Letters and Laundry

I used to live near Mt. Rainier, now I often live by Mt. Laundry. This is not really something new. Throughout my grown-up life I’ve been known to not complete all the steps to doing a load of laundry. I don’t mind sorting or starting the loads, but I am queen of “fluffing” and piling.Perhaps all the fluffing is the reason some of our clothes seem to be shrinking? Why do I hate folding and putting away? I’ve tried to follow the tips such as don’t start a new load until you’ve put away what is in the dryer and keep hangers right by the dryer and hang as you take each item out of the dryer.

Despite a tiny laundry room and top-loading machines, when our house was on the market I was never behind on laundry and everything was put away. Perhaps my current procrastination has to do with the fact that now I have to go down to a corner in the basement; concrete floor, bad lighting, still top-loading machines! It’s not exactly the environment that encourages me hanging out down there for long…

Thursday had been a busy day. Worker guys were in and out, I had to run errands, the dog had to go to the vet and then be picked up later after her bath and I decided to finish the cards.

The cards… Before we left for Thanksgiving in Omaha I mailed out 100 Christmas cards. I’m not bragging and if you are reading this and didn’t receive one, please don’t be offended. We are blessed to have LOTS of wonderful friends in several states who we love to stay in touch with and I sent our cards out early since we have a new address.

It’s the first time in years that Mike decided not to write/include our annual “life’s an adventure” newsletter. Our life has been a little too much like a soap opera lately and our letter would be too long. So simple picture cards were ordered from Costco and I worked quickly to stuff, stamp and get them out the door.

I realized I wanted to send greetings to our new friends here in our new town but I was out of the Costco cards. I found some boxes of cards in the basement, copied some more pictures (yes, I’m thrilled to share my son’s wedding photo) and spent ALL afternoon finishing up the cards. After dinner I proceeded to hop on the computer and the writing bug hit me.

At bedtime I walked upstairs and saw the piles. All day I kept doing loads and dumping them on the bedroom chair telling myself I would get to it later. Later came and the desire for folding and putting away laundry still did not hit me. It’s a good thing my husband is on a trip so he didn’t have to maneuver around the piles of clothes in order to climb in bed. I finally took down Mt. Laundry on Saturday.

Staying connected to friends or folding; what would you choose?

LAUNDRY by Kat Apf
It overtakes the family room side couch.
I swear I see the sweaters waving at me,
beckoning, "Please, fold us and put us away!"
The socks declare a revolution and a few jump
into the crack between the cushions.
The jeans shiver and wrinkle
knowing they'll be thrown
back into the dryer where it's warm.
A pair of pajama bottoms are furious-
there's underwear caught
in their left leg.
I pretend to not notice any of it
and listen to the dishes instead.