Seasonal Mystery

Spring finally sprung here in the mountains. I mean, we had rain every day for 40 days and 40 nights and ark plans were heavily considered, and the next thing you know it's 90 degrees and things are so dry I'm watering the garden. Silly weather.

But now that the rain has stopped, I can finally hang laundry out to dry. This makes me very happy. I'd like to think the dryer is sighing with relief. Or maybe it's disgruntled because that old fashioned hussy took over it's job. But I don't care what the dryer thinks, really, because I'm saving money. Saving money is sexy. Plus the clothes smell divine.

I'm also pretending that all the bending and stretching to hang is doing wonders for the waistline. So far I haven't noticed a difference, but I'm holding out for One Day, when I wake up and say, "Whoa, a waist. Who knew?" It'll be a good day, because my sheets will smell like sunshine and wind, and one can only wake up happy when smelling that all night.

See how fun hanging laundry is? Except that it takes 10 minutes to shuffle from the washer to the dryer. It's no longer something that I can do quickly while running out the door. I try, though, while the family is in the van waiting for me. And the earlier I get a load hung in the day, the more loads I can accomplish (just like when I was drying).

The other day I was hanging my first load before Micah left for school. He is all about helping (if it's his idea) and gladly tagged along to the clothes line. He handed me clothespins, and wet clothes, and more pins, and more clothes. And then decided he wanted to hang clothes like mommy. Except mommy can barely reach the line, being vertically challenged and all, so there was no way Micah was going to reach it. Not to be deterred, he did the best he could.

He worked, and struggled, and successfully hung a clothespin on the ends of the clothes that were waving gently in the breeze. Fine motor skills are a difficulty for him, and his therapist would be extremely proud. I know I was.

Later that day, Becky was mowing the lawn. Driving past the laundry gently blowing, she noticed that some of the items had clothespins on the bottoms of them. It was baffling, for sure. Given that mowing the lawn offers a lot of time for thinking, she came up with two theories. 1. It kept the clothes anchored so they didn't blow around too much, and 2. It kept the bugs from getting up inside pant legs.

She never did guess that it was her brother, lending a helping hand.