I used to love laundry. Before the kids-BFK. Laundry was the one chore I could start, finish and put away, and not have to think about for a whole week. And it gave me an excuse to watch bad TV. Of course most chores were more enjoyable, or at least less constant BFK. Plus there was more bad TV.

My current embroidery project
Monday = Laundry

For the first few weeks after big-sis was born laundry was a dream. In my memories I am sitting on our sofa in a sort of Doris Day haze, you know, fuzzy golden light flowing around the new mother. I remember folding all of the onesies, and washcloths and socks and thinking how perfect it all was.

For me growing with the girls has been fast trip away from perfect. Not that that things were ever prefect before, but I had all these delusions of the perfect environ the girls would be raised in. Hah!

Inevitably I woke up one day and looked around. She had a lot of tiny onesies and washcloths and socks. For the past seven years it has been a never ending stream.

me doing laundry in July-try not to stare at those shorts, eek!

Over the years our laundry habits have changed. We recently have started making our own laundry soap-I’ll post the recipe and explanation tomorrow. I try to dry as much of it outside as I can. Over the summer when I am home with the kids I can get by with doing just one load of towels in the dryer, thank you very much. Not perfect, but manageable. And definitely much better than BFK.

(Warning: This is a long post mostly concerned with near-miss disasters. If you are looking for crafting content please check back later. This mom is lucky to be awake, and should not be touching anything sharp or pointy.)

This weekend was one of those where you can’t quite wait for Monday to get here.

It all started Friday afternoon…40 degrees, pouring rain…you get the idea. Big-sis tripped as we left my school and landed on her bottom in a puddle of water.

Actually, calling the moat that surrounds the back of the building a puddle is a bit of an understatement. She has more chance of leaping the River Nile.

So there she is, submerged up to her waist in 40 degree water…pants soaked, shoes filled with water. Total disaster.

Let this serve as a word to the wise: your car cannot be well enough stocked in time of emergency or disaster. I had always planned on keeping an extra set of clothes in the van…as of today they are firmly in place, but I digress.

I did have dry socks, and I managed to sop up some of the water in her pants with paper towels. I poured the water out of her shoes (yes, poured). Then I wrapped in in the spare blanket, and called the husband to let him know he needed to pick up Little-sis since I needed to hurry home to get big-sis dry.

At this point it is important to set the stage. I teach in a school isolated from the hustle and bustle of city life. Cows roam across the street. The picture of rustic simplicity.

This means the “highway” we use to drive there is narrow and has no real shoulder. Not entirely safe.

It winds over hills through gorgeous farm land. Gorgeous, unless your power steering goes out because of a puddle. A puddle that cannot be avoided because of an oncoming truck.

I did manage the next few miles to town without crashing and stopped at the local tea house and called the husband (my hero!) A mini van is not easy to steer even with the power steering, and at five foot one and a quarter inches I am quite proud of myself for being able to get to a place I could stop without needing to be towed out.

The folks at the tea shop were wonderful, and gave Big-sis an extra big hot chocolate with lots of extra whipped cream. They didn’t complain when I let her take her wet shoes off.

Never fear, the husband arrived about 30 minutes later with clean clothes and Little-sis. Everyone is dry and safe now, fully restored.

The rest of our weekend was eaten up with getting the van fixed…the serpentine belt fell off, if you ever heard of such a thing. Not broke, fell off.

Today the super-husband (he might need a cape) spent the day tiling my parents kitchen floor. They needed this done super fast since they are moving! They were down in Williamsburg, but will now be about 10 miles from our house, mere blocks away from big-sis’ school.

As Big-sis put it: “Once they move I won’t ever have to wait an hour for dry pants again!”

Amen, sister!

Like a moron I slammed my hand in the car door the other day. One of those idiot, in a hurry, not thinking, things. I am having to take a few days of rest from actually crafting anything. Nothing broken, but ouch!

Honestly it has been kind of a nice break(no pun intended). I have been able to spend some time sketching plans for the May issue of Hand Made Mom, and hopefully I’ll have some good stuff ready.

The girls are also giving lots of input into what they want for their summer wardrobe. I have a fabric run planned for later this month.

Ideas for Summer Clothes

The sketches are in one of those snappy Pocket Mod things. I am so hooked on them!

I am and always will be a nerd. Majored in math. I enjoy doing taxes. I teach computer science. It’s not my fault, I was born this way.

So I thought I’d share my two favorite new websites:

• www.stikkit.com -this site lets you create “sticky” notes. It can create categories, contacts and to do lists. Fun! Plus I can access my to do list at any computer. I am so into categorizing the endless stream of things I gotta do.

This is my stickkit to remember my next cool site:

• The Pocket Mod - This site lets you create a small fold-able book to fit in your pocket. It has fun templates, like graph paper and SuDokus. You print it out, two folds, one snip, viola! Handy tiny organizer.

The girls love the storyboard pages…they draw a picture then write a story.

OK, I realize I am trying to force spring to happen. Daffodils and now this.

I am used to being very organized. The difference now that I am back to work after staying home with the girls is that I am no longer willing to bring home hours of work each night to finish.

So I decided to list every current project, personal or work:

I eventually ran out of post it notes

.

I got this idea from skimming “Getting things Done” by David Allen. Apparently he’s a guru of such things. I didn’t even know such things had gurus. What can I say, I broke up two girl fights in the past week, I don’t get out much.

Then I grouped everything into three piles…must do, maybe and manana (later). The idea is you develop a system to track all ongoing projects so that you do not have to actively think about it. You create routines to check your system, and have a less cluttered brain.

My poor brain needs all the dusting it can get. I have to teach recursive algorithms next week…enough said.

I needed to focus on. In the middle of the pictures is the calendar I use to organize house and kid stuff. (click here to see it better). I might eventually try to rework it along the lines oprojects.Anyone

Anyone else have any ideas? I can’t be the only one a bit overwhelmed with the to do list…

A pal of mine at work just lost her home to a fire last week. She and her husband are fine, and all of the pets made it out. The frame of the house is intact, but it will take months for them to get back into their home.

She has been e-mailing us daily updates as they go through all of this. It is incredibly kind of her to share her story, and this has gotten me thinking. I just wanted to share some thoughts.

First, her batteries were dead in the fire detectors. They has a friend staying the night, and if the smoke hadn’t triggered an asthma attack they might not have woken up to get out.

I cannot remember the last time we checked ours, but you better believe we made sure they are all working now.

Second, it has made me realize I have no way to prove I own what I own. Right now she is having to itemize everything, down to the deodorant. And it is is all frozen in place. IT has been in the teens and twenties outside here all week, and all the water from the firefighters froze everything in place…that paints such an eerie picture of having to chip off all your worldly possessions to make a list.

So this weekend I am planning on going around the house and using the digital camera to snap shots of each room, closets and all. The plan is to copy all of these onto a CD and put a copy in our safety deposit box.

Any other ideas?