Calm down.

A lot of things in our house have been wearing out in the past month or so. Aside from the people, I mean. Aside from Marley and her turbulent emotions after getting off the afternoon kindergarten bus. Aside from Todd and his never-ending work on the back patio and deck, the front steps, and the recent frantic pumping of water from the new side patio, after Irene and the rain that followed and stayed for days.

Our vacuum burned out, our camera lost its zoom function when a button was irreparably jammed, and my laptop is so old and full and tired that the battery lasts only three minutes, I had to move thousands of photographs to an external hard drive and it's still just puttering along, and, after I bought a new camera, I learned that the videos it records are too fancy for my iPhoto or iMovie to upload.

But. The new camera is just a beginning. We asked a friend for Mac advice, and he assured us that it was time for a new laptop, that we were not being wasteful to consider such a thing, that this trusty old pal on which I am still typing has done its job and more. And last night, I went out and got a new vacuum, another Kenmore canister, with just a few new features that my old one was missing. And after weeks of merely Dust-busting our area rugs while researching some of the higher-end canisters and realizing that a technologically current laptop gets priority over a legendary vacuum, I went back to Sears. And last night, I vacuumed the entire house and felt like screaming with delight while doing so.

I am a tidy, organized person. I vacuum at least twice a week. Sundays and Wednesdays, actually, if I can. And just my telling you that schedule should indicate the mild distress I felt when the vacuum I had wasn't any good. When I told Heather I was so excited about my vacuum, she told me to relax. "It's just a vacuum," she said. "Calm down," she was probably thinking. But here's what. (I love you, Andy Cohen.) The vacuum is what's making me calm. Having a clean house at Rudy's naptime or at night before Todd and I go to bed is as close as I get to walking on the Truro shore searching for tiny, smooth pebbles I can use to build fairy-sized cairns. When I told Liz about my vacuum, and about how when I turned the suction all the way up, it lifted the area rug a little, she made the noise I make when I see one of my field hockey players execute a perfect dodge and pass, a sort of "That's the way!" cheer from the sidelines. And then she said, "Isn't it the best when you're vacuuming, and you hear that 'clink, ting, cling, tink, tink' sound?"

Yes, it is. It practically induces deep breathing and relaxed shoulders. Clean carpets and smooth, bare floors have the potential to inspire the tranquility that follows a yoga savasana. Namaste.