Wish You Here.....

Ever since I went to Gettysburg with my first grade class I've been buying postcards... not as a collection, but to send. I wanted to show that I GO places... girl on the move - yup.. that's me. But there's one glitch.... I never send them - not ever. I always have the best intentions, but then they stack.... dolphins, beach umbrellas, mountains, sunsets... laughing at me... "Why did you bring us home? We're still HEEEEERE..." When I would remember my address book the front desk would have no stamps, when I'd bring stamps I couldn't find them... If I found stamps.. there were no addresses...

Last month we went to Florida and I thought the girls would go for the cheap gift store purchase and a good rainy day activity. It worked.. they felt like vacation shoppers and then attacked the cards with the same energy as a macaroni craft... Yet, now, I'm guilty.... "Momma, Delaney never got our cards... Neither did Grandma..." WHY?..."Girls, your Momma has a condition. It's called, I wish that you knew I wish you were here!" .... So, please consider this my postcard to everyone... from everywhere I've ever been. I wish you were there, but not really, I was home before I knew it.

Betrayed

For Christmas 2005 George gave me a mudroom - complete with an extra (albeit old) freezer, life-size storage cabinet, coat closet slash pantry, and..... front load washer & dryer. I fought the idea of the expense, but once I saw those stacked white boxes with their space odyssey port hole doors I knew my years of unfinished, lint filter ladened, concrete walled drudgery was over... My new laundry area was sunny yellow and decorated with mid-scale Longaberger baskets... it was quite the HGTV "reveal."

At first I ignored the shaking... as it grew more violent there were times I thought some Blackhawks were using my roof as a telepad... eventually there was an unexplained leak - I blamed the new cats - then... hard plastic shards were attaching themselves to my kids fleece pajamas like burrs.

I called Sears. After waiting several days to arrive, he took thirty seconds to say "I have really bad news. It's the bearing(s).. It will take over $900 to fix it. Do you want to?" Did I WANT TO? NO, I didn't WANT to fix a nearly brand new machine! My last machine was free and older than me and hey, I got rid of it because it was ugly... not because it was broken... Somewhere out there, that thing is still spinning away! "Yeah, these don't last as long as the top loading ones.".... REALLY? 39 months isn't "as long."... After I exchanged $65 for a $100 coupon off my next Kenmore Quiet Pak II - I needed some alone time.

Why? Why the betrayal, the abandonment? Was it my fault? Was it because I washed any hard surface thing that fit in that stainless steel diameter? ... The Leap Frog Refrigerator alphabet (in a garment bag); the Target bathroom foot stool (it's just too hard to clean under those slip resistant discs); shoes - many many shoes; beachtowels accidentally harboring moon sand; maybe it was me... maybe this wasn't my Mother's Electrolux... maybe I need to be gentler? Regardless.. it hurts.

Now, especially after the dishwasher's demise just the day before I am on a first name basis with Jerry the Sears appliance sales associate who's just nineteen and putting himself through Carroll Community college - I guess it's good to help in the cause.

So, today, thanks to twelve months 'same as cash' we start over... It's the Quiet Pak IV... it's flashier, more options, more ways to break... (break my heart is more like it)... I couldn't wait to start a load... softer now though... children's play clothes (no shoes)... just to hear the purrr, ... Welcome Home Baby!