January 4
Today I was totally focused on doing laundry!
No matter what, 
I was going to climb the Mt. Everest of laundry piles in my laundry room and conquer that summit!
Of course in our house, with four biological kids from my first marriage, four inherited children from my current marriage, a foster son from Georgia and a dog who thinks he's a kid; laundry can be more of an epic drama than a daily chore!
As soon as I see the light break through or rather the bottom of the last hamper, someone plops another pile from nowhere.
If I could get my money to duplicate that quickly I could hire Bill Gates to do my dang laundry for me! 
My family is not full of fashion icons by any stretch of the imagination, all though if you ask them they think they are the next cover of Vogue.
The thing is with everyone but the dog, doing various forms of sports and activities; it's not uncommon for them to have to change clothes several times a day!
The older boys try to help out by doing their own clothes when they can. But the little ones more than make up for that and are avid contributors to the growth of Mt. Everest, I mean the laundry pile!
I was diligently trying to locate the ever illusive missing sock, totally frustrated, when it hit me!
Mother Mary, Mother of God, how did you handle sock sorting? Oh, yeah! Her family only wore sandals! That explains her radiant continence!
I know with a large family you need to be organized and I totally am, well at least in the laundry room! I mean, I always know where the pile is, I never lose it or misplace it! I try to lose it, but that sucker just keeps right on coming back, like the dog!
Now socks on the other hand, I can never find any that match to save my life!
I even went out and bought some of those "Do Hickey Clippie" things to keep your socks together in the wash.
Guess what? It so worked!
I lost both socks! 
Well, at least now they won't be lonely!
But the thing that really hit me was that we, as humans, women in particular, spend way too much time worrying about the small things!
I know that everyone says that it's the small things that count; but I think when they said that they were referring to emotional, loving things, not mundane everyday things.
I know that caring for my family is important, but I really don't think my boys care one way or another if their socks are a perfect match or not. As proof I offer the fact that, one of the boys was wearing one of his sister's socks with the pink lining on the toe the other day.
He's reply when confronted with the evidence?
"Honestly guys, who cares? No one can see that part, it's inside the shoe!"
Well his sister cared as she was going nuts looking for it, but his comment was valid.
By the same token we spend countless hours cooking and cleaning to entertain people we very rarely see. Yet have no qualms about dishing out macaroni and cheese with soggy hot dogs to our families on bargain basement paper plates for dinner! That somehow didn't make too much sense to me! Not that I would ever do anything like that, Okay guys stop laughing at me, point taken! 
As I was slowly scaling the mount, eh, laundry pile I came across a pair of black pants that belong to my youngest son Alexi. While I was folding them he came into the room and glancing over and said, "Those don't fit me anymore!"
I looked over to him as he walked back out and suddenly realized how much he really had grown!
My goodness, why hadn't I noticed before? Was I really that wrapped up in the day to day grind of running a home?
What else was I missing?
So today I vowed to make an effort to care less about laundry, impressing strangers or runaway, errant socks and care more about run away moments!
You know the moments we take for granted because we think they are endless?
Like watching cartoons with the youngest kids on a rainy Saturday morning or having your boys teach you how to shot a basketball in the driveway 
(no matter how ridiculous you might look to the neighbors!)
Or simply hanging out and cooking a good meal, on nice china, without complaining or rushing, just for my family.
Those are the small things worth worrying about; because unlike the lost socks that you can replace, once those precious moments are gone, they are gone forever!
So instead of letting them slip by unnoticed, grab them and savor them as the sweet, nuggets they are!
Now that I think of it, the Mt. laundry pile can wait a little bit longer!
Hey guys anyone up for some popcorn and a Looney tunes cartoon marathon?
Last one on the couch is a rotten egg!
