Laundry Room

The laundry room in the Fixer Upper house is on the second floor, right next to the master bedroom.

A man must have thought that was a really great idea. And I can just hear his thought process, too.

"Closer to where you take your dirty clothes off. What could be better?"

Except when you are trying to fall asleep and the machines are still running right next to your bed.

Except when a muddy dog walks in from the yard, and you have no room to clean her in.

Except when the boys walk inside full of wet snowy clothes in the winter, and they trudge all the slop up the stairs.

Except when all of your cleaning supplies are upstairs, and you have to climb up to retrieve them a dozen times a day.

Except...

Okay, you get the idea. I don't like my laundry room. It's small and cramped and feels more like a laundry closet.

I try hard not to think about that glorious laundry room in my Pittsburgh house, with its sunny yellow gingham wallpaper, its laundry chute, and its door leading to the back garden and patio. And the space, all that glorious space.

There I go again, thinking about it.

Did I mention that I iron my husband's dress shirts? Yep. All 573 of them. Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration, but he does have a lot of shirts. It takes a few hours.

Last week, I moved my CD player upstairs, propped it on top of an overturned laundry basket, and played these devotional recordings from Lifeway. Just me and the Word and the hiss of the steam iron.

Multi-tasking. Sometimes, I need to hear some encouragement from another woman who's been there and done that. It helps to snap me out of my pity party when I'm ironing in a closet, or dropping a forgotten trumpet off at school, or heading to the home improvement store for the millionth time.

Because if I spend too much time in my head in my laundry closet, I might just start wondering how a yellow gingham wallpaper would look on those tiny walls. Hmm. Probably a bad idea.

Blessings on your Friday, cafe friends!