The laundry pile

I hate laundry. I hate putting laundry in a pile. I hate moving an overfilled laundry bin downstairs. I hate putting laundry in the washer. I hate moving laundry from the washer to the dryer. I never separate out whites or lights from darks. It's a chore to make sure the baby's clothes are not washed with all the rest of our clothes. I hate laundry that has sat in the washer and been forgotten and then gets that rank smell and then trying to erase that rank smell. I have folding all of the clean clothes. I hate the pile of socks I sleep with at the end of my bed night after night because I hate matching socks. And good Lord above I hate putting it all away just to lather, rinse, repeat the whole process, week over week.

HATE! DESPISE! LOATHE!

The funny thing? I am anal when it comes to folding. Clothes fit best in their drawers when folded a certain way. I love my husband very much, but man alive, he does not fold how I'd like him to fold. When you fold a shirt, don't you fold it so that the front of the shirt is on the outside of the fold so you can see what shirt you're pulling out of the drawer? Or is it just me? You have 3 gray shirts in a drawer, if they're all relatively the same gray, same fabric more or less and they're folded with the front facing in, how can you tell which one you're pulling out of the drawer when it comes time to wear it?

One would think if I hate laundry as much as I voiced above, I would look past my folding quirk and just see that he's folding, that I'm not having to do it, but I can't. He starts folding and I call him off the pile. His job is to carry the laundry baskets back up the stairs because I'm usually carrying a child up the stairs.

Most recently I've been folding the laundry and I stumble upon an article of clothing of his that he had taken off inside out. If there is a pet peeve beyond folding a shirt with the front folded toward the inside of the fold, it's folding clothes that are inside out. The last couple of weeks I've been the nice wife and been turning them right side out before folding them. But there are more and more articles of clothing popping up inside out.

This past weekend I performed an experiment. Last week I folded a shirt inside out, just as it was put into the laundry. He went and put it on inside out and didn't notice until an hour or 2 later when he was sitting in our living room. Why would I bother turning it inside out if he didn't bother to take it off that way (which was how he pulled it out of his drawer in the first place) to save me the trouble when doing laundry.

And so, I've made a decision. I am no longer going to turn the clothing right side out. The 4 year old is very careful to take clothes off right side out for me, and so she gets them folded and back in her drawer that way. I always undress the baby with his clothes right side out so no problem there. My husband will just start finding more of his clothes not turned right side out when he pulls them out of the drawer. Hey, you know, if he doesn't mind taking his clothes off inside out, I don't mind folding them inside out. Finding time to do laundry these days is a challenge. My time is of the essence. Turning clothes right side out is not part of time efficiency.

What does that special someone in your life do that irks you? Come on, everyone has their pet peeves. Spill it!!! I am not the only anal one out there.

The introduction

My first post here. But not by any means my first post ever. I have been blogging for many years and have recently found I needed to start fresh for reasons I won't bore you with. I'm Midge (shakes hands with you...and you...and you). I have an amazing husband of almost 9 years, Cam. And two kids, Riley (girl), who's 4 and Declan (boy), who's weeks old. These names have been changed. I will say that my name is a nickname a coworker once gave me and it just kinda stuck.

I've been thinking about a new blog name/persona for MONTHS, no joke. But unfortunately it's not as easy as just picking a blog name, it's picking the twitter handle and email address to correspond with the blog name. And in my symmetrical world they all have to be matchy matchy. It's terrible, I'd think of something, get my hopes up that this...THIS was "the one" and then I'd do the cross check to figure out if the blog/twitter/email names were available. Or if they weren't was I willing to settle on adjusting the name slightly...the answer to that is "no." And then one would be available but the other two wouldn't be. And when I'd check why it wasn't available and find that the person who did occupy the blog or twitter name abandoned the page YEARS ago and it's just sitting there in interwebz neverland, collecting dust. Irritating, doesn't begin to describe the level of frustration.

Then we went on vacation for the past week and I basically slept, breastfed and breathed possibilities of blog/twitter/email names. Names swirled and flew around my head like some cartoon character trying to solve an algebra equation. It wasn't until we were on our ride home today that it clicked. "Taming Volcanoes"! YES! Eureka! Oh GOD...please let it be available on all 3 platforms!!! I quick whipped out my iPhone and pulled up the web browser and searched for the URL and twitter names in and out of service on my phone. The suspense killed me, but it appeared as though I was in the clear. I couldn't wait to get home and do the final sweep to make sure I was in the clear. Sure enough...SUCCESS!! Whew...what a relief. I can finally "BE" something again instead of hiding in a corner of the interwebz.

So why "Taming Volcanoes"?

Well, that's just what I do...or so it feels. Kid vomit? Diaper blow out? Life struggles? I field all sorts of eruptions. Life spews many different...eh hem...colorful...things our way, I accept it's challenges and tame it. It's a blog name that can grow with me and my journey through being a wife and mother, among other titles. I think I can stretch out here, be at home! So I hope you join me on this wild ride, maybe take a walk with me across the lava flow now and then. Relax and enjoy. And thanks for reading.