About that Laundry: Because There’s Never Just One Crisis

It’s been quiet here, because we’ve had a doozy of a time these last few weeks.  For example, last week while I was at choir rehearsal, my van was vandalized in the parking lot.  The Bad Guy broke the driver’s side door window, and of course the weather was headed into the first deep freeze of the year.  Thankfully we got it fixed in time for me to drive  to the Minneapolis Airport a few days later.  The roads were bad that day for the first half of the trip, and I was pretty much a wreck because it was my first time EVER driving in the Cities.  I avoid that place with all of my being. (When we lived in Wisconsin I would drive 2 hours out of my way to get around the Cities on my way home to North Dakota, turning a 12 hour trip with babies into a 14 hour trip with babies, that’s how fear I have of freeway driving.)   Nevertheless, we thankfully made it there and back safely, and I was really happy to have a window.  Also, our family is in the process of exploring some mind boggling decisions that need to be made.  I’m not ready to write about that here on the Land of the Internet yet because we are deeply processing some big stuff (not necessarily bad, just BIG stuff, but I will say that for me at least, it has been stressful, and left me with not a lot of words to share verbally or in written form.

Then, over the weekend I discovered head lice on the noggin of one of my dear kidless, which sent the whole house into a tizzy:  daily thorough head checks for everyone, special applications of enzyme soap that eats the exoskeleton of those nasty, hardy little critters, a round up of all sorts of stuffed animals, a thorough vacuum of the furniture and floors, and the laundry.  Oh, the laundry. It’s winter.  Hats.  Coats. And everyone’s bedding.  Because it’s winter, everyone has a lot of bedding.  Initially the to be washed laundry pile was literally taller than me and four to five feet in diameter.  But friends, I’m seeing light at the end of the tunnel.  We haven’t found any lice on any heads since that very first day, and I am becoming confident that we will claim official victory soon.

Side note:  I’m not sure how I’ve miraculously avoided head lice in the last 10 years of having four kids at school.  Head lice is rampant at our elementary school, and many families in my neighborhood have been invaded numerous times, so I really do consider myself fortunate.

Then, the day after the head lice discovery,  my dishwasher froze up. This is nothing new, because it often freezes when the weather gets cold because the water hose is so well insulated from the warmth of the house.  It’s an easy fix that just requires the removal of the bottom front panel until things warm up, but still, all the dirty dishes piled up like the laundry, and I sort of wanted to just crawl in bed for a week.  This is just sometimes how things happen:  multiple stressful things occurring at once. What amazes me, however, is how laundry always seems to be included in the mix.  For example, when my grandmother passed away, my washing machine broke.  Before Christmas when in the middle of music teacher mayhem with concerts, recitals, rehearsals, and preparing for an extra seven people to be staying at my house, my clothes dryer broke.  And I’m telling you, it does NOT take long for the laundry to pile up in our house.  I’m so grateful I don’t have to wash it all by hand, and my To Wash pile is shrinking bit by bit this week.