Grateful...But Still Going to Change It

(completely off topic: Is he not the cutest little munchkin? Look at those little teefers! Teething is SUCH a miserable experience, but George is so sweet I couldn't possibly hold it against him...)

A great deal of moaning and complaining has gone on here in the past about our family's laundry machines. To briefly recap: They are 10 years old, and I've put a load of miles on them (pun intended, sorry to be so lame). My sweet Mark has repaired and fixed up and maintained and trouble-shot them an untold number of times. Mostly, it's been the washer. He knows that thing inside and out now.

But in January, the dryer started getting jealous of all that attention, so it began to act out. When he had the time to give it the attention it needed, Mark sat down with the dryer, gave it a fatherly chat, and told it to straighten up and do its part around here.

That lasted a week. Then it threw another tantrum. Mark ordered the same part again - the parts company sent it willingly, free of charge, since we all assumed the first one was a lemon.

This cycle repeated itself a couple of times - dryer not drying, Amber waiting until Mark had a free hour to pull it apart and find out why, ordering the suspect part, installing it, wash, rinse, repeat - before it was discovered that we were fixing the SYMPTOM and not the actual PROBLEM.

Meanwhile, I plugged along, hanging the wash up to dry in various locations until the weather was nice enough to use the clothes line. This is where the grateful part comes in:

• I am grateful that the little gramma lady who owned this house for the 50 years before me had a four-line clothes line. I can't imagine she and her husband ever actually filled all four lines in one use. But I do. All the time.
  
• I am grateful for the not-so-gentle nudge to spend time outside on beautiful spring days, hanging clothes. To quote Pirates of Penzance, I am a slave to duty. I spend no small slice of my life inside, because that's where all my work is. And if I get caught up (or play hokey), I read a book or get online and read the news, update my blog, check my e-mail, hang out of facebook poking my friends incessantly and making dorky comments on peoples' status updates. Usually, I don't think to myself: it's so lovely out, why not take all six of the phoglets on a walk to the park?
  
• I'm grateful the washing machine is still chugging along. Hanging clothes on the line is a minor inconvenience with easily identified positive aspects. I like hanging clothes up with Hyrum or the girls, feeling the sunshine, watching the little kids play in our amazing yard, listening to the birds (I now identify a singing robin, wren, cardinal, and oriole, thanks to the amount of time I've spent in the yard with my wet laundry) and watching to see if we can find their nests. And it's fun to be out there when the squirrels have their domestic squabbles that range all over the yard.
  Yeah. But washing clothes by hand? I can't see any way on any day where THAT would be beneficial. No. And no thank you.
• I am grateful for children who think it's a game, and who beg to help with hanging clothes and bringing them back in. Their enthusiasm is contagious, and it helps me a lot.

All of this is a nice little slice of serendipity, where I am doing things I hadn't planned, but that are pleasant. I am enjoying

• the change of pace
  
• and the added perspective
  
• the smell of my sun-dried laundry
  
• the quality time outside with my babies
  
• the crazy games they have invented with the laundry baskets.

None of this is to say I am not actively working to get the dryer back online. I like my dryer. I like how it makes Mark's permanent-press pants and shirts wrinkle-free (yup, doesn't work on a clothes line...). I like towels that aren't sandpaper, and jeans that aren't crunchy, and the whole concept of the lint filter. So, grateful for the opportunity to be out-of-doors but still getting schtuff done...but still going to do all in my power to go back to the side-by-side laundry machine status quo.