She's ASLEEP!

After a week-long nap strike, Sassy is NAPPING!!!!! I put her down earlier than usual today (easier said than done), and it worked like a charm.

I feel like singing! But I won't because I don't want to wake her up. :)

Could I possibly be so lucky as to have naptime back in our normal routine?!

Disgusting

I got a new vacuum cleaner last week. It was overdue.

We'd shopped around and I had surprisingly (for me) sold myself on an Oreck. Gosh, they're nice, aren't they? Crazy power and light enough to lift one-handed without breaking a sweat. That little old wrinkly man sure does know what he's doing, I'll tell you that.

Downside? The pricetag. Ouch. And then our garage door spring broke. And our air conditioning went out. And some part on the TV blew a fuse and had to be replaced. All in the same week. Double, triple, and quadruple ouch.

Bye-bye, Oreck money. Hello, Target vacuum aisle.

I checked out the reviews, and finally decided on a Bissell that everyone seemed to have awesome things to say about. It was in the price range I was planning to spend, and let's face it -- the only other choices out there are the Hummers of the vacuum world and the $30 joke that you're afraid will break after two uses.

So, hooray for making a decision! I was actually pretty excited to test it out. I've never had a bagless vacuum before, and I will say that this is the #1 quality I hate about it, but there really aren't many bagged upright vacuums on the market these days that don't cost an arm, a leg, and a kidney.


THIS is what I found after vacuuming one room. Seriously?!? What disgustingness we've been walking and playing on without even realizing it!

Even my husband, who shall thus forth be acknowledged as "Mr. Incredible" (per his new toy -- uh, phone), noted that the carpet seemed softer... "fluffy" almost. I won't say it's turned my beige carpet three shades whiter or made it look brand new again... but for eighty bucks? I'm happy.

Sigh of relief

I love finding new blogs about motherhood, adoption, teaching your children... anything I feel has a pretty big place in my life. Months and months ago, I stumbled across an adoption blog -- I can't even remember where -- and found myself nodding along with what the writer was saying. I felt like she really got the loss aspect of adoption, something that's traditionally swept under the rug by most.

I'll admit I'm not the most faithful blogger or blog-reader anymore. I just don't feel good about putting in the amount of time it takes. I flip through a few favorite reads quickly on a pretty much daily basis, and I try to do one "clean out the reader" session about once a week. But a lot of times, I just "click, click, click" without paying TOO much attention, unless it's a blog I know that I love and will glean something from.

After skimming through a post recently on the aforementioned adoption blog, I did what I've been meaning to do for quite a while. I deleted this particular blog from my reader. It was overdue, and I finally found the two-and-a-half seconds to search for it in my list and hit "delete." And you know what? I honestly breathed a sigh of relief. It felt wonderful, and I'm not sure what took me so long to fix this oversight.

The point of this post is not to be ugly -- as you can see, I'm not naming names, and I'm not even giving details about what finally pushed me to the limit. I guess I'm just saying that, when you live with adoption in any form, there's bound to be a measure of grief/loss/stress that come along with it. Why have I been allowing my blood pressure to be raised when it's completely and totally unnecessary? Why am I allowing a stranger to make me cringe with, what I believe, is a completely skewed view of adoption, loss, and healing?

I will say this alone, and then I'm done with this topic. It literally pains me when the very thing I wish NEVER had to happen is the thing that some others are hoping and praying for.