Day 45 – Dryer Lint and Security Tags

The punch list of to do items is long. You know the list of I’ll get to that when I have some extra time? Then days turn into weeks and into months and into years and the lists grow but the tasks get ignored because of this busy life.

Today – finally fixing that bicycle chain the right way because we took the time to order the right tool. Look at that – it rides like a brand new bike. Taking down the broken poles and netting from the trampoline. Boom – it looks like a brand new trampoline. Mowing and weeding and clipping back overgrown plants and check it out – the yard looks amazing. Oops – discovered while doing all of this – that we have another rodent problem along with a massive hornets nest – add that on the list of to dos. Finally install the new water pump to a beautiful fountain. Ahh – a bit of serenity on the front porch.

But not to be ignored on this day, a full clean up of the dryer. That thing gets some heavy use in this household of 7. If I had a dollar for every time it stopped to tell me that the airflow sensor needs a good cleaning the kids would have a nice college fund going. So today, take it apart – shop vac it clean – and put it back together. No left over screws so that is a good thing. We’ll now see how long it takes for that sensor to go off again and for how many years I will ignore it for another day.

Why O Lord is there so much lint? And with this much lint how can our clothes and sheets not be worn down to rags? What happens with lint in heaven? Will we have to clean the dryer there too? Hmmm.

On another note of interesting thoughts….why do stores let you do self checkout for clothes? Have you ever picked up the item – scanned it – put it in the bag – paid – drove home – showed the item to your loved ones – and then discovered the security tag is still attached? Of course it is! In self check-out there is not a device to takes those tags off and in the mad dash to get out of the way of those behind you – you forget those tags are even attached. So add to the list to go back to the store to find a paid staff person in a regular check out line to ask them to do what needed to be done the first time – please remove those dang security tags. So much for everyone saving time and money.

These things might seem like frustrations, but in reality these are simply the day in and day out details of this life. Part of the adventure. Part of the learning. Part of the fun.

The cool thing, because I had some extra time, and so do our kids on summer break, I got to do all of these things with our kids. Each learning a small new and important thing. One day they will need the right tool at the right time. They will need to find the right video on youtube to make the task a little easier. They may need to make several trips to the hardware store or have someone from Amazon make several trips to them with special deliveries. In the end, their dryer will be fixed and their fountain will work and their kid will love riding their new old bike with a chain that works. They will experience those simple moments of happiness of a job well done. That will make me happy knowing that in those moments they may just remember the days they learned those small skills as we did life together. Yes, we did life together.

Time to take out the Lint and check what’s on tap for tomorrow. Thankful to have a list and to get after it one day at a time.