Let it never be said that I'm a pessimist. In fact, I'm so optimistic that there are sunbeams shooting out of my nether regions.

Let it never be said that I'm a get-it-done kind of gal, either. I'm a procrastinator of the highest order.

You combine optimism with procrastination, and you know what you get? You get me spending all day at the laundromat tomorrow. That's what you get.

See, my dryer has been on the fritz for a few days weeks months now, and we had an understanding. Sometimes, it would dry like like the power of a thousand suns. Towels would be fluffy. Jeans would be shrunken. It did the job like a real dryer.

And then there were days when the dryer just didn't do a very good job. It would take two cycles, or the heat would mysteriously fade over the span of the cycle, and we'd have damp clothes and I'd give it a day off and the next time, it would be great again.

Normal people repair appliances that are not performing. We just give ours a personal day, and pretend that it was all our idea.

Months have gone by, and the dryer has become less and less willing to dry the clothes. I've been doing my best to send positive vibes its way, but it finally gave up the whole getting hot business this last weekend. I tumbled the shiznit out of a load, but air-drying things takes forever. I removed the load and hung it up as best as I could, since it was raining outside.

It now occurs to me that I should have focused some of the sunshine shooting out of my backside at the soggy jeans and towels. That would have sped the process up!

You can't ignore laundry with a family of five. You just can't. So after a week of no laundry, I'm going to call a repair person this weekend - but with all the backlog, I'm headed to a laundromat to catch up from the down week. I'm choosing to think of it as "personal time" - I'll bring a good book and throw myself into the art of folding laundry. See? Optimist!