Life on Courtney Lane.....

It was a comedy of errors, really.

But, thankfully, short lived.

Last Tuesday morning when I walked into the garage to switch the laundry, there was a big puddle of water. (Huge puddle.) I knew immediately what had happened, because it happened two years ago. The people who built the addition onto this house (let me just go ahead and say I am so glad we are only renting this house) were either too cheap to do a decent job, or they didn't have the know how. Either way, the drainage for the washer should have been done differently and was clogged with roots. The plumber had to come out and climb on the roof (?) to dig the roots out and unclog the drain.

I just knew that's what happened again, so we called the landlord who called the plumber who called us (high ho the dairy-o) and told us he wouldn't make it out until next Monday. Almost a week later.

Now, if you even have four kids, no no, if you even have two kids, you know how laundry piles up and then multiplies tenfold as it sits there. And I wasn't caught up on laundry at that point so you can imagine what the laundry would look like at the end of a week.

So, I went ahead to take the laundry that had already finished in the washer and put it in the dryer. And the dryer wouldn't turn on.

I tried everything and even checked out the breaker and nothing. I think the water shorted out the dryer. Now, these are a washer and dryer I would say are at least 8-10 years old and were handed down to us by a sweet friend before we moved to Oklahoma. So, we have used them (A LOT) for at least the last five years. And they have held up beautifully. To think that the dryer, whether shorted out or not, had seen it's last day was entirely possibly.

I went ahead and hung the laundry to dry on the kitchen chairs. I needed a plan fast because we were out of towels. I took a plastic tote that I usually have off season clothes in and put the drain in there. I did my load of laundry and after the first draining that water was just under the edge of the tote. So, I emptied a few buckets on the side of the house (which is all dirt because no grass will grow there because it never gets sun). Then I heaved and hoed the tote out the side door of the garage and emptied it splashing water and of course, dirt, all over myself. Then, I had to do it again in 15 minutes when it drained a second time. And, after the towels were done, I hung them all over the house to dry. I ended up doing three more loads of laundry the same way (jeans, more jeans and socks/underwear) which you know, there really is no good way to hang up socks and underwear to dry in the house.

Before we were handed down the washer and dryer, our dryer had gone out and I hung dry clothes for almost a year. Indoors. I don't know how in the sam hill I did that.

Anyway, after the last load, I literally threw in the towel, and decided we would all wear the same clothes for a week, I was not doing another muddy, bucket hauling load of laundry.

Well, praise God!, the plumber called on Sunday and asked if he could come out that afternoon since it was about sixty degrees and the next day it was going to be negative-freeze-your-booty-off degrees, so I told him to come on out.

And, on Tuesday morning David went down and found us a scratch and dent dryer for $300 off the price because it was scratch and dent. But, I still haven't noticed the scratch it supposedly has- David never pointed it out to me, although the salesman did point out the scratch to him at the store. (Hence, the reason it was marked down.)

I do love this new dryer. It has luxury features like a light on the inside and a door that actually has screws and a small latch to hold it closed. I don't even have to push the soap bucket up against it.

So, I have been enjoying drying the 54 loads of laundry that accumulated over the week. Apparently the kids didn't get the memo about not changing clothes.