You Could Get All Blubbery Over Laundry if You Let Yourself

14 years ago, two days after Christmas when we were poor as church mice because we'd tried to put together an extra nice Christmas for my MIL who was very recently widowed, our dryer died. Completely. With three kids living at home, a dryer wasn't a luxury and we couldn't go more than a few days without having one available. I still remember calling the appliance guy, even recall the name of the company. He came out and told me it was dead. Done. No hope. Not worth fixing.

So we bought a brand new Maytag for right at $500 we did not have. Paid cash we did not have. Because who has $500 you didn't plan on the day after Christmas when you have three kids at home. I remember writing the check and thinking it'd be a real challenge to figure out how to come up with the money to cover it next payday. Rob Peter to pay Paul sort of thing.

We still have that dryer and it still runs great, and I'm not holding a grudge against it for needing a couple of CPR sessions. It's still a champion at drying a load of blue jeans in 45 minutes.

The washer was bought when our son was still living at home, and still bringing home those white nylon football practice pants that refused to let go of that green smear on the knees. Sweaty nasty things that I'd try not to touch as I tossed them in, but I had to use a bar of my MIL's homemade bar soap to get out those stupid stains. He had to have the pants ready for the next day, and for some reason I thought they needed to be pristine white every single day so he could destroy them again, and bring them back to me.

So we're finally, finally making the move that is possibly going to go down in the Guinness Book for taking the longest time to finish. The house we're moving to came furnished. Some of the stuff is great, some is awful and some is in between. Some we sold, some we gave away and some we kept. The washer and dryer at our lakehouse aren't anything to write home about - they aren't the super cool front loaders, with the neat box on the bottom to hold powder and such. They aren't in fun red or blue or anything - they're white. And I actually despise the buzzer on the dryer that we can't seem to disable, so that it sounds like a fog horn going off to tell me the towels are nice and fluffy. It's a bit like someone with a horribly screechy voice yelling at you to tell you dinner is ready. Good news delivered badly. But they work, at least as well as what we have here, if not better because they've had even less use than ours. So we may as well go with them and not take our PA ones with us.

Our last kid moved out 7 years ago, and since then we've done two loads of laundry a week. Except the weeks when I tried to be a Martha Stewart and did the sheets, and don't ask me how often that wasn't. It's my least favorite chore, even after cleaning bathrooms. I've said before if I was wealthy I'd have someone change the sheets daily and fix my hair every single morning. But I'm not, and it shows in how seldom the sheets get changed. (And possibly in how my hair looks...) I remember the days when I did two loads a day and still couldn't keep up. How times change.

As we laid in bed last night, talking the talk that comes right before you drift off, it was to the sound of jeans bouncing around in the dryer. The very last load in the dryer that our kids' clothes were in. And dippy as it may be, it felt like a right of passage.

Not that I was overly sad about it, just recognized that it'll never pass this way again, those days of knees stained with freshly mowed grass, or cheerleader uniforms that have impossibly small waists, or countless socks that can't find their pair for anything. No more loads and loads of towels because a teenager decided they need a fresh one for several different areas of their body, all after the same shower.

We're giving away our washer and dryer today - the washer to a girl who was in my small group years and years ago. She went to prom with my son when his ankle was broken and there was no hope of dancing - what a girl! She's now married and expecting her first child, and their used washer is giving up the ghost. The dryer is going to a couple in our church who have three young boys - and she said she has to dry everything three times to get them done. Great places to pass them on to! It tickles me to know kid jeans and too many towels will go through them for a few more years. Baby clothes will be washed in that washer - how fabulous is that?

And our washer and dryer down south? They'll have swimsuits from our grandkids playing in the lake, or my husband's nasty fishing clothes, or his sweaty t-shirt from mowing the grass in the Texas heat, or my jeans, with mud on the knees from planting and weeding my garden. Or baby burp cloths from our newest family member, or sheets and sheets and sheets and towels and towels and towels from having all our family come to play with us. I do believe I'll feel differently about washing those sheets.

Great stuff to think on happy times ahead. That's what we're about right now.

We're pulling the plug on our internet in just a day or so and won't be connected to the world for about two weeks. I'll be back soon to share how feathering our nest is going. And in the meantime, hope you all celebrate the best holiday of all - Easter, Resurrected Life and fresh starts.

You're Never Too Old for Kid Day

A good twenty years ago I read somewhere about Kid Day. I think it may have been Sanity in the Summer, by Linda Dillow and Claudia Arp (a fabulous book by the way for all you moms with little kids.) The book was chock full of ideas on how to invest in your kids' lives during the summer months and not lose your mind.

I'd set aside little bits of money all year long, then when June came we'd take one day a week just for fun. Rarely did I allow the kids to bring along friends. Kid day was just for us, and for them to bond as siblings. A good thing since, being typical kids, they spent much of the other 6 days a week doing the typical bickering and blaming. I'd start summer with a list we'd made together - activities we wanted to do.

There were picnics by the pond, followed up with catching tadpoles in jars. Taking their first ride in a cab from Walmart to home. Entire days spent at the lake, swimming and playing in the sun. Local museums. Visiting residents of a nearby nursing home. History lessons were squeezed in at an indian mound near St. Louis. Putting on a play in the backyard and inviting the neighbors. All three kids still tell me they have great memories of kid day, and our girls have reenacted it with their own children.

So I realized a few days ago we can do kid day again, just Don and me! Now that he's retired we have an entirely open calendar if we're smart enough to realize it. We can also get so busy remodeling the house, working in the yard, running errands, that we work ourselves to death. So we agreed - a weekly kid day will be just the thing to keep us light hearted and having fun together. It'll also give us a great opportunity to learn the area we live in, and sometimes kid day might spill into two days so that we wander and explore all day, grab a B&B somewhere along the way and head back home the next day.

Last week was full of doctor appointments and errands and bills and laundry and such. So today is our first official kid day. We're headed to a famous german micro-brewery on the south side of Pittsburgh, for lunch alongside the river, then to see a matinee (we can do that now!), back home to grab a sandwich for dinner and then end our day by taking dessert to our daughter's house. Next week is our last one here in Pittsburgh, so we'll do something local again. Maybe drive up to Ohiopyle where we went camping so many times. Check out the rapids, grab an ice cream cone and head back home.

We're thinking future kid days will be to local antique stores, maybe wander into Louisiana or even Oklahoma, down to Waco, and sometimes just to take off in a direction and see where we end up. That might be the most fun of all. We've also gotten several mailings from the state of Texas that direct us to their local haunts and highlights. Where's the best barbeque? The best bluebonnet show? The best bird watching? (I might have to pay Don to do that last one with me.) Heck, we may even have a picnic by a pond and scoop up tadpoles to bring home for our grandkids to watch.

It's supposed to be sunny and in the 60's. Way too pretty to be inside working. Summer will be here before you know it, so if you have kids, check out the book. It's new for $29.00 or you can snatch up one of 29 copies for a PENNY. Even if you're the (pretty big) kid, go for it! It's been years since I rode in a cab!

Adventure 101

We're back home - in our nest. Which is now clean enough to be sanitary, but not fabulous. And we have non-curdled milk and yogurt with dates that haven't expired and lunch meat that isn't slick and slimy. And clean underwear.

And we've been home together for two whole days living the retired life and haven't killed each other yet.

It feels weird - good but weird. We forget what day it is - vacation does that but not having to get up and go anywhere does too. Rolling over in the bed at 8 am and seeing a man lying there scares the beegeebees out of me then I remember, oh yeah, he lives here, he's mine, and he doesn't have to go anywhere. I don't know if I'm going to recognize this man once the bags disappear from under his eyes, they've been there so many years.

Breakfast comes and we don't know what to do - this man who used to eat breakfast at his desk over morning emails now sits at the coffee table with the paper. He still eats the same thing and I'm pretty sure he's already wondering where the bacon and eggs he dreamed of went. And he's drinking more than his share of the coffee which is a good thing but still strange.

Today was clean the apartment day. Twenty-nine years ago Don told me his part of cleaning the house would be to not get it dirty. So I warned him last night I was going to clean this morning, and he manned up (I'm pretty sure he was terrified he'd joined the cleaning crew and I'm pretty sure he'd rather go back to work than clean bathrooms and vacuum) and asked me at 9 am how he could help. I asked if he would please straighten the garage, make sense of all the moving boxes, find out if we need to buy more and then could he please take the car and fill it with gas, pick up prescriptions and check out renting a U-haul for our upcoming move.

I figured it would give him a break from me for a good few hours, and after about ten days straight of looking at me I was pretty sure he would be ready to be gone for awhile. We're down to one car now, having lost the company car he drove for the past 29 years, and I quickly told him he can have ours. It can be his - feel free to keep it clean, oil changed, current on maintenance and full of gas. I don't really need a car, just a driver most of the time!

At 4:30 this afternoon I started to make supper and realized I was three hours early. This evening we watched three episodes of Lost and two of American Idol. Because we can. And we sat and just talked a couple of different times, about finding a church, trading in a vehicle, whether to have a pet, physical therapy, finding doctors, etc. etc. etc. Talk is good - lots of talking will keep us together, knowing what the other one is thinking. Thank you, Pastor Ron, for your marriage class five years ago. We're reaping the benefits of it now, listening to what's on each other's minds. Sharing fears, concerns, dreams.

So we're not very good at this yet, but there's hope. We're cutting fresh paths together and enjoying staying up too late, sleeping in, making plans.. This path we're on has a few potholes in it, but that's okay. A road that is completely smooth makes for a pretty boring ride. That's half the fun of life, isn't it - not having it figured out all the time. Maybe this is what being a Newlywed felt like and I'd just forgotten - Adventure 101.

Two nights from now I've got an evening out with 19 girlfriends for dinner and a play. I'm certain I'll have a blast. We'll giggle and talk and eat and sing. And that newly retired man of mine? He may take his car to the back parking lot and do donuts, or drive to the steakhouse by himself for a manly meal. Or zap a TV dinner, stay home and watch a dozen episodes of CSI. A bit of absence that'll make the heart grow fonder, then we'll come back together for yogurt and coffee and the newspaper while we figure out another day. So far we're loving it!

Lunch Box Love Note....

February 25, 2010

Dear Don,

It seems appropriate to put a note in this very last lunch I’m packing for you to take to work. The very last one. I wonder how many there have been? Literally thousands I’m sure.

It’s ironic that packing your lunch was never my favorite chore. Leaning too hard to the efficient side, I liked it more once I realized I could pack several at a time. There’s something extra tender about this last one.

I want you to know today, as you spend your last full day at work, how much it has meant to me - to know the man you are, what you are made of, what you invested in your job; I was always aware that it was for us, even when it didn’t feel good. When I didn’t love the long hours I did love the reminder that you are a man who gives his all to whatever task is at hand.

I respect you more than any man I have ever known. I love you, but it’s nice to respect you too. I am immensely blessed to be your wife, to have you as the head of our family. You are leaving everything that is familiar, and a place that you have found your worth in for over 30 years. I hope you can walk away with your head held high, knowing you gave it everything you had, you treated people with respect when they didn’t deserve it, you looked out for those under you, you were kind when others weren’t, you swallowed your pride more times than you care to count for a higher goal.

Our family gave up time with you while you were working, but even when you weren’t home with us, you were giving our children a priceless example of work ethic, pride in self, a respect for authority. You showed them what being responsible looked like, and how to persevere when you wanted to quit. You enabled me to give our daughters an example of how to support their husbands in their career.

Now it’s time to play! You’ve given your best to your career for many years, and it’s time for the next stage, when our kids and their kids will be blessed to share time with you, learn more life lessons, get to know their father and grandfather at this next stage of life.

I’m counting on being blessed to pack a lot more lunches for you, but these will be tucked into a cooler for you to take on the boat, or maybe a fishing trip on the road with your son or son-in-laws, or me. Because really there isn’t anything in life I want to do that isn’t at your side. I’ve been blessed to be there for almost 29 years and I’m counting on us being together for that many more.

I love you,

Bev