I've got laundry elbow. I even strained my wrist by hauling a wet comforter into the mystical position in the washer that would make the freakin' banging and buzzing stop, oh my GOD. I thought it had become sentient for a minute there. "Woman, I have had enough of the giant loads. I'm outta here." Seriously, it looked like it was going to bust on out of the laundry closet and head for the border.

So yeah, my mountain has been reduced to a molehill, and I've even folded and am contemplating putting away. I really need to weed out some of the kids' clothes.

How sick is it that I sometimes wish we lived in the pioneer days and had one 'good' dress and one 'work' dress and one pair of shoes and probably no underware and a tin mug and a tin plate and cooked and ate dinner with a sharpened stick we found along the trail.

Of course, laundry was more strenuous, beating things on rocks and whatnot. Oh, and there was the whole growing and/or killing the food. Can you imagine plucking a chicken during the pre-dinner witching hour? Might be kind of theraputic. "Hey, kids, see what I'm doing to this chicken? Get back to churning the butter or I'll pluck you next." *Rip, rip, rip*

Okay, never mind.

I also fantasize about having a staff to manage all this stuff that I'm supposed to manage on top of keeping the kids alive. Honestly, I've never been a good 'manager' when it comes to things I don't like doing. I know I have to pick up and vacuum and wash dishes and clean toilets, but I get no joy there.

And besides, raising these kids requires 90% of my attention and 150% of my effort most days. Even with my kindergartener in school, my son officially a preschooler, my toddler still napping, every automated household appliance we could squeeze into the available space, my fantasies of "free time" are laughably out of reach because I spend those precious child-free moments spinning my wheels.

As my mother says, "I buttered my bread, so I need to go lie in it."