Excerpts from the Book

NOTE: Lessons from the Laundry is a humorous, inspirational self-help book that compares the drudgery of Laundry to the realities of being a mom. These paragraphs are a short excerpt. The book is not yet published and is currently seeking representation. (Interested literary agents and editors, please contact me!)

I go into my laundry room with high expectations that when I emerge hours later I will have clean, soft, wrinkle free clothes neatly folded and safely returned to their closets and drawers. While I have a certain amount of contempt for the process of doing the laundry, I have learned many lessons in the time I’ve spent standing over those machines. Solitary confinement has altered the lives of the most hardened criminals and toughest POWs. Time spent in small spaces tends to amplify life. During my laundry confinement I’ve had time to ponder my existence, worth, and stain removers. I have emerged from my internment a changed person.

I hate the laundry. But I’ve learned that sometimes the things you hate the most, are the things that teach you life’s greatest truths.

It is in overcoming the hate, the lowest human emotion, in which transformation can happen. Love and hate are the truths that define us. Hate is ugly and ugly isn’t me. I don’t do hideous stuff, no stirrup pants, plaid wallpaper, shiny lawn ornaments, or Precious Moments figurines. I didn’t want Merritt’s disease to be ugly. It was what made her who she was, God’s special baby.

Learning to love the horrible disease gave me the opportunity to grow. The laundry room was my school.