Laundry Day

I am usually a pretty positive person.  I try to see the glass half full instead of half empty.  But try as I may, I have a hard time doing this with housework.

I do love how my home feels after a day spent cleaning.  The house feels so clean and shiny. But it is so short lived.  It can be spotless, with vacuum tracks on my carpet one minute and the next- well, it looks like a tornado has hit.

Today is laundry day.  It isn't one of the worst chores in the world, just very time consuming.  I always feel tied to the laundry room waiting for a batch of clothes to dry so I can quickly pull them out and hang them up before the wrinkles set in.  My reward is seeing the empty laundry baskets and the drawers and closets full of clean clothes once again.

But something unexpected happened as I was doing my 5 or so batches of laundry today.  No, I did not find a $100 bill-wouldn't that be nice!  It was something very simple, something I have never taken the time to notice before.  

As I was hanging the shirts up to dry, I found that as I put each shirt on a hanger, a memory of the past week came with it.  I could literally remember the day each of Nicole's shirts were worn and whether or not she had a smile on her face the first time I saw her that morning (a smile on Nicole's face in the morning= a good day for the whole family!).

I saw shirts that were worn on St. Patrick's Day, shirts that were worn the night that Erik and I spent downtown with friends from the hemophilia community and at a fundraiser for an  African water project.  Shirts worn to a homecoming, to a BBQ, during a fast and furious game of basketball and on and on.  Each time I pulled a shirt out of the dryer, it was another memory.

I had so much fun that I decided to throw another batch in!  I soon found, however, that it just wasn't the same with jeans, towels and socks.  Dang!  

But for a moment today, I found a way to enjoy doing the laundry.  I will try to remember this little trick each week as I face the loads of laundry waiting for me.  Now if only I could find some way to enjoy scrubbing the toilets or grocery shopping.  I'll save that for another day.