Evil, Homicidal Appliances Out To Get Me AND When Moonbeam Gets Ready For Church

When Moonbeam gets dressed for church, she runs to her big sisters mirror to check how she looks.........

Her Daddy tells her she looks "very pretty" and gives her a kiss............

Her Mama says she is "soooooo big"!!

So far its been a week of great adversity and some good things too..... I honestly don't know if i have it in me to blog, but I think I should. Recently I've been trying to encourage a friend whose been struggling with some things. I hope I gave her good advice. I haven't stopped thinking about her..... or praying for her. There but for the grace of God go
i.

I did a week of 1500 calories a day. It was good, but challenging. I was kind of obsessive about it. The one thing about eating plans - its something you can control. When I'm at a loss of control in other places in life, controlling something seems comforting even if its as small as what I ate that day. During one of the hardest times of my life a few years ago, I was the most successful with weight loss. So anyway, all week I drove my family nuts saying "Please I have to get on that computer to see if I have enough calories left to eat____". They all seemed mildly glad when my obsessive behavior ended for the time being - lol!!

For many many years, as a matter of fact for as long as I can remember, washing machines have been a great source of agony for me. Its almost as if I was predestined to be ostracised by their kind. As I was saying, washing machines (and dryers) have really had it out for me. I can still remember, as a young 19 year old, pregnant with my first baby like it was yesterday. I only had a handful of maternity tops that were at all suitable for public appearance. My boyfriend was trying to support us on $5.25 an hour wages and there was NO MONEY at all for any more. I put my cutest, most adorable maternity top in, and it came out with Awful rust stains all over it. Even before that, living in an apartment by myself, I had to go to the dark and terrible basement of the complex to use them..... They (the appliances) always laughed when i didn't have enough money. Then I'd have to run to the gas station, trade in a dollar food stamp for a 10 cent sucker and return to the basement of doom to finish the load. It was horrible...just horrible. I was just sure some dead washing machine ghost was down there ready to spring out and get me.

Later on, as we moved up in the world, my husband usually had a washer going for me, but it was always on its last legs and there were always gaps were I had to go to the laundromat. Most of those days, wet clothing had to be hung up around the house because we couldn't afford a dryer. If we had one, we couldn't afford to use it. It was rather gloomy always having laundry hanging up all over. For a brief time, I had a good running set from a rental house, which we purchased and took along with us. That set ended up staying with a house we moved out of. Then it was back to bad again.

This last set has had a personality all its own. I knew from the get go that it had it in for me, but nobody would believe me. It was kind of like one of those movies where the the person is being stalked by an unseen force and nobody believes them. It started with the dryer. It simply refused dry the clothes. BUT, it did it in a sneaky, psychopathic manner. I'd have to run the thing 2, 3 times to get one load to dry. Having a family of 7, a job and home schooling, this was incredibly inconvenient. For a while the heating element seemed not to work. Just when I thought I had my family convinced the dryer was mutinous and up to no good, it started intermittently working. It was like the thing was trying to make me look bad or something. Then, finally, my husband started cleaning the vent hose out and that seemed to help some. Between you and i, I think the thing relished my husband's attention, the home wrecker!! It still required 2 cycles to dry much of the time.

The washer then started in. About a year ago, it conked out. I was so relieved. I kept thinking my husband would some how come up with the money to get us a new set. Much to my horror, (please imagine "Jaws"type music here) he set to fixing it!!! He figured out what part was broken and ordered a new one. He encouraged me to be patient and trust him and to make due a while longer. I knew I wasn't being very content and had to put up with it once again. All the while, the thing smirked at me as if to gloat. About that time I found a used set at a second hand store but my husband wouldn't let me buy them. He said they'd seen too much use. I also found a dryer at a garage sale but he wouldn't let me get that either.

I began to feel trapped with this set. They were out to get me and nobody would believe it. Didn't anybody know this set was about to do something terrible?!?! Didn't they understand that it was the "Chuckie" of laundry?!?! Well any how, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I made a giant poster saying "Thank You God for my new washing machine and dryer". I put it up on the front of the washing machine. Day after day the sign seemed to discourage me more than anything else. To make matters worse, the set seemed to be working somewhat okay. The sign came and went.............

Then one day the washer stopped spinning out, or rather intermittently stopped spinning. Again, it only did it part of the time. With each off balance loud knocking, it sounded as if it was laughing at me! "Hahahaha this problem is again, in your head" it poked. Still, i'd have to reset the spin cycle a few times to get the laundry to spin out. Sometimes, i think it even tried tripping me on my way out of the room, but the only thing anybody could see was that I was entangled in panty hose. Then I'd have to dry it 2-3 cycles after finally getting it to spin. On a regular basis, our laundry stunk because I would be gone and not remember to spin it out till a day or two later, or not set it to dry again. Then the kids would just dump the basket back on the floor 0n top of a hopeless giant mound of stinky, dirty, sometimes wet laundry. It was awful. It was hard not to feel frustrated at times. Sometimes dirty laundry haunts me too. Its in cahoots with that homicidal pair of appliances......

Most recently, they all ganged up on me. I discovered that besides the several times I have to dry clothes and besides the several times I have to spin them out, there was a new problem. My mom had noticed some wetness around the washer last summer. I started noticing the clothes at the front of the knee high pile were particularly wet. The front sticky floor tile no longer stuck. "Great" I thought. I mentioned it a few times to my husband. By now he was maybe thinking I needed to some serious help... I don't know. So anyway, next thing I know the washer is back on its side and out of commission with a rather wet particle board floor underneath...............

If i haven't driven you mad with all of these tales of woe, you are to be congratulated because you are a strong individual. This rates up there with "One Flew Over The Cookoo's Nest". Lucky for me nurse Ratchet did not pop out of the washer and neither did an escaping mental patient. Amazingly, my husband began researching washers and dryers. Even before that, in passing, he told me to look for a good deal. I didn't want to get my hopes up again, as I had off an on for years. ........... Long story short, after making multiple phone calls and a trip to multiple appliance stores, I have ordered the washer and dryer of my dreams!! I honestly didn't know if I'd ever actually get to see this day. For years I dreamed about having a nice, fancy, large capacity, front load Maytag set. Too often I wallowed in self pity. Too often I was so frustrated I didn't have an ounce of faith to believe it would ever happen. Too often I was bitter. The truth is, if my attitude, faith or perseverance had anything to do with it, I would have never gotten them, because I never achieved there. It was one of those sinner saved by grace deals. Despite the fact that I was rotten, ugly and bad tempered, God, in His mercy, is taking my evil, dirty, homicidal set from hell and replacing it with something beautiful and new from Heavenly Home Depot.......................... Selah