Today, I am a Superstar

In stark contrast to yesterday, where I felt pathetic and helpless, today I feel amazing.  SuperMom has returned.  In fact, SuperMom was a Superstar today.

I had both Bug and Cricket this morning and, somehow, I got them to take their naps at the same time.  During that half an hour window, I fixed our vacuum.  Fixing the vacuum is a huge deal.  Here’s the background story: One day, my husband proudly proclaimed that he threw our vacuum cleaner away.  He thought it stunk like dog…don’t get me started.  A sympathetic friend donated her old one to our cause.  Unfortunately, the suction has never worked for us.  Consequently, for the past eight months, we’ve had to borrow a vacuum every time we want to clean.  However, with Bug on the verge of crawling, I need to be able to clean the floors more regularly and so, I decided I was going to fix the vacuum.

After contacting the manufacturer, I was able to get a copy of the owners manual.  The booklet was mostly useless, but I was able to figure out how to take the machine apart.  After lots of finagling, I discovered that the hose was almost completely full of lint and dirt.  A pen had been sucked up and, unable to pass through the curved portion of the hose, it had stopped and had gradually been trapping the other debris with it.  Somehow, I cleared it.  And, now, I have a functioning vacuum cleaner! Score!

Now, the second part of SuperMom… Before we bought our house, it had stood empty for 3 or 4 years.  Consequently, the gardens were in disarray.  One butterfly bush in particular had grown into a crazy jungle.  Between not being trimmed for

when we moved in

several years and heavy snows from this winter, the poor plant was in rough shape.  It’s HUGE and was spilling onto our back deck.  Moreover, it hasn’t produced any blooms this spring (sad face) and, on closer look, at least half of the branches were bare.  The bush was so thick with dried out branches that sunlight wasn’t reaching the inner leaves and airflow was terrible.  Until today, I hadn’t been able to trim the bush because I don’t own loppers, my father is lending his to me.  As soon as Bug went down for his nap, I rushed to work.

While I do recommend closed-toe shoes and long pants for yard work, you probably don’t want to wear ballet flats and yoga pants…like me (I now look like I got into a fight with a kitty cat).  But as anyone who cares for kids knows, you don’t always have time to change into sensible attire.  You have to squeeze as much work into nap time as possible.  Initially, my goal was only to trim away the dead branches (a task that proved to be trickier than I thought).  However, my sweetiepie took a rare 2.5 hour nap (so much better than a measly 30 minutes) and I was able to clear the bush of most of the dead wood; rake all the nastiness from the base of the plant; and reshape it so it looked nicer and is no longer growing into the house and porch.

final product! (I hauled the debris away)

I couldn’t feel more pleased and accomplished!  I will admit that as soon as I lugged off the last load of debris, I raised my hands and yelled, “huzzah!”  I’ve got to revel in the small victories.

Come this fall, I’ll probably trim the bush back even more, but I’m hoping it’ll revive and put out some blooms before spring is over.  In a few years, it will make an amazing fort for my son–I can’t wait until then!

great fort, right?

random hunk of brick & concrete under the bush (will dig up later)