I love to do laundry.
Now before anyone gets all upset at me for setting women back decades, cause let's face it, I don't have that kind of pull anyway, let me explain.
I love to do laundry because I think it, perhaps in my own mind, helps make up for some of my other areas of ineptitude.
As I have mentioned before, my dad often jokes in that bad-pun-despite-being-a-really-really-good-writer-way, that my mother has a love affair with Ken Moore.
Didn't know where to find mom? Look in the laundry room. She and Ken Moore (Kenmore) might just be hanging out.
In fact, inspired by my mother, we have, what we call around here "Susie Laundry." That means you might have worn a shirt all day and, just maybe (but really quite likely) by the time you got up the next morning, it might just be clean on the top of your drawer. Cause you know, someone might have taken it right off the top of the hamper pile and washed and dried and folded it while you slept.
And I learned from the best. My mother is a master of many things. But today I am focusing on the fact that she is and was a master of laundry.
And it rubbed off.
Laundry is always there. It never ends. But I can control it. I can do it. In a life filled with too much stuff, too much to do, too many things to navigate, laundry is a constant.
I know it will be there. I know I can tackle it. And I know I can win. At least tonight.
Because with so many other things in my life, I can't really control them. I can't control how many people walk into Brian's clinic on a given day. I can't control whether or not I can successfully place a story at work. I can't control my kids or their behavior or really anything about them. I can't control if and when they get sick. I can't control toilet training. Or other people. Or whether people like my dinner. Or anything, really.
And for a girl who would really love a fair amount of control in life, that's a hard pill to swallow.
But I can control the laundry. It comes in. I do it. I fold it. I put it away. And, somehow, in doing so, I feel like I am doing my job. I am keeping us moving in the right direction.
Laundry, each night, is a winnable battle.
And it makes me smile. And not just because the washer and dryer make these sounds when I use them.
I mean seriously. It's like a little hug from your machine telling you that you are doing a good job.
I can smile at a clean pile of towels. Because if everything else in the day was a debacle, I still prevailed over something.
I can feel like there is harmony when my reds are all air drying in a line. All is right.
I can smirk when I pull out the lint filter and find googly eyes staring back at me.
I may not get kids signed up for sports in time. Or even in the "right" league. But they are wearing clean underwear, I tell you.
And then this summer my old washer died. Smack dab in the middle of the summer when those nasty bugs (known as lice) were infesting my children's heads. We went three weeks before we got a new Kenmore.
The first night we had it, Brian and I stood in the basement, turned off the lights and watched the laundry spin and the lights glow. (Yes, we are cheap dates.)
Once again, all was okay in our little world.
So no, there isn't a lot I can control. But laundry. Laundry I can.
Well, except mustard stains. I am still a complete failure there.
P.S. Yes, I bought my washer and dryer with my own money, or our own money, if Brian is reading this. And while I was fortunate enough to be a guest of Sears and Kenmore this summer to learn about their products, I had already bought my new
