Laundry Lessons

Don’t think that I’m about to teach you about how to do your laundry.  I am not an expert laundress….but these ladies are!  

No, I’m just here reminding you to find joy in the laundry…again…

I had yet another lesson in my laundry last week.  And while I started to just shoot off a little instagram photo about it, I thought instead, that this was a good lesson that I’d learned {or been reminded of…} and wanted to share with you, my friends.

The Saturday before last our washing machine went on the fritz.  Meaning, I got the load of clothes into the machine, started it and approximately 5.43 minutes into running, it started beeping at me.

I’ve heard this sound before.  “Devil!” I think I said, out loud.  I knew what it meant.  The trap had to be taken out and dumped.

However, the hubs had just done this as precaution earlier in the week.

“I am NOT taking out that dang trap”, was the response from my beloved.

Fast forward to Monday night when I made my plea.  “Those clothes have been soaking wet for 3 days in the machine.  They’re on the verge of being moldy and nasty and I’m going to have to throw them all out {and buy new!!!}.”  So Andrew got out his tools and started working on the machine.

Around the twelve minute mark I hear “OH, COME.OOOONNNNN!!!”

I entered the room to see what mishap had just taken place {remember the oops! Andrew fund?  It’s real.  It exists for a reason.}

“What happened?” I said in my oh-so-cheerful voice.

“I dropped the stupid flashlight down into the machine!” – read: I dropped the small flashlight I love to use all the time from the top of the machine, along the side of the machine so that it is now resting comfortably against the bottom of the machine.

I may have laughed, just a little.

Then Andrew had an epiphany…”the sensor tells me that there’s something wrong with the water pressure….so it must be the water line.”  So he took off the water line and dumped it.  After a few other tweaks here and there, he turned on the machine and it ran.  No problemo.

That is, until I put in the second load.  Remember if you will, I’d started that first load of clothes on Saturday…it was now Monday night.  No laundry had been done over the weekend.  I was staring at at least three loads by now.

The beeping started again.

“I’m not touching it” Andrew said.  Sternly.

I may have mocked him.  {I’m really not an awful wife}

Tuesday came and Andrew had the best of intentions in calling someone to come look at the machine but due to a conference he was attending, it just didn’t happen.

Wednesday arrived and in his great aspirations of going to get some mysterious part towards the end of the day….well, that was dashed when the monsoon hit downtown Columbia.  “Yeah, I was not about to stop in the deluge to get that part.”

Gee. Thanks.

By Wednesday night, I was on the verge of crazy wife, momma lunacy.  You know that feeling AND that look.  Your hair is frazzled out all over your head and your eyes are starting to bug out.  Nothing you say makes any sense.  Yes, that’s the laundry monster coming out of you.

My exact words to Andrew that night were, and this IS a quote “We are in a state of EMERGENCY.  Eliza Jane has ONE pair of pajamas and Reynolds has ONE pair of shorts.  I have FIVE loads of clothes to be WASHED AAAANNNNDDDD DRIED.  AND THE TOWELS THAT ARE CURRENTLY IN THE WASHING MACHINE ARE ABOUT TO BE STANK.  FIX IT TOMORROW OR GO BUY A NEW ONE.”   And yes, the intensity of my voice {both loudness and pitch} increased with every word…every syllable probably.

Thankfully, looking back, even in my crazed state, we laugh….a little.  This was also the night that I posted about how God is love.  Praise for that saving word.

I was anxious.  I was thinking about all that had to be done and it completely and utterly overwhelmed me.  I work full time.  I do kids.  I do home.  When am I going to have time to wash and dry five loads of clothes {all at once?!?!} once this stupid machine is fixed.

There’s a verse that God gives us…”do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God.”-Philippians 4:6

I had been praying about it all week…well, I’d asked some friends to pray about it, discounting that it was “a small thing”, yet knowing that God cares about ALL things that matter to us.  The big, the small, the “dumb”, the whatever.  If it matters to you, it matters to God.  And the fact was, this mattered to me…big.   So of course it mattered to Him.

Thursday Andrew called me at lunchtime and said that he’d gotten the mysterious part and was at home.  The machine had been running for “seven minutes”.  “Please don’t leave”, I begged.

“If I come home this afternoon and that machine is beeping at me when I walk in the door, I will be a goner.  I can’t handle it.  Please don’t leave until it’s done.”

He promised he would stay.

He texted me some time later saying it finished the cycle.  Praise.

We got home that afternoon, again after another crazy storm blew through Columbia…and the power…well, the power was out.

HA!!!  If that wasn’t a laugh out loud moment.  “Of course it is…” I muttered.

Wretched one that I am.

We had a lovely evening playing by the candle light.  The kids went down and the power was back on.  I washed and dried 2.5 loads of clothes and when Andrew had “vanished”, I found that he had been upstairs folding the clothes.

I’ve told y’all before that he’s wonderful.  He knew I was anxious.  He knew what was making me crazy and he was trying his darndest to help me.

Friday, my company closed at 4.  Andrew said he would get the kids so I could go to a little happy hour with some co-workers.

I left the restaurant at 5 and rushed home.  I was able to get the last of the laundry {2 loads} folded and put away before Andrew and the kids got home.  It was done.  It was all done.  In two days it was done.  We had our weekend.  I wouldn’t be a slave to the laundry on Saturday, which was my fear.

This was the picture I almost shot off to Instagram.   And it would have had this caption:  “Praise for the laundry lesson.  The lesson in the laundry that I learned this week.  The Lord taught me once again not to be anxious.  He taught me that He will provide.  He showed me once again the amazingly smart and talented man that I married.  And I am once again humbled by the blessings of a washing machine.”

Thanks for letting me be real and honest with you.