Laundry

If you think from my title that this is going to be a blog with tips for doing laundry, I am sorry to tell you...

You are reading the wrong blog.

See the sidebar. I do not give advice. (You've been warned!)

(image from sterilite.com)

I tell you what's happening in my life. And here is what is happening right now:

I'm drowning in laundry!

And for those of you who say, "Well, get off the computer and start dealing with your laundry!"....

You are reading the wrong blog.

Don't offer me solutions! I want to complain.

The laundry situation is getting really bad around here.

And since I have no shame (as has previosuly been obvious in this blog), I will show you a picture of how bad it really is.

I have so much clean laundry piled up waiting to be folded that I can't get to the machine to wash all the dirty laundry that is piled up elsewhere.

No, I didn't take a picture of the dirty laundry. Trust me, it looks worse.

In my defense, I do have a laundry system in place, with a dirty basket, a clean basket, and a basket for each person's folded items. The problem is, we have seven people in this house.

I think my baskets just aren't big enough.

I'm not sure they MAKE baskets big enough, actually.

Should I rent a dumpster?

Oh, and if you were expecting the end of this blog to show an "after" picture of how I've taken care of all this laundry now, and my house is all clean......

Again. You are reading the wrong blog.

(image from http://www.hometowndumpsterrental.com/)

How To Ruin Inspirational Quotes..... By Me (Part 1)

How my DVD collection ended up in an evidence bag at the MP station

About two weeks ago I noticed that my DVD bag was missing from the van.

I have been letting the twins watch DVD's when we have to sit in the car for long periods waiting to pick up their older sisters.

(For an earlier post on my annoying car wait, click here.)  

(image from forensicssource.com)

One day I went to put a DVD back in the bag, and the bag wasn't there. I looked all around the car, and asked the kids if anyone had moved the bag, but it appeared to have vanished.

The only thing I could figure was that it had been stolen sometime when I'd left the van unlocked. I guess a bag of DVD's clearly visible through a window might be quite a tempatation. Assuming one didn't reaize that all the DVD's in question were for preschoolers...

Then I heard from one of my neighbors that the MP's (military police) had been asking around the neighborhood to see if anyone had lost a green bag with about twenty DVD's inside it. My bag was blue, but I figured the number of discs was about right, so I called the MP station.

I described my bag to the officer on the phone, and he said that an investigating officer would call me back. By the time they called I was out, and the office was closing, but they left a message that I could pick up my property from the evidence technician down at the MP station on Schofield Barracks.

Now Schofield is a little out of my way, so when the the evidence tech himself called me the next day, I wanted to make sure the bag was mine before I made the trip down there. Here's how that conversation went:

EvTech: I hear we've some of got your property to return.
Me:        Yes, I've lost a bag of DVD's.
EvTech: Well, can you idenitfy some of the DVD's?
Me:        They were kids' videos; I don't remember all the titles. Let me just describe the bag to you to make sure.
EvTech: These were in a green bag?
Me:        Well, I would have said blue, but I guess it could be a bluegreen. But anyways, the bag has a zipper at the top and black handles. And it has a giant chocolate stain on the side.
EvTech: Okay. Well, we weren't aware that stain was chocolate.
Me:        What?
EvTech: It might have been a biohazard, so the bag was destroyed.
Me:        Destroyed?
EvTech: The bag was found sitting by the side of the road in your neighborhood with a suspicious brown stain on it....
Me:        (laughing) A biohazard?!
EvTech: Anyways, we don't have the bag. But can you identify the DVD's?
Me:        Um, okay. It was just a bunch of kids' videos. There was "Ni Hao Kai Lan," "Barbie Island Princess," um....
EvTech: (helpfully) "Elmo?"
Me:        Yes! Elmo!
EvTech: Yep. It's your stuff, all right.
 
 So I made arrangements to pick up my DVD's from the evidence room. But I don't have a bag for them anymore.

I don't know how the bag got out by the side of the road, but I really think my first theory was correct. Someone stole the bag from my car, thinking, "Aw, sweet! Free DVD's!"

And the when they looked inside and realized all the DVD's were meant for four-year-olds, they abandoned it, thinking, "Dora the Explorer? Baby Einstein? Give me a break!"

My husband said, "You really need to start locking the car. Who knows what nice stuff they might have stolen and didn't throw out?"

It's a good thing we don't have any nice stuff....

What My Correspondence Looks Like

Following is an email I sent my husband while he was out of town. (I like to give him a taste of what he's missing at home when he's gone.)

Hi. A story for the day:

Today after I got home from picking up everyone I was super tired so I took the twins upstairs to play in their room, hoping to lie down while they did.

Little Girl said she had to go peepee. I took her in the upstairs bathroom and went back to Little Boy. Then she came and said there was pee on her dress. (She dropped her sash in the potty.)

(Image from http://www.business2community.com)

I took the dress off and went to get her a new one, and she went back to sit on the potty some more. ("There's poopoo too!") Little Boy said he needed to go too, so I told him to go wait in the bathroom for her to get done.

 

 

When I came back with her dress, Little Boy was yelling that his sister was naked. I told him she got pee on her clothes and I was getting her new ones. He said there was pee on his clothes too. I checked his pants and they were dry. He said there was pee on his underwear. So I said I would get him new underwear.

When I came back with the underwear, he had removed all his clothes, piled them on the floor, and was in the process of peeing on them. "There's pee on my clothes Mommy!" he said proudly.

 

 

I screamed, Stop Stop STOP!!!! of course. Then I still had to re-dress him, and make him wait his turn for the potty.

We won't even mention the scene of me trying to take a nap while they screamed and threw things in their room.

 

 

Fun, huh? Wish you were here?

Love you, Christie

Trash Day Dilemma

A confession: I have three big boxes in my garage that I haven't unpacked since our last move.

Which was almost a year ago now.

I know. It's embarrassing.

So I started thinking, If I haven't needed this stuff for almost a year, I really don't need it. Right?

(image from green-mom.blogspot.com)

Then the idea came to me: Just get rid of the boxes!

Trash day was coming up. What if I just dragged all three boxes out to the curb, unopened?

Oh, the liberating idea!

I may have mentioned before I have a recurring fantasy about stuffing everything in my house into a giant black trash bag and just starting over. Sometimes I think it's the only way my house will ever be clean.

Of course, I can't really throw away all our stuff. But those three boxes......

I resolved to do it.

So the night before trash day, I stood in my garage, trying to get up the nerve to drag those boxes out by the trash can.

Then I made a fatal mistake.

I LOOKED INSIDE THE BOXES.

I know. STUPID!

So it started: "I can't throw away this!"

"Oh, this is still good! I should really give it to Goodwill or something."

"What if I need this later on?"

 Et cetera.

Of course, the upshot of the whole thing is.....

I still have three big boxes in my garage that I haven't unpacked since our last move.

Chopsticks

Since we moved to Hawaii, my older daughters have gotten really proficient with chopsticks.

I mean eating with them, not just poking each other with them.

Although my kids do their share of the latter as well, I admit.

(image from http://www.ebay.com)

It’s a little strange, though, since we’re originally from Alabama, to hear my kids complaining when they can’t find the chopsticks to eat their ramen with.

I mean, back home, “Chopsticks” is a song you play on the piano, you know?

But now we actually own several sets of them!

And we’re not talking about the paper-wrapped, break-apart kind of chopsticks from the Chinese restaurant either. We have nice washable ones with painted tops.

We’re really getting cosmopolitan around here.

Although I personally still eat with a fork.

Apparently my daughter insulted the governor

GG took a field trip with her sixth-grade class to a "Middle-School Convention."

Whatever that is.

Anyways, here's the conversation we had about it, in the car after school.


(image from http://www.k12.hi.us)

GG: I saw the mayor or the governor or something there.
Me: (vaguely) Really?
GG: He gave a speech.
Me: Uh huh.
GG: We were right in the front row. He said he liked my hair.
Me: (more interested now) Really?
GG: Yeah.
Me: So was it the governor or the mayor?
GG: I dunno. Some white dude.
Me: What was his name?
GG: I dunno. I think it started with an A.
Me: Was it Abercrombie?
GG: I think so.
Me: You saw Neil Abercrombie? The governor of Hawaii?
GG: Yeah.
Me: At the middle school?
GG: Yeah.
Me: (incredulous) And he said he liked your hair?
GG: Yeah. So I said, "Thanks."
Me: That's good.
GG: And I said, "I like your head. It's shiny."
Me: WHAT?!
GG: Well, it was shiny.
ET: (entering the conversation) Dude. You called the governor bald?
GG: Well....he is.
Me: You met the governor. And you insulted him?
GG: I said I liked his head. That's not an insult.
ET: (snorting with laughter) Yes it is. Duh. You called him bald.
GG: (stubbornly) I said I liked it.
ET: What'd you say next? You're old, too?
GG: No. But he was old.
Me: I cannot believe this.

(Neil Abercrombie's image from http://en.wikipedia.org)

You two are trying my patience....

So over the past week I have had four different people say to me "You're so patient," when watching me with my four-year-old twins.

By which I suppose they mean, "You must be really patient, since those little monsters are still breathing."

I have of course been demurring, "Oh, no, I'm really not all that patient."


But after the fourth person I started to think, "Hey! Maybe I am patient! Wow!"

This is called tempting fate. I don't recommend it.

Because as soon as you think  you've got some virtue down pat, you are going to really get pounded.

So the twins have been extra-trying recently.

This culminated today in an extremely embarrassing incident. This incident is something I would never tell anyone I know about.

So of course, I'm going to put it on my blog for everyone to see. (Since I'm crazy and all.)

I took the twins out to lunch with a friend of mine today. I think I ordered something a little too spicy because I ended up feeling a little queasy later.

Um... I'll try to describe this as delicately as possible.

So I was having ...ahem... intestinal discomfort. I was required to go with the twins to a public bathroom. And then wait for them both to use the single toilet before me.

Patience,  I told myself. Remember patience!

Then when it was finally my turn and I sat down, Little Girl CLOSED THE LID OF THE TOILET BEHIND ME. As I was sitting down.

I'm not even kidding.

You cannot imagine how gross this was.

There's nothing to try your patience like a public bathroom full of poop. And a pair of preschool commentators talking up a storm while you clean it all up.

It was a bad scene. Nobody witnessing it would have thought me in any way virtuous.

And yes, the twins are both still breathing at the end of the day today.

But do me a favor? Don't call me patient because of it.

(Cartoon above from http://www.savagechickens.com)