Thankful Thursday. Dec 20th/12

Tonight I'm thankful for many things.

I'm thankful that Papa's job is no longer out on the hwy driving truck in all weather.. as the roads are terrible today and the freezing rain is not helping.

I'm thankful for a nice warm house, our wood heat, and for able youngsters to bring firewood to the porch.

I'm thankful for the Internet, computer and phone.

I'm thankful for my new Know How.. kids and I made caramel popcorn this morning.. 1st time ever! YUM YUM!!

I'm thankful for my Mother in Law :) It's her birthday tomorrow. Happy Birthday Mom!!

I'm thankful for the new baby and that my energy levels appear to be on the rise now that we are pretty much done with trimester #1.

I'm thankful for the 3 hour nap G is having.. and wondering if I should wake her!

I'm thankful that Papa has to work tomorrow and then has 5 days off!!

I'm thankful for simple traditions and making memories.

I'm thankful for chicken... it's what's for dinner ;)

And for the odd one...drum roll...

I'm thankful that even though I felt like doing laundry today.. there wasn't any anywhere!! So I didn't actually do any!! Amazing!

I LOVE My Washer!!

I know I should be blogging about Christmas and celebrating the birth of our Savior and I will... honest!! Though I will admit my attitude was closer to Grinch this year then it has ever been. But first I have to tell you again how much I love my new washer. The day before Christmas eve I decided that we would NOT be doing laundry for the next week.. minimum!! So we folded the last load and sighed with relief. Now don't get me wrong I don't mind doing laundry, I just like to take a break every once and a while and just NOT do laundry for a bit. Well you can image how fast the laundry baskets piled up. With 5 kids 7 and under and a newborn we go through a LOT of clothes just in one day!! By day 5 I was eyeing totes to fill with the ever growing piles in the already overfull laundry baskets when I remembered something that made me realize that I was going to have to break my laundry fast sooner then I'd hoped. I'd forgotten that we had our last gathering of family on the 1st and ALL our Christmas finery was in those same laundry baskets. I keep my laundry sorting station under the table in the entrance these days because, frankly, there is no other place in the house where it fits! So I have 2 large blue totes for dark laundry, a green laundry basket for colors and a white laundry basket for whites. I started with darks. I always do as they typically take longer to hang dry. I grabbed a tote and heaved it over to the washer and piled it in. It ALL FIT!! Loosely even.. I was awed. I put soap in and turned it on.. 51 minutes later I had a washer 3/4 full of CLEAN laundry!! I must admit volume isn't everything.. I had a terrible time trying to hang dry it all in my entrance!! I ended up hang drying everything I could possibly hang on every clean surface in the room and sticking the leftovers, mostly socks and undies and hand towels, in the dryer! Four loads later I was finished my laundry. I do normally dry all the whites so I did that load second and just dried the leftovers from the 1st load with the white load but by the time I went to bed that night I had 2 loads ready to be folded or folded and another load drying. I actually did 5 days worth of 8 peoples laundry in about 24 hours, INSANE!! and honestly didn't work all that hard at it. I LOVE MY NEW WASHER!! With my old washer I would have only caught up after several long hard days of laundry laundry laundry!!
As it turned out I got Papa's terrible cold the day before the 1st and we ended up missing the gathering but at least now I know how much laundry I can do in a relatively short amount of time and it was all finished for Papa's long weekend :) Which lets me know just how much slack I have if I ever want to have another 'laundry free time'.

Papa read this after I posted it and asked a question that sort of put this post into focus.. He asked how often I normally do laundry... the answer.. everyday!! Normally I do SOMETHING with the laundry every single day of the week!!! Now I don't have to if I don't want too ;)