Household Hazards

"Life is like laundry!"  I believe I could be quoted saying this a few blogs back.  Ironically, I had a true laundry moment that could sum up the life of a mother!  Here it goes ...

I hope I am not the only one that will throw a load of laundry in (expecting to have it dried and folded by lunch), only to forget about it until the following night.  Every time I swear this is not going to happen, I totally space that I put clothes in the washer or some catastrophe distracts me and the laundry sits yet again.  The detergent company must love people like me; you know the ones who have to re-wash a load of laundry at least two times a month. 

Well, not only do I have to re-wash clothes that have sat too long in the washer, but I am also guilty of turning the dryer on for the fourth time to de-wrinkle the clothes that have been stashed in the dryer for days.  We don't really believe in ironing at our house, so if the clothes don't come hot out of the dryer, we would look more frazzled than we already are. 

Last Friday we had invited four couples over with their children to have a long over-due get together.  It was an excellent reason to clean up the house.  I picked up the endless amounts of clutter and began my baby-wipe wipe down (don't judge ... they are way cheaper than the Clorox wipes and I am never out of them).  Years ago I had to give up on my cleaning schedule where I miraculously had the house spotless (never cleaning the floors before the counters were clean ... never cleaning the floor without having washed the rugs first ... never cleaning the mirrors before the sinks so they didn't get water spots on them ... never vacuuming before dusting to avoid dirt getting back on the carpet) and just hope that a picked up house was clean enough for my friends.

Anyway, having these people over motivated me to not only clean up the clutter, but also get all the laundry washed, dried and put away.  It was a wonderful burst of energy and caught me up enough that I figured I could stay on top of it this week.  I have to put in a little plug about our get together ... 12 kids under eight and ten adults.  It was fabulous.  We had to stand to eat, eat only two bites at a time, later sit at a lemonade soaked table cloth, enjoy conversations in ten second increments before being interrupted ... but it was wonderful.  There was about 30 uninterrupted minutes after dinner and dessert where the kids were all downstairs playing and the adults reminisced, laughed and got 'real' about raising a family, marriage and life in general!

Sorry to digress.  So this week the laundry has been going well (I know it's only Tuesday).  I had put in a load yesterday and then after one more load with a pee-soaked rug, we'd be all caught up again.  But, I got distracted yesterday and forgot where I was at.  Our dryer is a little under the weather (it has been for the last year) so we have to use two drying cycles for the clothes to be dry.  I had a little time to fold last night but couldn't remember when I put the clothes in the dryer, so I turned it on for a drying cycle. 

Oops, forgot to fold the clothes while they were hot, so decided I would wait until this morning to fold.  This morning, I yet again, turned on the drying cycle so that our clothes would be wrinkle-free and was going to fold the clothes before gymnastics.  My shower and getting the girls ready took longer than expected, so the clothes got left yet again.  When I came home, I turned on the dryer for a third time and had hopes to fold the clothes before we left for preschool.  NOPE!  Didn't get it done then either.  As a last ditch effort, I turned it on after I put my little one down for a nap.  This time I just let the dryer heat up the clothes for about ten minutes before I went to get the laundry to fold.  Surely with all the morning fluffing, the clothes wouldn't take long to de-wrinkle. 

I opened the dryer ... and get this ... IT WAS EMPTY!  Yep, I dried a phantom load of laundry four, yes four, times!

Have a great day!