Laundry Quandry

Several weeks ago I wrote about the blessing of finding our house, and how much we have enjoyed watching our family grow here.

But I left out this little bit of truth: When I saw the house for the first time, I was disappointed that the laundry was in the basement. I had hoped for main floor laundry. But that was a small thing, and I could deal with it.

And I did deal with it for several years. But then surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from my head left me essentially bedridden. I gradually began to feel better, learned to walk again, and began to do some work around the house.

But I couldn't get the laundry done. I was not strong enough to carry baskets of clothes and towels and sheets up and down the stairs. I made it work for a while by waiting until my kids were home from school and asking them to carry the laundry up and down. But I couldn't keep up.

Wes and I had occasionally talked about adding on to make a laundry room upstairs. But it would be very expensive, and we had never felt we could make it a priority. It seemed to me the time had come to make it a priority.

I talked to Wes about it. He immediately understood my dilemma and was ready to solve it: "Why didn't you say something earlier? I'll be glad to take over the laundry." 

I looked at him smiling down at me, and I thought, "You dear, sweet, ignorant man. Do you have any idea what you are getting into?"

So my husband became the laundry guy. And to his credit, he did a very good job. He didn't do it the same way I did. I usually did a big load every day or two and did the folding and putting away as soon as the stuff was out of the dryer. Wes saved everything up for Saturday, then had a laundry extravaganza which involved him sitting on the couch in the basement, watching a movie while he sorted and folded a pile of clean clothes taller than me. But it was getting done, and that was what mattered.

As I grew stronger, we shared the laundry duties. I still didn't love our dark, dusty, often-smelly laundry room, but I was content. (ish)

Then one day, Wes said, "I might have bought a washer and dryer this morning."

"You might have?" I didn't understand. How could he not know for sure? It was like me saying, "I might have had a baby yesterday, I don't know, I guess we'll wait and see . . ."

He explained that he had seen an incredible deal online, but that a lot of comments on the site expressed suspicion that the deal was too good to be true. He decided to take a chance, anyway, but when he submitted the payment information, there was no indication that it was accepted.

It looked like it wasn't going to happen, and we didn't think much about it. Then one day about a month later, I picked up the ringing phone and heard a computerized voice say, "Your washer and dryer will be delivered tomorrow."

This was good news; exciting news. But it was not particularly convenient news. Christmas was ten days away. Our oldest son, Sam, was coming home from his mission in five days. And we had no place to put a couple of large appliances.

We cleared a space in our bathroom and hoped it would be big enough (it is an unusually large bathroom, but still . . .). We told the delivery men to put them in the bathroom and we were very glad to see that they fit.

But it was a tight fit. We had to hold our breath and suck in our stomachs to squeeze past the big boxes to get to the toilet. After a few days, our ten-year-old son — who, for obvious reasons, had no real interest in a new washer and dryer — asked what we were going to do with the boxes. We didn't have any ideas. But he did.

We cut the boxes at the bottom so that we could lift them off and for the first time, I got a peek at our new laundry appliances. They were gorgeous — gleaming white with high-tech buttons and dials. In our nearly 25 years of marriage, we had never owned a new washer or dryer. This was a big deal for us.

Getting the boxes off gave us a little more room to move around the bathroom, and our son Adam made a lovely two-room cardboard playhouse in the basement. Our son came home from Argentina, Christmas came and went, the kids all went back to school and Wes went back to work. And the washer and dryer were still in the middle of the bathroom.

I called a plumber who came over and gave me some ideas about where we might install these beauties, but his prognosis was discouraging. There seemed to be no reasonable place they could go, and his price estimates were far higher than we could afford.

So our new washer and dryer stayed in the middle of the bathroom, unused and unusable, for eight months.


In August, I became very sick. I was admitted to the hospital and stayed there for almost a month. My parents, who live three hours away, came to check on me and my kids, and ended up parking their RV in the hospital parking lot. My sister Amber drove up, and stayed by my side at the hospital, occasionally leaving to help with my children or my house.   

My mom is an incredibly good cook, and she prepared amazing meals for me in her small trailer kitchen. My dad brought them to my hospital room, where I ate them happily. (My mother's cooking is a huge step up from hospital food.)

My father is remarkably talented at fixing things. Building and installing just come naturally to him. But he will tell you himself that he's not much of a plumber.

Still, when he saw the washer and dryer sitting rather ridiculously in the middle of the bathroom, his handyman instincts kicked right in. When I finally came home from the hospital and looked in the bathroom, this is what I saw:

I could hardly believe it. My father and my sister Amber had installed the washer and dryer while I was gone. He wouldn't accept any money for the work, but my husband reimbursed him for the parts.

Hurray!

Doing laundry was no longer a chore. It has actually been kind of fun. And we still have the laundry room downstairs, and our kids do their laundry there.

I don't know if this story will mean much to anyone besides me. But when things like this happen, I feel so blessed and grateful. These little tender mercies serve to remind me that life is good. 

☺  ♥  ☺  ♥  ☺  ♥  ☺  ♥  ☺  ♥  ☺   

FAQ:

1.    So, how much did they cost?

$129 dollars each. Free delivery. Wes paid a little more for the dryer because he wanted a gas dryer.

2.    Come on, you can tell us — did your husband really do a good job when he was in charge of the laundry?

He really did. But he thinks about things a little differently than perhaps a woman would. One night, after dinner, I asked him do a load because I needed some things washed for the next day. My dear husband said, "I can't. I have to go Home Teaching in an hour."

Huh?


3.   Is your laundry area always that clean, or did you clean it up for the picture?

Yes. The answer is Yes.