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.

Frustration - BlogFlash 2012, Day 5

Here are things that frustrate me:


When my husband doesn't understand that even though he's ahead of me for the bathroom, I get firsties because I gave birth. Once you go through that process, there are "special" changes that a body goes through, aren't there. MmmmHmmm.

When my kid nods yes in agreement to chicken and broccoli for dinner, and I go ahead and make it, and then when the steaming plate is placed reverently in front of her, she's all, "I didn't want this, I wanted pizza."


When I start reading a book that is very popular and everyone says I must read it and when I finally get it and read it, I realize that I have very different tastes. (Which, translated means, the book is crap.)


When I realize that, yes, there's no way to get out of the fact that I have to clean my house. 

And when I realize that dirty socks and towels really to spawn themselves.


But the number one frustration is when I don't get time to write. I become headachy and snarly and surly. It's been a few days, in fact, so - waaah! Get on out of here, and I mean it!

The Maytag Woman

Our washing machine is broken. It's really, really broken, as in: the circuit board is fried. Good news, though; I married an engineer, so he can fix it!

Hurray! It's an engineer!

Except he can't. No one sells parts. When he called the local appliance store for a new circuit board, they laughed at him and told him to buy a new machine.

Now my husband, when he gets on a mission, is a bulldog. He just won't give up. He scoured heaven and earth (google) to find those parts.

any excuse to add a photo of a dog

And Lo! They will arrive on our doorstep this week, and he can fix the washer.

Here's the thing, though. I am DROWNING in laundry right now. We had just come back from a trip to the beach before the breakdown. Trips to the beach mean dirtying huge, heavy things, like beach towels. They tower in great dirty piles all over my house.

Plus, I'm doling out clean socks like a miser. And pajamas. ("Wear them another night, you're too young to sweat yet.")

I never realized how much I loved my washing machine until I didn't have it any more. I'm ready to grab those towels and socks and head out for a river and two flat rocks.

Oh, don't laugh at me, Mr. Maytag! I'm down to wearing those old pants, not that I was ever a fashion plate anyway, and the T-shirt that I wore to paint my mom's house. The shirt is black, the paint was white - you do the math.

So please, reading public, please cross your fingers for me that those parts arrive in the mail today. And give your own washing machine a pat from me.