Laundry. It is always there waiting to be done, dried, or put away. In seventh grade math, I learned the term, infinity. Laundry abides by math's infinity. It is infinitely there. I was doing my last load of laundry feeling rather good since I would have it all done, temporarily. Remember it has that infinity quality to it. I had a red scarf that needed to be washed, but I did not want to throw it in with my load since I did not want to end up with a pink load of clothes. I chose to wash it by hand. I put it in the laundry sink, added soap, and turned on the water. A little soak would not hurt it while I went to check on Jane, my 96 year old neighbor that I help take of. She converses non-stop lately. After about an hour, I excused myself to come home to fix lunch. When I came in the door, I heard something running. "Oh, no, surely I couldn't have been so dumb," I thought as I ran toward the laundry room. I was that dumb. The faucet was pouring out water which in turn, was pouring over the sink onto the floor, flooding my laundry room, half of a bathroom, the hall, and the entry of a bedroom. I grabbed a broom and began sweeping the water out the door. I got the water mopped up from the tile and vinyl floors. I would fix lunch, then tackle vacuuming up the water from the carpets in the bathroom, and bedroom with the shop vac after lunch. This was not exactly what I had planned for the day, but I got it all cleaned up, and fans blowing on the carpet to dry it out. That done, I went to clean up my kitchen from lunch. I decided to roast some pumpkin seeds while I was cleaning. I turned on the oven to preheat it. After a few minutes, smoke came billowing out my oven engulfing me in smoke. I had forgotten that I had sprayed oven cleaner in the oven earlier. Let me tell you that burning oven cleaner does not smell very good. When this disaster was pretty much cleaned up, my phone rang. It was Jane's caregiver. She had fallen. I thought, "Can anything else go wrong today?" She was lying on the floor, her nose bleeding, and cut, and her forehead scraped up quite nicely. The facility where she lives, always panics. They had called 911, which I would not have done. Long story, short, she was okay, but bore raspberries from carpet burns. No bruises, no broken bones. No ER.
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| Jane before the fall. Doesn't she look pretty good for 96? |
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| Jane one day after the fall. Not looking too chipper. |
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| Jane 2 days after the fall. Back to her old self...well sort of. |
1. I have the cleanest laundry room floor ever.
2. The carpets in the bathroom, and bedroom are very clean as well.
3. I will be sure to never leave the water on with the sink stopper in again.
4. My scarf is very clean.
5. My oven is very clean.
6. Jane has decided she cannot get up on her own. (we have been trying to drill that into her head for a long time.
7. Jane and I got to talk about while the fall seemed rather scary at the time, it was the grace and mercy of God that protected her from real harm. Since she bears no bruises, it was as if the Lord placed his hands under her, and protected her from a hard fall. To me, it is miraculous that she was not hurt.
8. It has made Jane's care givers more alert.
Hopefully, it will be a long time before I have another day like this one.
