Apparently my notes to self don't work.

Do you remember the Sharpie that I may or may not have put through the wash with a HUGE load of clothes? And how I reminded myself to check pockets? (Because, yes, I may have ruined a sweet little sleeper of Will's.)

Well, I forgot.

Load #2: I was unloading the dryer, and this fell out:

Thank goodness it survived its ride through the washer. Caroline, who picked it out, all by herself, while her mother bit her tongue (as in, I bit my tongue, not Caroline's), would be really sad if it died.

Load #3: I pretreated a batch of cloth napkins, burp cloths, and some hand towels, put in the detergent, and some bleach, and then went down right before supper to iron the clean napkins. And discovered that I'd never turned the washer on.

And then I stopped doing laundry for the day, because obviously, I wasn't doing such a hot job. My laundry mountain is shorter now, but not by much.


This is pretty much the only activity around our house today. The girls have been reading books with Pokey, and Pokey's been holding Will, and the girls have been playing with Poppy, and Poppy's been holding Will. That's about it. Can you tell Pokey melts around her grandchildren?


And this is the beauty that is outside. I love it.

Check your pockets.

My parents are coming in tonight for an impromptu visit. That means that, by supper time, I really should:

attack the mountain of laundry upstairs


run to the grocery store
make a pie crust or two
bake bread
clean the house
cook supper

And during that time, I'll have to face all kinds of distractions. Like:
and:

(If you've ever seen a cuter baby boy than this one, I don't want to hear it, because you're lying.)

And the three kids together: No wonder I never get anything done.

And, while I'm dealing with all my distractions, I need to remember to check pockets before washing clothes. Because it would be pretty bad if I did a huge load of laundry and then found this as I was loading the dryer:

I would never do anything this stupid. Right?

Right?

One Hour Photo

I often think of myself as the "one hour photo" type ... by which I mean that I don't like to wait. (Do you remember when you dropped off your film and had to wait at least a couple days, if not a week, for your pictures to be developed?) And, with the efficiency of today's technology, even one hour seems too long to wait for photos ... to me, anyway.

That said, 40 weeks is a long time to wait for a baby to be born. Granted, for a couple of those first weeks, I didn't know I was pregnant. (Technicality: based on how the OB-GYN world counts pregnancy, you're actually NOT PREGNANT for about the first two weeks that you're "pregnant." Go figure.)

So, I'm 38 weeks pregnant today. I've been having contractions off and on for at least a month. I had contractions all night last night, some of them relatively painful. I got excited, hopeful. I sat up from 3:30-5, timing them. They were coming 4-5 minutes apart. Not bad. But they didn't get any "worse" or stronger, so I went back to bed. I'm not in labor. And as a result, I'm in a really grouchy mood. It doesn't help that I'm tired, that my parents left today after a brief visit, that my dog ate (yet some more) of my home-made bread, that my washer has been out of commission for THREE WEEKS...

And while we're talking about the washer: I had the appliance guys come out three weeks ago today. They said they needed to order a couple parts, that it would take a couple of days, maybe a week. Of course, that seemed too long for Miss One Hour Photo, but I sucked it up and did laundry at my mother-in-law's, which was nice, except for all the hauling that involves. Every day that I didn't hear from the appliance guys, I would think, apparently over-optimistically, maybe they'll call tomorrow! Finally, Bob called them. Turns out a part is on back-order. Honestly, I do not understand why they didn't let me know this. Ugh. It would have been helpful, as the piles of laundry got taller and taller, to know that I should go do laundry somewhere, and not hold out hope that I'd be doing it in my own basement the next day or so.

Seriously, what were they thinking? And I don't even know if there's an estimate on when the part will arrive. But I am NOT HAPPY. Come on guys. Get my freaking washer fixed for me already. I do not want to bring a new baby home to a house filled with dirty laundry...

And may that new baby come soon...