The Trials of a Busy Mom

Month: August 2010 (Page 2 of 2)

If you need me, I’ll be in the laundry room. Just sitting there watching it spin.

My new washing machine, it’s here!

Thursday was my scheduled delivery date, which meant I had to arrange all my carpools to NOT be driving so that I could sit around home and wait all day. You know how it goes….they say they will give you a ‘three hour window’ of when you should be home and wait for delivery, and then it may or may not happen during that time. Yeah, we’ve all been there.

The night before I got a call informing me that my ‘window’ was between 7 and 11 am. And then in the morning, I got a call at 6:55—no joke–telling me they’d be there within 30 minutes to an hour. Wow! I was in the middle of making breakfast for the kids, trying to make sure the Chinese girls were up and moving, and all that morning stuff that I do so groggily. I had wanted Ryan to unhook the washer first so that I could get back there and clean that area, but now that wouldn’t be possible. I hurried up to the laundry room to at least corral all the clothes that seem to find their way OUT of their baskets so the floor was relatively clean, at least. I grabbed the vacuum, but really didn’t have enough time to do much good.

Then at about 7:30, right when the carpool was due to arrive to take my Chinese girls to their school in Provo, the doorbell rang, and it was Jeff. I opened the door and he said, “Good morning. It looks like we’ve got a washer for you.” I said, “You are my favorite person today!” I took him upstairs to the laundry room, and he and Tony got right to work unhooking my old Whirlpool machine.

In just a few minutes, they had disconnected that machine, and were whisking it away.

Here’s the “hole” left when they took that away. You’ll notice that when I painted that room, I didn’t bother moving the appliances. I think husband was out of town when I decided I was going to paint (and it’s NOT my best paint job, can I just say? I’ve gotten so much better and I really do care more about the rooms I paint now. I’m embarrassed to even show you this hideous paint job!), and I did a quick and dirty job. It’s just the laundry room, right? Little did I know that people actually decorate their laundry rooms with coordinating accessories. WHAT?

There on the floor, that’s 9 years of dust and grime that’s been hiding under that machine. I was feverishly vacuuming, sweeping and wiping, trying to get it at least dusted and cleaned up a little bit while they hauled one washer down the stairs and out to the truck and brought the new one up the stairs. Those two guys were remarkably fast! I could barely get the STUFF that was stuck behind the dryer out before there they were with the new machine.

As they came back and I was still on my hands and knees scrubbing like a crazy person, Jeff asked me, “Do you need another minute before we install this one?” I automatically started to say ‘no’, just to be polite, but then I changed my answer. If I didn’t clean it now, who KNOWS when I’d have another chance, so I said quietly, “Yes.” and kept cleaning. Just for a minute. Then I got out of the way and let them work on installing my new, beautiful washing machine.

Yes, those are my cleaning supplies all lined up on my (gasp) windowsill. And there’s a pile of crap on my dryer. I’ll admit it. I’m NOT the cleanest person in the world. I do have dust and clutter and messes in just about every room in my house (double gasp). Especially the room that is dedicated to dirty (and clean clothes).

But look how happy it looks there in it’s new home. No, we did not get the pedestal or the matching dryer. Maybe someday.

As soon as it was done with it’s test run, I fired it up. Wow–you can put SO MANY clothes in there! Of course, with a full load, it takes my old dryer a LONG time to get them all dry, but that’s ok. And it’s so quiet!! There’s no thumping or whirling sounds. It’s wonderful. After I did all the whites I could find, I did a load of towels and a couple of rugs. Still no noise! And it uses like 1/4 of the water that the old machine used. I’m thrilled.

Is it sad that a new washing machine makes me so happy? Kind of. But when you have as many people living here as we do, you really should have a washing machine that works. I’m sure the newness and the excitement will wear off soon. I mean, it’s still laundry, and it doesn’t fold or put away itself, now does it. But for now, I’m going to go upstairs and happily wash another load.

Still busy, still having fun

Our Chinese girls and two oldest children are busy, busy, busy. Every day they have classes, then go do some fun activity.

This week they went to a farm, rode horses for a little bit, played all kinds of sports, and games, and have planned a trip to Thanksgiving point to see an Imax movie, a visit to Cabella’s and even a day in Park City.

And we try to keep them having fun on the weekends. This past weekend we went to the farm and dino museum, out to lunch, and then to the Folk Fest in Springville.


This last one is John’s “playing with his food” moose that he made out of a cheese roll and some Oriental noodles at dinner on Sunday. We’re…um….encouraging creativity?

Bobcats and workers and dirt, oh my

Our neighbors are having their yard redone right now. It’s a seriously HUGE project. There are about 10 cars parked out there in front of their house, and there’s a backhoe or a trencher or some other heavy machine running almost every day. Right now it’s a bobcat. They killed a bunch of grass to put other stuff there, then removed trees and cut up the grass and pulled it all away one day to remove the gentle hills that were there. Then they smashed the dirt flat and put the grass back. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I know it will turn out beautiful, however, because this landscaper just redid his own backyard (he lives down the street from us) and it’s now one of the most beautiful yards I’ve ever seen. Seriously–the water feature is so gorgeous, I was wondering if I could just hang out in THEIR back yard all the time. Do you think they would mind? They’d come home from work and there I would be, lounging in their nice patio furniture with my friends, who I had invited over for a barbeque in THAT back yard instead of my own. No, that wouldn’t be awkward at all, would it? (I’ll have to make sure it’s on a weekend when I know they are out of town.
Just kidding.
Kind of.)

Anyway, our next door neighbors are expanding their deck, adding who knows what kind of trees and flowers, and I’m sure it will be just beautiful when they are done. Which actually is a good thing for us, because they are NOT (big sigh of relief) putting in a fence. So if they beautify their back yard, it just beautifies ours in turn. Oh, and they are sharing their swingset with us, too. The landscaper asked if he could stow the swingset in our garden area (the part that’s not actually garden) for a few days. No problem. And now John’s taken to swinging out there. Like it’s our swing set. We do have a swing set, but it’s over on the other side of the yard. I guess this one is better.

Saturday they started putting in the trees. Trees right along the property line, so now it looks like WE have trees. How nice of the neighbors to put in those trees to help make our yard more beautiful! Oh, yes, and their yard, too. It’s coming together nicely.

Maybe when he’s done we can ask him if he has time to take care of the back strip of our yard. Maybe.

It might even make doing the laundry more enjoyable!

About 6 weeks ago, I mentioned to my husband that the agitator on the washing machine wasn’t working and I guess it was time to call the repairman. Again. He shocked me by saying that since that machine was well over 10 year old (did we have it in the old house and move it here, or did we buy it when we moved? Old house, that’s right) maybe it would do us well to NOT repair it and get a new one. What? Buy a new one? Oh, that would be heavenly!! I was so excited, especially since our current washing machine is really just a “soaker”. It fills up, it swishes the water slightly, it does spin and drain, but it’s not really doing the BEST job at getting our clothes clean. And with a family like ours (seven people who against my instructions keep getting dirty) and frequent guests, I estimate that I do about 14 loads of laundry per week. Plus or minus 2 or 3.

I started asking friends what kind of washing machines they had, and if they loved their front loaders, etc, etc. I wanted to go out right away and pick one out.

NOT SO FAST. Ryan, ever the consumer reports investigator, had to do some “research”. Fine. But do it quickly. What with frequent trips out of town, (out of the country, even), Ryan didn’t get around to doing his research. I kept saying things like, “Just tell me which ones NOT to buy, and I’ll go and get one myself.” For some strange reason, he didn’t like the idea of me picking one out myself. What, I might do it wrong? So, I continued to grumble and wash clothes in the old washer as it limped along. Admittedly, the grumbling got louder as the weeks went on. I thought I might need a new dryer, too. For a few days, that stupid dryer was taking FOREVER to dry clothes. Oops, it looks like someone had just put it on delicate and I hadn’t noticed. So no matching set. We will keep the old (it’s only 9 years old) dryer until it dies.

It was decided that on Saturday we would “go and look” for a new washer. There was no play rehearsal, no holiday, no big exciting outing with the Chinese girls planned, and we had a few unscheduled hours in the afternoon.

So, after we took the girls to Farm Country and the Dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point, and lunch at Wingers, and BEFORE we took the whole family down to Springville for the Folk Dancing Festival, Ryan and I left all the kids at home to rest or watch a movie and we headed out to appliance shop. Home Depot is having a sale, so we went there first. We checked the high end models, ignored the ones that Ryan had read bad things about, and came out of there with a favorite in mind.

Then we went to Lowe’s to check their prices. They had a different brand, different model comparably priced. We left there prepared to head back to the Home Depot and buy that one, and we ran into an old friend who was also leaving the store. We mentioned that we were looking for a washer, and her husband said, “Oh, what kind?” Turns out he does REPAIRS for RC Willey appliances, and he told us all about the multiple repairs he does on all the different washers, including the one we wanted to buy. Ugh. I thought we would be forever stymied by this new information. But after some discussion, we decided that no appliance was foolproof, and the best thing to do was buy the one we thought would be best AND to buy the extended warranty, just in case this model turns out to be less than ideal.

So, we went back to Home Depot, talked to a different guy, and actually BOUGHT ourselves a washing machine. Because if we didn’t, it could be another 6 weeks before we found the time to go out together and shop for one. I was SO THRILLED!! Getting Ryan to shop is not painful, per se, but he’s not the most willing shopper around, and I was delighted that we actually came to a decision. With how picky he was, you’d think that HE was the one who is actually DOING the laundry (hey–a girl can dream, can’t she?).

We decided to forgo the pedestal (Hello?!! Two hundred dollars for a BOX?! That’s totally insane!), but did get the warranty, and I’m proud to welcome our new washing machine into our family!!! Not the fancy red one, by the way, because they charge $200 more for red. Not as much as they charge for the stainless… What?

Well, we’ll welcome the new washing machine into our family on Thursday. Thursday is soon enough for me. I’ve limped through with this one for so long, I can wait a few more days. And they will bring it, haul it up the stairs, install it, take the old one away and down the stairs and haul it away! Woot! I’ve got to seriously clean up my laundry room. I can’t have people coming with a bunch of lint and clothes all over the floor! And then I can get back to being the domestic goddess I’m meant to be.

Stop laughing.

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