Nothing Much Here . . .

just a few ramblings about my day.  It’s 1:30 am on Thursday and later today I head up to Lewisburg for my weekly visit with Desiree.  This is also a week that I stay overnight with friends in Elysburg so I can pick Desiree up after school on Friday and bring her home for the weekend.  I should be in bed by now, especially considering my fitful sleep last night, but I am not.

Over the past couple of months I have gotten much better at having a more normal sleep life.  Most nights I am in bed between midnight and 1 am and am up anywhere between 6 and 8 am the next morning.  This is in marked contrast with my life for the the past few years when my bedtime was usually anywhere from 3 to 4 am.  I still have the occasional late night or even all-nighter, but things have greatly improved overall.

So why am I up so late tonight?  Laundry, that is why.  I am waiting for my third load of laundry to finish drying.  This load is full of shirts, and in order to avoid ironing (which I try to do at all costs), I usually take my shirts out while they are still a little damp.  They wrinkle less that way than when I leave them in the dryer until it shuts off.  Plus, if I leave them in there until tomorrow morning and took them out then, well, they would be completely wrinkled and I would have to iron them before wearing them.  That’s not going to happen.

So why didn’t I start my laundry earlier, you ask.  Well, I did, but then my washing machine broke down and I had to take my clothes to a friend’s house to wash and then bring them home to dry.  I would have been finished hours ago if this hadn’t happened.

It’s a little ironic about the washing machine breaking down, since it is the newest appliance in the parsonage.  About two months ago I spent the better part of two days pricing various appliances at different stores: Sears, Lowes, Home Depot, Boscovs and other local appliance stores.  Three appliances here are at least 20 years old and need to be replaced:  the stove, a dishwasher, and the dryer.  I got all the info I could, got all the pricing info I could, and then put forward a proposal which would entail spending only about $1,100 to replace all three machines.  It was quite a deal, if you ask me.  The Church Trustees, however, thought differently.  If something isn’t broke, not only will they not fix it, they will certainly not replace it.

They were particularly skeptical about the dish washer.  One Trustee opined at least ten times during the meeting that I would have to start washing my own dishes.  This Trustee does not have a dishwasher and therefore sees no reason for the pastor to have one either.  Naturally, the dishwasher is the one appliance most needing to be replaced since it has been leaking water every time it was run for months, but that did not seem to matter to most of those who were there.  By the end of the meeting, it was decided that we would wait until the next meeting to make a decision, but by that time I also knew  that I would not be getting any new appliances in the foreseeable future.

So, going with the cliche that it is easier to ask for forgiveness than to get permission from anyone or any group, I called a repairman to come out and fix the dishwasher.  $200 later (about half the cost it would have taken to replace this ancient machine, which will probably break down again any day now), it is running and not leaking.  I informed the Trustees of the repair at the next meeting and gave the treasurer the bill.  There was no discussion.  Case closed.

Now it looks as though I will have to calling upon the repairman once again.  I am not even going to bother bringing it up until after the fact.  What’s the point?  They will not be buying a new one, and the clothes’ washer must be fixed. But in the meantime, I am losing sleep, literally, because of it.  Such is life in my world.  Nothing too dramatic, but just one annoying thing after another.

Well, I better finish this up and go check on my shirts . . . make sure they are at just the right dryness/dampness to take out of the dryer and place on hangers in order to avoid the wrinkles.  Isn’t my life thrilling?  And aren’t you glad you took the time to read all about here?