. I wish it had an easy way to store the accessories. This house was built before the Dustbuster so there are not a lot of outlets convenient for charging things like this. The filter had a lot of cat fur so I rinsed it and it's drying while the rest of the vacuum charges. I wonder if it will be worth it to get a second filter assembly?