Okay, I'll do one already

So here goes. My blog has officially started. And the crowd cheers. Or not. Basically, I've been toying with the idea of a blog for several months, spending way too much time browsing other blogs, when, as my title suggests, I could certainly be catching up on my dishes and laundry. So with a lot of encouragement from Troy and a few other friends and family (especially my blogging-savvy sister, Rachel), I'm gonna give it a try.

I'm feeling overwhelmed by the basic decisions of starting this - deciding on a name, template, whether or not to use my children's names. Others have come up with such witty or meaningful names, and honestly, I would have done this weeks ago, but I've been trying to come up with a decent name. And tonight it hit me when I ran up from the basement to change some laundry over to the dryer and had to decide whether I should start another load of laundry or do the dishes. I can't run them both at the same time - one of them would surely run out of hot water. Dishes or laundry...dishes or laundry...and there it was - the title of my blog. So instead of doing either, I plopped right down in front of my computer and now here I am.

So Dishes and Laundry it is - two aspects of my life that always seem out of control. I think I'm caught up, but one snack later or Troy coming home from a trip with a bag full of laundry, and there it is all over again. And my family isn't even very big! I should probably make it more of a priority, but there are so many other pressing things going on. (Use of the word "pressing" not to be construed as an ironing/laundry pun. I don't iron. Toss it in the dryer with a wet towel is what I've always done and I'm raising my boys that way.) We also seem to have a lot of clothes, at least the boys do, so I allow myself to fall behind and they still have clean clothes. I always have good intentions - I unload the dryer and put the clean clothes on my bed to fold and put away. This is where it all goes awry. Too many nights I stumble to my room, going to bed later than I should, only to discover that I never got the folding done. So I gather the clothes and put them in a pile on the floor. Next morning, they go back on the bed, and I'm sure to get to it, right? Nope, I'll confess that I have moved the same load from the bed to the floor, to the floor to the bed, and back to the floor, and then back to the bed before I get around to folding and putting away. And you know that I'm washing and drying and adding to the pile, so it just grows and grows. My mother would be so proud.

I do need order in the kitchen, before I can start my day, so polishing up in there is usually the first order of business. Unfortunately, I can end my day just fine without the kitchen being clean. I start winding down about 5pm - not much housework will get done after that, but I'm a ball of energy most mornings. That's just me. And that's how two basic household tasks can get the better of me, yet still end up as the title characters in my blog.

I wondered as well, if I would have enough things to write about. But I've found that since I knew I'd eventually start a blog, I've been piecing together paragraphs in my mind, stories and observations that I know you've all been waiting to hear. A lot of my mental composing happens in the shower - don't know why, it just does. I also practice giving my Young Women's lessons and have practice conversations with people while in the shower. The people aren't there, I just compose my words for the talking that we will be doing later in the day. So now you know - if I start up a conversation with you, chances are, I've already been practicing my side.

So I have a few things to write about, and I know that more will come along. As for the dishes and laundry? Tomorrow morning's looking pretty good.