The neighborhood outside my windows is quiet for a Saturday night, echoing the darkness and the stillness in my own house. The kids have finally surrendered to sleep, and my husband, finally home after a week away, is snoring in a comical way from outside my little office-closet.

I have so much to accomplish - a house that needs major TLC, emails to answer, work to catch up on, writing to do... and laundry. Oh, the laundry.

I booked an appointment for the dryer to be serviced - but that doesn't solve the more pressing issue of Mt. Optimism-Procrastination. So yesterday, I hatched my master plan - the laundromat! On a Saturday! Because... yeah. That was not a good plan at all. Why didn't anyone enlighten me that other people - lots of other people - do laundry on Saturdays? I came home and strung a clothesline all over my side yard - homeowners association be damned, I needed me some clean, dry clothes, and I was gonna get 'em without having to fight a mother of 6 for the one available washer and dryer in town.

I managed to get a grand total of three loads of clothes washed and hung out to dry. And yeah, the jeans are crispy and the towels are unspeakably crunchy, but as God is my witness, we will never spend an entire day in potato sacks again!

It was actually sort of soothing and domestic to hang clothes on a line. I wish I was less motivated by things like jeans that bend and towels that don't double as exfoliating torture instruments. I hope the weather holds tomorrow - I mean, I'm totally going to the laundromat at the churching hour and hoping that my heathen status somehow creates a window of opportunity. But It would be kind of nice to hang out a load or two tomorrow.

My family is sleeping, and I should be sleeping too, except there are so many projects that are better undertaken in these quiet hours after the family drops. I'm going to go pick up the living room and load the dishwasher and then I'll pull up the covers and let myself slip away into the quiet darkness, too.