And One More On Aaron

Aaron ran up the stairs the other morning and came into the kitchen. I was sitting at the table (my own little computer nook) and I was partially obscured by the bread machine that was busy making dough on the counter. (note: this was two weeks ago...I'm not eating white bread this week.)

He walked over to the sink and paused. He didn't see me so he was pretty much talking to himself.

"Any clean dishes?" He opened up the cupboard to check.

"Ooooooo!"

There were, in fact, clean dishes. His "Ooooooo" was kind of high pitched and excited - the same sound I make when there are good magazines in a waiting room or someone offers me a brownie. (I would decline this week...I'm also not eating chocolate-flavored flour.)

"Finally...clean dishes."


Then he reached into the cupboard, pulled out a glass, and got himself a drink of water. He went back downstairs - taking it with him, where there are, no doubt, a dozen empty glasses.

You should hear his excitement over clean socks in his drawer.

That's my Aaron.

Feeding Thousands

Okay, not really. Not thousands. But a couple hundred at least.

Last Saturday night was our ward Thanksgiving dinner, and with my new position in the ward, I was involved from the get go.

The involvement part was a little new to me. As a general rule, I don't attend ward activities. Sorry. I don't go to enrichment meetings or dinners or ward functions. Again, sorry.

If I'm in Primary, I'm all over the Sacrament Meeting program and Primary activities. When I'm in the Young Women's program, I'm there every Sunday and at the majority of the activities. I tend to hunker down in the organization that I'm called to and give it my all. You can count on me.

But as for the whole ward stuff, I've kind of avoided it like the plague shied away from it for quite a few years.

So that's changing, right here, right now.

Got myself a new calling - I'm on the Activities Committee!

In 19 years of adulthood and holding callings, this is a first for me. I've been a teacher in Relief Society, a Primary teacher (many times), a Young Women's Advisor (many times), Primary and Young Women's Prez., a nursery leader, and a counselor in both RS and YW. Been there, done that.

But Activities Committee? I have to admit that my jaw dropped a little when I was asked to serve there. I may have even leaned forward and whispered,

"But I don't go to ward activities."

Hmmmmm. I guess I will now. They figured out a way to get me there.

Truth be told, I wasn't ready to leave the Young Women. I have loved every minute of the past 2 1/2 years. Loved the girls, loved the other leaders, loved going_to_camp, everything. Change is hard.

So back to the AC. We started having planning meetings right away - we had to orchestrate a Thanksgiving dinner for 300 people in less than two weeks. It was crunch time.

The committee was awesome. There's about 8 of us. Crunch time is actually kind of fun when you're all doing it together. We split up the big stuff like food purchasing, decorations, the Giving Tree (our version of an angel tree), and set up, and then sent out sign up sheets for the actual cooking of the food. TaDa! Ward party!

When Troy and I arrived at the church to start the decorating, the tables and chairs were already set up for us. The Giving Tree was being assembled and a few people were in the kitchen slicing turkeys and getting food into giant roaster ovens to stay hot. We had 30 banquet tables to get ready - salt and pepper, water, silverware, dressing, butter, cranberry sauce, etc. It was crazy-busy. (and kind of fun)

My friend showed up with her kids and they helped decorate. They're not on the committee. Another guy came with his 12 year old daughter and she helped with all sorts of things while he carved meat. Not on the committee. The couple in the kitchen, doing all kinds of cooking - not on the committee. This was a Saturday afternoon and they didn't have to be there! But they were.

When things really started getting going and the food was being plated, we had many non-committee people pitching in. A few women left their husbands with the kids while they dished up plates for a couple hundred. Left their husbands with the kids, hehehehe. The Young Men and Young Women did all the serving.

I don't even know who cleared the tables, took out the garbage and put all the chairs and tables away. The kitchen clean up was done by people who could've left as soon as their pie was gone. Instead, they stayed and did an outrageous amount of dishes.

And I mean, out-rageous.

This huge dinner, this ward event, wasn't put on and accomplished by just the Activities Committee. It was pulled off by the whole ward. I was amazed. And humbled.

I so want to tell the names of all these wonderful people - the actual committee members and especially all of the people who came and helped out even when they didn't have to - but I'm worried that I would forget someone. I certainly didn't see it all...but everything got done.

It was a good feeling - to help out, to be in the thick of things, to serve others and see the ward come together in a wonderful way. I kind of liked it.

Maybe this ward activity thing isn't so bad.

Experiencing Difficulties

Nearly 30 years ago, my family moved from California to Utah, and into a lovely rambler home that was newly built and ready for us to move into. Well, almost ready. There was a problem in the kitchen, an inconvenience really. The stove and oven didn't work. Or they weren't there yet...I don't remember the exact circumstances, just that for a few weeks, we (meaning my Mom) didn't have them to cook with.

This was before microwaves and outdoor gas grills and the option of eating out was unheard of. My Mom cooked everything for every meal in an electric skillet, plugged into the wall and sitting on the counter. The skillet was on the counter, Mom was standing. She probably used the crock pot too.

She made grilled cheese sandwiches and one dish meals, pairing them with cut up apples and salads. I even remember her making those chocolate-oatmeal no bake cookies, boiling and stirring them in the skillet, and dropping them onto waxed paper to cool. Now that's resourcefulness - no oven to bake cookies...no problem, Mom had a recipe for boiled cookies.

If I were to have to go without my stove top and oven for a week or so, it probably wouldn't seem like that much of a big deal. I have my trusty microwave, my crock pot, the grill, the griddle, the value-menu at every drive-thru. We would be just fine. I wouldn't be making no-bake cookies to keep my family's spirits up - I'm not even sure if the family would notice if the oven went out. I'm into crock pot cooking lately.

Last week, however, we did have an appliance stop working - and we all knew about it. And have suffered.

How long can you go without one?


Of course it happened while Troy was gone. And being the delicate flower of a woman that I am, I don't like messing with things that look like this:

Or this:

The water heater wasn't cracked or leaking. It seemed to just be a problem with the pilot light staying lit. Which sounds a whole lot cheaper than having to replace the thing.



Re-lighting the pilot light. How hard could it be? I sat down to read the warnings and instructions, reading and reading, and reading again. I did NOT want to be an article in the newspaper. But I also wasn't too keen on taking a cold shower in the morning. How would it sound to miss work because you don't have any hot water?


I followed the instructions precisely, and no flame. Cold shower it was. Well, not exactly a shower - I knelt by the side of the tub and ducked my head under the faucet. The rest of me got a sponge bath and I called it good enough. Troy would be home in the morning and it would all magically become his problem.


Troy always hates it when he's gone and things aren't working right. So he sent his brother over to mess with it. Say hi to Kendall.

He's a handy sort of guy to have around.

He gave it his all.

But no luck. Thanks for trying, Kendall.


I called a place that knew about water heaters and they said they could send a guy over on Friday afternoon, between 2 and 4. That was fine - I don't work on Fridays and don't need to wash my hair. Or take a sponge bath.



Now the problem was this:

And this.

Also

And

Funny how the laundry multiplies so fast.


Yes, I know I could have boiled water and done dishes by hand. Cameron said that if I did that, I should dress up like a pioneer. Instead, I emptied the dishwasher and just got them off the counter and out of the sink. Immediate problem solved.

At 5:30 on Friday, the boy who knows about water heaters showed up. (How could he really know what to do? He didn't even know that his pants are supposed to be be pulled up over his buttocks and covering his underwear.) He got down on the floor, and without reading any of the instructions or warning labels, started punching reset buttons and automatic ignition switches. I know for a fact that you are only supposed to push on the ignition thingy up to four times in a row before stopping and returning to step two, which involves rereading the instructions, waiting ten minutes, eating a piece of chocolate, and then trying again. The boy must have punched that thing 50 times while I waited for the whole thing to blow up.

It would have looked like this:

But it lit. And stayed lit. Nice boy, even with his low hanging jeans - didn't charge us for this house call to light the pilot light.

I did the dishes and all of the laundry, we all took showers, and then it went out. Now it's the middle of the weekend. Troy was able to relight the thing and keep us in hot water for about a day and a half, before it went out again - permanently. More icy hair washing would be taking place.

I called Whirlpool to talk about my warranty (6 years. And the water heater is only two years old! Yeah, Baby!), and wound up talking to Rosa in India. She was sympathetic, in a scripted sort of way, and kept assuring me that she was "sorry I was experiencing these difficulties," and that she would "be able to send me the thermonuclear trans-whirligig right away and that after we installed it, we would no longer be experiencing those difficulties".

"How long will it take it get here?" I asked, imagining myself and the boys showering at the gym.

"It will take seven to ten working business days before it will arrive and you will no longer be experiencing difficulties."

"I can't wait that long - I don't have any HOT WATER! Isn't there a place locally that has this thing?"

"No, Ma'am, I'm sorry. It is the new and improved thingamacurrybop and we have to ship it to you. I can overnight it to you, but you will have to pay for it. I guarantee that it will stop your difficulties tomorrow."

My voice became a little bit shrill, and I used words like "insane" and "outrageous". There would be no charming of computerized-response Rosa to get out of this. So I paid her overnight shipping charge, and listened to her assure me again of my soon-to-end difficulties. I think "difficulties" was the word of the day at Whirlpool, India Division. I bet she said it a dozen times.

It did not escape me that I was complaining about my lack of running, instant, hot water to someone who lived in India. Like I said, I'm just a delicate flower of a woman. She's got her problems, I've got mine.

Okay, fine...in the broader scope of life difficulties, hers are bigger.

A box from Tennessee arrived this morning with the new and improved, gas-o-matic flux capacitor. Troy was in town long enough to install it (perfect timing, Babe), and, true to Rosa's word, I am not experiencing those difficulties any longer.

Dishes are done, laundry is in the works, and I'm looking forward to a HOT shower in the morning. Aaaaah, hot water, running from the faucets.

What appliance could you just not do without?

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.