Laundry Day

NOT what my laundry room looks like.

Well, it's that time again. Actually, who am I kidding - it's ALWAYS that time. How does laundry happen so often? I swear I just filled an entire castle moat with clothes, towels, and sheets on Monday, so why is every single hamper in the house filled to the brim? Did some clothes wear the other clothing behind my back?

Here, in no particular order, are the kinds of laundry I wrestle each week:

1. Whites - The worst. Each load is filled with such bitty, piddly stuff. Socks, undies, and bras - those instruments of torture that wind themselves around everything else. 

2. Towels - The Tank load. Each towel weighs, when wet, more than my eight year old.

3. Sheets - It's winter, and my husband just looooooves his Kingsize flannel sheets. Of course, Mr. Man doesn't have to wash them, nor does he realize that each sheet takes an entire load. 

4. School uniforms - My kid is a parochial school student, which means uniforms have to be ready to go in the morning. Just when I have the system down, the principal schedules a "Walkathon" or some such thing, and I have to rush the gym uniform into the laundry that morning for wearing on what was SUPPOSED to be a non-gym-uniform-day. And, yes, I do have a special "The pants will be dried before the bus arrives" prayer.

5. Fave jeans - I don't get it. Kid and I both have our favorite pairs of jeans. As soon as they are washed and folded and in the drawers, some time warp occurs and they immediately have to be washed again. In other words, the good stuff is always laundry and not really clothes at all. If someone could explain this phenomenon, I would be very grateful. Thanks.

NOT what my favorite jeans look like.

6. Mattress covers, bathroom rugs, slippers - The rare laundry loads. They don't get done that often, and when they do, I seem to have to dedicate the machines to their use all day. 

7. Delicate / Handwash items - Never get washed. They live permanently at the bottom of the basket.

And then there are other issues, such as the detergent-to-softener ratio (I'm always almost out of one and the other is too heavy to lift) or the "Clothes Can be a Table Centerpiece" theory, when everything is washed, folded and just needs to be put away. That last step is  beyond my feeble strength, apparently. 

And the one lone sock - but no. I'm sorry I ever raised such a hideous subject. We won't even go there.

Success - BlogFlash 2012

This is a tough one to write, since I haven't really attained full success.

Except for that time, eight years ago, when I looked across a hospital room into the largest brown eyes I'd ever seen.

Or when my cousin and I won Most Creative and the smallest trophy ever in the sandcastle competition. We built a cake out of sand. I was ten. That was cool.

Not the sandcastle we built.

Or when I was nearly an hour late for my own wedding because traffic was so backed up on I95 that the limo was super late. And my girls and I all packed into my mini Toyota - with the flowers, and the dress all bunched up around me like an inside out cupcake. And I called the church in a panic and got a clueless altar boy.Yet my guy still waited at the altar for me, so : WINNING.

Or when I found jeans that fit really well on the clearance rack with a further 30% discount. Major, major score.

Or that one night, in the summer of 2000, when I typed the words The End and realized I had just finished an entire novel. It was pure drivel and will never see the light of day, but still - I had just proved to myself that I could sit and write an entire book.

Or when we went trick-or-treating and the Mostellers were handing out large size Hershey Bars. YESSSSS.

More Sustaining Than Meat. 

So maybe success isn't one blinding flash of change-your-life balloons from the ceiling get on the news difference engine. Perhaps it's just a series of small things that add up, in retrospect, to a pretty damn good life.