When normal people travel, they leave detailed directions for the house sitter. They write things like: “Keep the thermostat at 72. There is a lasagna in the fridge that needs to be eaten. Extra towels are in the hall closet.” We don’t leave behind directions like that. Ours say things like: “The faucets in the bathtub are backwards. It is NOT righty-tighty. It is lefty-tighty. Do not use the shower. It leaks behind the wall.” I think my favorite part of the directions are: “You will have to hand wash your dishes or leave them in the sink and I will take care of them. The dishwasher doesn’t wash dishes but it does fill with gray water daily. Please toss in a dishwashing tablet and run the dishwasher every other day to empty the water. Use cold water cycle only or the machine will never stop running.” Aren’t you glad we didn’t ask you to be our house sitter?

Are you SURE it’s worse to use paper plates than to use hot water and soap to wash all the dishes and silverware after every meal? Is there such a thing as disposable pots and pans? Would it really be so awful to have disposable clothing instead of using hot water, electricity, soap and fabric softener multiple times a day? Are real environmentalists extremely dirty or do they just spend all their time cleaning and re-using?

I had the entire laundromat to myself tonight! I spread the laundry out over an entire wall of dryers and got 8 loads of laundry dry in half an hour. That would have taken me an entire day at home. Well, it would have taken me an entire day before our dryer bit the dust. The laundromat was so strangely calm and peaceful tonight that I thought about putting on a pair of the warm jammies that I had just pulled out of the dryer so I could wash the clothes I was wearing. Based on my past experiences in the laundromat, I decided against going casual. I don’t think I could have pulled a quick change anyway. I bathed the two dogs last night and apparently it involved back and leg muscles that I never ever use because today I bend over and get up slower than the residents at the nearby nursing home. I guess I don’t bathe the dogs often enough.

I was all caught up with the laundry for 15 full minutes tonight. Then, five children gave me their outfits from today. Then they gave me their bath towels that they they had thrown on the bathroom floor to mop up the flood that Evan and Amy created when they had a splash war. Then Evan wet our bed. Guess where I am going tomorrow?

Don’t worry chimney woman. I’ll schedule my visits around the children’s naps.

Dear Maytag, GE, Kenmore, Amana and manufacturers without catchy marketing,

I do our family’s laundry. I sort it, treat it, wash it, dry it, fold it and put it away. The first thing I do every morning is start a load in the washer. The last thing I do every night is put another load in the washer. I walk up and down the stairs and from the washer to the dryer a dozen times every day. I don’t wash anything unusually heavy or dirty. I just wash clothes, towels and bedding. I clean out the lint screen after every load and my husband cleans out the hoses fairly regularly. This is how your machines are supposed to be used. Or so I thought. There doesn’t seem to be a clothes dryer built to withstand the quantity of laundry that 5 active children produce. Prove me wrong. Please. Show me one dryer that is sturdy and longer lasting than a light bulb. If the dryer costs more than a house payment, it is automatically disqualified. Show me your stuff. Until then, I’ll be at the laundromat. The stinky, smoke-filled laundromat with crabby old women who hate children.

Cathy

P.S. Greenies - Our yard is not “clothesline” friendly. Too many trees.

6 mattress pads +
6 sheets +
10 pillowcases (some people use 2 pillows) +
2 “must-have” pillows +
12 blankets +
3 beanbag covers =
Teenagers complaining because I haven’t washed their jeans yet

It’s that time of year again. Time to place your bets on when the outside Christmas lights will be taken off the house. Will the lights come down:
A. this weekend
B. Valentine’s Day
C. St. Patrick’s Day
D. when the squirrels pull them down
E. never

This is not a “motivational” post. If it was, the topic would be the rising cost of heat and the hole in the wall. Or, the amount of time it takes for a can of paint to ruin versus the relaxation effect of a master bedroom with completed walls. Maybe even the benefits of completing the promised game shelves. No, this is just a general word of advice based on personal experience.

Doug occasionally gets a burst of inspiration and begins a home improvement project. During one of those bursts, we decided Noah’s room would constantly progress toward a “castle” theme. When we chose the paint, I whined and pleaded for a textured paint that would either give the walls a stucco appearance or enable us to later make the walls look like castle blocks. Doug agreed and fought with the multiple step paint until the walls had a bumpy texture that looks really interesting. Although I would like to make progress on Noah’s neglected room sometime soon, I am stuck on what the next step should be. Don’t tell Doug after all the work he put into that room, but I hate those textured walls. Evan has done some art work on the walls and it is impossible to scrub those walls. The walls are really good at catching dust and holding cobwebs, but any attempts to wipe the debris just cause more fibers to stick to the walls. It might be possible to vacuum the walls with a brush attachment, but I have neither the equipment nor the upper body strength to vacuum my walls. Since I think it would require sanding to remove the texture, I think we are stuck with the textured walls. Thinking about textured walls at your house? Don’t do it. Just say no.

It was cold last night. Not the intolerably miserable cold that our northern relatives experience every winter, but cold enough for a southerner to whine and complain. Cold that was exaggerated by the window a/c unit sized hole in our living room wall. The hole that is covered with just a thin piece of plastic. The kind of cold that mixed with moisture could cause tree limbs on our forested piece of property to break and fall. Tree limbs like the one that is currently putting weight upon the power line that keeps our computers house humming. In spite of the hole in the wall and the branch on the power line, I am reluctant to encourage Doug to make household repairs. Not because he self-flagellates every moment that he is away from his computer, but because, well, because he is Doug. Although I convinced Doug to call the power company and ask about turning off the power while he cuts down the offending branch, I have not convinced him that he has to actually follow through and turn the power off before tree trimming. “It’s just a branch. I’ll be fine.” Soooo, after the world’s longest lead-in, here is today’s poll.

Will Doug -
a. cut the branch down with the power still on?
b. cut the branch down with the power temporarily shut off?
c. not get around to it until the branch takes the lines down?

I don’t need a poll for the hole in the wall. That hole will be there until a squirrel gets into the house.

I am going to drop 4 or 5 pieces of our silverware into the disposal, turn it on and let the metal get dented and scratched. Then, all of our silverware will match.