Another Load of Laundry

Life is like laundry. Sometimes it is freshly washed, organized and folded. Most times life is messy and dirty and waiting to be washed or cleaned up. My life revolves around laundry. 6 people provide me daily with underwear, uniforms, jeans, exercise clothes, delicates and towels and sheets to be washed. Good thing that I really secretly LOVE laundry. I don't know if it is the smell or the warmth from the fresh batches coming from the dryer...Or the opportunity to try to create some order. But I really do like it. I'm not even kidding.

So much that I really don't like it when other people do it for me. Weird, I know. I have crazy laundry rituals and rules for what dries and what does not... What hangs on the drying rack and what is washed in cold versus warm.

Probably it just represents control of some aspect of my life. Which is comforting, when there is so little to control.

My week was filled with making lunches, taking things to school that were needed, helping with homework, piano practice, and attending volleyball games. I also made cookies and did half a meal for a family (poor them). I drove people to practices and picked them up. I filled the gas tank and loaded the dishwasher multiple times. I made the missionaries dinner early in the morning and put it in the fridge so that they could come later at night for a meal with us.

Today I mowed the lawn. While I mowed the lawn for many reasons... the main one was that I wanted my husband to trim the rose bushes that have been growing amok into gross weedy yuckiness. I reasoned that if I mowed the lawn and kept him from sneezing through that business he would be happy to get to the other task... Mowing the lawn almost was the end of me. I was thinking mad resentful thoughts as I was huffing and puffing through the task and dumping the accumulated grass clippings. I almost laid down in the lawn in a tired heap of exhaustion... but I didn't want to scare Amanda.

I don't believe I will be mowing the lawn again for a long time.

Sometimes I wonder if all moms do this much. I assume they probably do and I just need to suck it up and have a better attitude. I need to not feel as much resentment, and be less of a martyr. If I want more help, I need to ask for it in a loving, kind, cheerful way. I am not doing my kids a favor by doing everything and not teaching them the joys of work and the blessings of service.

When I was a girl.. my dad would sometimes take me to the store for a treat. He called it a hyacinth. Which in my young child brain was a word for a special something you did for yourself when you needed a little boost. I'm glad that my dad taught me this because I do try to build little hyacinths into my life. A book here and there, a fun trip.... a bubble bath.. a movie or lunch with a friend. And those little things make it easier to deal with...

Another load of laundry.