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When we moved into our current home about ten years ago I was so excited to see that the house had an actual “laundry room”for the washer and dryer. Our previous house had only a small closet with bi-fold doors to hold the washer/dryer and all the supplies needed to tend to the laundry. It was quite a tight spot located in the upstairs hallway and I was glad to be done with the awkwardness of loading and unloading the machines with my body squeezed between the folding doors and my two little ones clinging to my legs. Ahh yes, the luxury of an open space, an actual room to stack laundry baskets, bottles of detergent, fabric softener, stain removers, bleach, etc. “Heck” I thought, “There’s even enough room in here for a desk and a computer!”

And that’s how it all began. Since the other rooms of the house were already assigned their specific purposes, and there was really no appropriate place to set up a home office, we chose to create a small office area in the land of smelly socks and dirty dish towels. My husband and I purchased one of those cheaply made DIY pressboard desks-in-a-box from an office supply store and spent the weekend arguing (I mean working as a team) while trying to put it together. Instructions? What “real man” needs instructions? He could obviously see that Part A got connected to Part B with Bolt C without reading any stinking instructions! Ten years later the desk is still standing and so is our marriage, although it has been chipped and stained and cracked by every member of our family of six. Yes, I‘m talking about the desk.

So, on a daily basis I check my email, pay bills online, catch up on the news and educate myself on the latest miracle berry diet or get rich quick scheme that beckons to me from a flashing banner. While the washer swishes behind me and the dryer clangs with the change I overlooked in hubby’s pants pockets, I plan my day. Checking the calendar on my screen I ask myself if I volunteered for anything at school this week or do I need to get anyone to a dentist appointment and what time is soccer practice? Will there be time to cook or should we do the drive-thru tonight?   

With six people in the house, the laundry never seems to end. And thank goodness for that or else I probably wouldn’t sit down long enough to get the bills paid or answer my emails or have a clue what was happening in the world of celebrity gossip, while I wait for the spin cycle to end. Thank goodness for dirty towels and sheets, stained kids clothes and smelly socks. Without them, my home office would be boring, typical and predictable and probably not used as often as it should be. Without them I would probably fall behind on bill paying, current events and the latest oddity someone was trying to sell on eBay. Without them I wouldn’t be writing this tale of multi-tasking mayhem………OH CRAP!! My desk just fell apart!