Though I’ve always hoped that the stories I share here are entertaining to you all, I’ve had a special hope that reading about the challenges and joys I’ve experienced as a mom are helpful to other moms — maybe helpful in showing you that you’re not alone, maybe helpful in sharing interesting lessons I learned the hard way, maybe helpful in giving you a laugh on a bad day. I’ve also thought that reading how our family life has changed over the years might help moms of little ones to see what’s ahead, and moms of older ones to “remember those days.”

Our life as a family feels like it’s changed rapidly and drastically in the past year or so with my oldest graduating high school and going away to college, which you might remember having read about (a few times!). Another thing that’s been a big change for us is that I started working at an outside-the-house job last year, which is what I want to write about today.

When I first started writing this column fourteen years ago and for many years after, I titled it “Saratoga SAHM,” with “SAHM” standing for “stay-at-home mom.” Several years ago I changed it to “Mothering Boys,” in part due to the fact that the “SAHM” part felt a little misleading — though I thought of myself as a stay-at-home mom, I meant it in the sense that I had no outside-the-house responsibilities that weren’t connected to the kids, and that almost any non-mom thing I spent time doing could be dropped in a second to tend to the kids. 

But I was starting to feel like “WAHM” was a more accurate acronym for me — “work-at-home mom” — since I had always spent quite a bit of time working on professional things: mostly writing (always writing! Many of which have been opportunities with the Saratoga TODAY family of publications, which I’ve loved), some editing/proofreading, and I even had a small ministry/business for several years doing baby name consultations for expectant parents. These things were all extremely flexible — things I could work on as I was able, in between diaper changes and nursing the baby, school drop-offs and pick-ups and baseball games and swimming lessons, making dinner and doing laundry, while sitting on the couch in the middle of the kids in clothes that had been spit up on. 

These were things I spent time doing in large part because I enjoyed them. Knowing that I had the capability of doing non-baby things kept me sane on bad days, and my babies also inspired me — this column, for example, has been such a gift to me, as it requires me, on a monthly basis, to record some aspect of our family life as it currently is, and going back to read through articles I wrote years ago never fails to make me laugh and cry and remember things I’d forgotten. But I also knew that keeping up with these professional pursuits helped me keep a foot in the door for the time when I would almost certainly be going back to work outside the home.

That time came last year — I found a job that was absolutely perfect for me and my family: it’s part-time and flexible, and it’s tailor-made for my professional background and experience. When I started, I was able to work three evenings a week, which worked out really well in terms of continuing to do school drop-offs and pick-ups and figure out after-school sports and other extra-curricular activities, as well as schedule all the kids’ doctor and dentist appointments, and keep them home without stress when they were sick (also: we were still deep in COVID). My job is down near Albany, so three evenings a week I piled the boys into the van and drove there, where my husband would meet me coming from work in Albany; we’d switch vehicles and he’d bring the boys home and take care of dinner and bedtime while I went to work. I was so pleased that I could continue doing all the mom things, and also be able to spend some time working and contributing to the family in a new way. The biggest downside was probably the fact that my then three-year-old would often fall asleep on the drive down at 5:30, which wasn’t great, since he’d then be up until 11:00, but then again, I’d get home at 10:15 so I’d be able to see him and put him to bed. Not too bad!

This year, I had the ability to switch to mostly daytime hours and to work a bit more, which I was excited about. It involved making a switch for my littlest guy’s schooling — his brothers never attended full-day school until Kindergarten, but I took advantage of the option for my youngest for his three-day-a-week program. Fortunately, he seems far readier for it than any of his brothers did at that age, and he has been loving it! 

One major challenge we’ve had this year, though, has been figuring out how to deal with our annual months-long Sick Season. Ohmygoodness. Trying to figure out how to properly care for sick kids who need to stay home from school when both parents work at in-person daytime jobs is a task!
Especially now, at the tail end of the pandemic, where even very mild symptoms are still being taken seriously and remote work isn’t as possible as it used to be. My husband and I have found ourselves trying to plan ahead as much as possible for different scenarios that involve little kids who can’t be left home alone for any amount of time (big kids are a bit more flexible this way) and symptoms that are mild enough that my mom could possibly be asked to provide some care or oversight (depending on the severity), while taking into account the demands and preferences of our jobs (which change depending on the day of the week). It’s not even November and we’ve already had several kids home sick for varying amounts of days. Ohmygoodness. If we come up with a good system, I may write about it in the future in case it’s helpful to any of you (and if any of you have good tips or strategies that you’ve found helpful in this regard, please feel free to email me!).

These bumps in the road remind of other such times of often hard and stressful adjustment that we’ve gone through — good things like adding a new baby into the family; sad things like caring for my dying mother-in-law; new things like my oldest going to college — all of it necessary, all of it requiring patience and perseverance, all of it part of the fabric of family life. Things always shake out and settle down again and the “new” becomes the “normal.” It’s sometimes hard to believe that when you’re going through it, but it’s true!

Kate and her husband have seven sons ages 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, and 4. Email her at kmtowne23@gmail.com.

As an estate planning attorney, I often work with what has become known as “blended families.” Blended families often include married couples who have children from prior marriages or relationships. These families can present unique planning challenges when it comes to what should be left to the spouse, the children, and the stepchildren.

One challenge is that each spouse may have assets they have accumulated during their life prior to their current marriage. For example, they may have a lake house that was a favorite vacation spot for their children growing up. When they remarried later in life, however, they may now have stepchildren for whom that lake house holds no memories or connections.

Another challenge is that spouses in second marriages may or may not have strong relationships with their stepchildren. In some cases, they may have known the stepchildren since a young age and essentially raised them as their own. In other cases, the stepchildren may be adults with children of their own living across the country, and the stepparent may have little or no connection with them.

One thing to remember at the outset is that there is no legal requirement that you leave any of your estate to your children or stepchildren. The only person that can potentially elect against your Will and seek a legal share is your spouse. Generally speaking, your spouse has the right to inherit one-third of your estate. The “estate” on which this one-third is calculated includes not only assets in your name, but also so-called “testamentary substitutes,” such as assets held in trust.

This spousal elective share right prevents a spouse from totally disinheriting their spouse in their Will; in some cases, spouses in a second marriage do, however, give up this right if they sign a pre-nuptial agreement which releases it.

When it comes to children and stepchildren, you are free to give them whatever you want. If you make no provision for them in your Will, they will have no legal right to challenge it. With the exception that your children may have the ability to challenge it in limited circumstances where a challenge is generally available, i.e., in cases where you lacked capacity or were under undue influence. Such challenges are rare and often unsuccessful.

So – with all this said – how do you handle your estate planning if you have a blended family? One option is to treat the children and stepchildren the same. This is more often the case where the stepchildren have been with the stepparent from an early age. In those cases, the stepparent may think of those stepchildren as their own children.

This does not mean, however, that all children and stepchildren will be treated equally. As is unfortunately sometimes the case, the parent and stepparent may be estranged from one of the children and both the parent and stepparent may choose to leave that child nothing. That is their right, and as I mentioned before, there is little the child/stepchild can do to challenge that.

If there is a desire to treat the children and stepchildren differently, then there are several planning techniques to accomplish that. I will review two common examples in order to give you a sense of the options available.

First, you can make particular general bequests or specific bequests or devises (gifts of real property). A general bequest can be a gift of a particular amount of money, i.e. “I give $10,000 to my stepson Robert.” A specific bequest can be a gift of a particular asset, i.e. “I give my all my musical instruments to my stepdaughter Amy.” A specific devise can be a gift of a particular piece of real property, i.e. “I give my lake house at Caroga Lake to my sons, in equal shares.”

These types of gifts can be tailored to meet your particular needs, and as soon as they do not impact a surviving spouse’s elective share right, they can be set up however you desire. This customization of gifting may lead to uneven shares among children and stepchildren, but that is entirely permissible and may be appropriate for your circumstances.

Second, you can also consider the use of trusts. A common planning technique with second marriages, is to leave some amount of assets in trust for a surviving spouse. That trust will often require that income is payable to the surviving spouse and that principal may be payable to them for their health, maintenance, and support, in the discretion of the trustee. 

This allows the first spouse to make sure the second spouse is taken care of for the rest of their lifetime, but it also allows the first spouse to direct the distribution of the remaining trust assets after the second spouse later dies. In some cases, the remaining assets are distributed to the children of the first spouse. Such a trust can also direct that the second spouse have use of the marital home for a specific period of time or for the rest of their life, in order to prevent them from being displaced.

As you might imagine, each family is unique and what is appropriate for one family may be entirely wrong for another. In order to ensure you properly consider all options, it is advisable to consult an experienced estate planning attorney in your area. 

Matthew J. Dorsey, Esq. is a Senior Partner with O’Connell and Aronowitz, 1 Court Street, Saratoga Springs. Over his twenty-five years of practice, he has focused on the areas of elder law, estate planning, and estate administration. Mr. Dorsey can be reached at 518-584-5205, mdorsey@oalaw.com and www.oalaw.com

As far as Jerome Powell and the Fed seem to be concerned, we’re living in a world where up is down, down is up, good news is bad news, and bad news is great. It’s Bizzaro World!

The economy continues to be a difficult one for investors, as the Fed remains insistent upon increasing interest rates, at any cost. While many, including us, have been sounding the alarm about inflation since the stimulus spending spree of ’20 and ’21, the Fed only acknowledged it may be an issue earlier this year. 

As a result, the Fed has been compensating for being asleep at the wheel through a series of massive and rapid interest rate hikes in an attempt to bring inflation back to its target of 2%. Considering inflation has averaged 3.3% since 1914, a 2% target becomes an onerous demand to place on the economy, especially given all of the other headwinds. 

This ham-handed strategy has meant that the Fed is reading otherwise positive metrics as harbingers of doom. For example, the economy is currently at full employment, with new jobs in manufacturing, hospitality, and other sectors being created throughout the year. This otherwise good news is being interpreted by the fed as a sign that the economy is not slowing down.  

Estimates are that GDP for the third quarter will be positive by as much as 3% annualized. After two quarters of negative growth, one can only wonder at the Fed’s reaction to economic expansion. 

Most of the information that the Fed is using to make decisions about rate changes are lagging economic indicators. Consequently, the Fed won’t know it’s gone too far, until it’s gone too far. This compounds the difficulty around reining in inflation without sending the economy into a recession.

To make matters worse, the Fed needlessly unsettles markets by telegraphing today what it thinks it might do in the future, based on information from the past. It’s bizarre. 

Year to date, US indices are down as much as 32% (as of Oct 10).

So, where do we go from here?

1. We expect the Fed to continue raising interest rates, although any slowdown in the pace of these increases should be positive for the markets.

2. While rates have increased, it’s important to keep in mind that they are still not historically high.

3. The dollar continues to be very strong, which makes the cost of commodities, like grain and oil, which are priced in dollars on the world market, relatively less expensive to US consumers. Conversely this hurts our European friends.

4. Unemployment rates continue to be extremely low, signaling full employment. Recessions do not typically happen during these periods. We, and the Fed, will continue to monitor this metric.

5. We fully expect markets to continue to be volatile during the remainder of the year as economic and geopolitical factors remain at the forefront.

6. According to Reuters, fund companies are sitting on a mountain of cash. In fact, they are holding more cash than they’ve held in any year since 2001, as fund managers seek opportunities. We continue to watch this as an indication of what the “smart money” is doing.  

In light of economic and geopolitical headwinds, tactically overweighting cash and cash equivalents while you, too, seek opportunities, may make a lot of sense depending on your circumstances. As always, work closely with with your Certified Financial Planner® Professional to help ensure that your portfolio accurately reflects your individual needs, as well as the ever-changing market landscape. 

Stephen Kyne CFP® is a Partner at Sterling Manor Financial in Saratoga Springs, and Rhinebeck.Securities offered through Cadaret, Grant & Co., Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Sterling Manor Financial, LLC, or Cadaret Grant & Co., Inc, SEC registered investment advisors. Sterling Manor Financial and Cadaret, Grant are separate entities.

In the middle of a housing boom, especially during a period of high inflation, many people are tempted to explore the idea of investing in real estate. Real estate tends to carry a certain allure due to the concept of passive income, but talk to anyone who owns rental property, and they will tell you it is anything but passive. Like everything else, this decision is not entirely straightforward, and one should be aware of the costs and risks before jumping in. There are many avenues to access a real estate investment, so we will explore each individually.

This might be controversial, but I do not believe a home should be considered an investment in the traditional sense. Many people will disagree with this by saying they sold their house for more (sometimes much more) than they bought it. In fact, the long-term average appreciation in home prices published by Standard & Poors is 5.22% per year. Not too shabby. The problem is that price appreciation doesn’t account for input costs like taxes, maintenance, and mortgage interest. This isn’t to say everybody should just rent. Ask anybody selling the house they watched their kids grow up in, and they will tell you it is so much more than four walls and a roof.

Rental real estate can be great for regular income and a hedge against inflation, but it also carries drawbacks. In an ideal world, a rental property owner would have perfect tenants along with minimal upgrades and repairs. Being a landlord on a small scale sometimes means getting a call at 2 a.m. because the toilet is overflowing. If you are handy, this might not be too big of an obstacle, but the inconvenience of answering these calls can become a bit much. You might outsource these issues to a management company to solve this problem. The average cost for these services is about 10% of the rent. Then there are the issues of liquidity and transaction costs. Selling a house is far from an overnight process and paying realtor or broker commissions can eat into your profit margin. Despite these issues, rental real estate can be a great addition to a portfolio – just be sure to enter the venture only after considering all the nuances.

The other option for real estate exposure is via Real Estate Investment Trusts (“REITs”). These are designed and mandated to pay at least 90 percent of their income to shareholders. These come in various flavors, from those invested in shopping malls to those invested in cell towers. REITs can be accessed privately or publicly. Private REITs typically have higher fees, less liquidity, and a greater chance of picking a relative underperformer. However, those with a keen eye for real estate might be able to enhance their returns by going this route. Publicly traded REITs are more liquid and can be combined into a fund to diversify your risk among different geographical areas and types of REITs.

In conclusion, real estate is a perfectly fine investment under the right circumstances. There are plenty of success stories of people who built their fortune with real estate as the main driver. Ultimately, success comes down to timing and location if you go the route of physical real estate. You could generate a decent stream of income along the way, but the price appreciation you were expecting may not occur at the rate you were hoping for. If you are investing in REITs, they should be part of a diversified portfolio that is monitored and rebalanced. As with anything, make sure you have analyzed the investment from every angle before deciding to make the move.

David Rath, CMT, CFA, is the Chief Investment Officer at Continuum Wealth Advisors in Saratoga Springs. Continuum Wealth Advisors, LLC is a Registered Investment Advisor registered through the Securities and Exchange Commission.

For more information, visit contwealth.com.

JANUARY EVENTS

Free Breakfast – Bagels & Coffee 
Friday, January, 14 • 8:30-10 a.m.
Thank you to Trackside Grill for the donation of bagels. 

Dinner & a Drink! Chef Dinner by Old Bryan Inn. Enjoy a Sangria tasting.  
Tuesday, January 18 • 5:30 p.m. 
$11 per dinner. Menu to be determined. It’s Old Bryan Inn – how can you go wrong! Dinner is served at 5:30. Please sign up, seating is limited. Dine-in only! 

Simply Food by Maura 
Monday, December 13 To Go dinner only. $11 per dinner.
Tuesday, January 25. Turkey Dinner. 3:30-5:30 p.m., curbside pickup. 
To go dinners sponsored by Humana.

Light Fare and Live Classical Music Performance with The C/Dee Ensemble. 
Friday, January 28 • 2 p.m.
Music at 2 p.m. Light fare at 3 p.m. $5. Please sign up, seating is limited. Featuring Melanie Chirignan and Michael Dee. They will be performing popular classical works by Geroges Bizet, Camille Saint-Saens, Felix Mendelssohn, Mozart, Telemann, and Beethoven for flute and clarinet. Melanie is a flautist known for her musicality and versatility of repertoire. She has performed with: New York Chamber Players Orchestra, Albany Pro Music, and many more. Las Vegas born clarinetist, Michael is a versatile soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician. 

Save the Date! Beatles Tribute and Trivia 
Tuesday, February 8 • 3 p.m.
Live music with Jeff Brisbin. $5. Light fare served! Please sign up, seating is limited.

Conversational Spanish 
Fridays • 10:15-11 a.m
Hola! Speaking in Spanish is now being offered at the center! Come and join Mark and Robert for this fun and exciting class. Come to practice, learn or just converse in Spanish. All levels welcome!   

TIE DYE FUN! 
Thursday, January 20 • 1-3 p.m.
Facilitated by Meryl, artist and instructor. $5.00 material fee. Please sign up! Please bring your own t-shirt, blouse, shorts, etc., preferably 100% cotton white or light color, must be pre-washed. If accessible, check out some YouTube videos on tie dye to get ideas. All other supplies provided by Senior Center.   

Tech Fair with TRIMEDX
Thursday, January 27 • 2-4 p.m.
Did you get a new gadget for Christmas? The employees of TRIMEDX will be here to help you with ANY & ALL questions regarding technology! How to use: E-mail, cell phones, IPADS, Laptops, Kindles and more! Have you always wanted to try ZOOM, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify for music or order groceries for delivery? Here is your chance to learn. 

TAROT CARD READINGS 
Last Thursday of the month.
January date: Thursday, January 27 • 10-2 p.m. 
Facilitated by Mary Shimp. $5 donation. Do you have some unanswered questions about your life? A tarot card reading provides guidance to gain an insight into what the future holds. Call to make a 15-minute appointment.

ACADEMY FOR LIFELONG LEARNING
The Academy for Lifelong Learning will be holding select classes at the Center. Senior Center members may enroll in the classes at the Center only for just the class fee. See Front Desk for sign up instructions; registration is by mail. Classes are limited. Classes held at the Saratoga Senior Center are:

• Introduction to Classical Music: Tuesdays • 1 – 2:30 p.m.
5 weeks beginning Jan 25. Facilitated by Patricia Brady. Come and learn more about classical music, or catch the classical music bug. Media such as slides, videos, and recordings will be used to listen to compositions from Strauss to Stravinsky. There is no preparation. Just come with your ears open and your souls ready to be touched.

• Journal Writing: A Path to Understanding & Healing: Wednesdays • 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
5 weeks beginning Jan 26. Facilitated by Patricia A. Nugent. Journaling is an effective and therapeutic tool for better understanding ourselves and others, managing daily stress and anxiety, improving overall health, healing old wounds, and finding answers within. This class will review best practices in the art of journaling, as well as offer opportunities and reasons to “go deeper.” Both long-time journal-keepers and beginners will benefit. Bring paper and a writing instrument to first class but do not purchase a journal…yet.

• The Six Wives of Henry VIII Broadway Musical: Thursdays 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
5 weeks beginning Jan 27. Facilitated by Kathy Welch. In the style of the hit show “Hamilton,” a new Broadway musical called “Six” examines the lives of the wives of King Henry VIII. The musical, sung in the style of a pop concert competition between the wives, gives us an idea of their ultimate fates: “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.”

TRIPS & EXCURSIONS! 

VAN TRIPS – Saratoga Auto Museum 
Friday, January 21
A gem right in our own backyard, Saratoga Automobile Museum is located within the Saratoga State Park. Enjoy a guided tour of beautiful, vintage cars, vehicles, photos, and history of autos in NY. Current exhibit is : Considered to be one of the few complete collections of Porsche 911 RSs in the world, the Saratoga Automobile Museum is proud to announce Rennsport: The Complete Collection (RS) – featuring vehicles from the Steven Harris collection. Lunch at Old Bryan Inn. Pay $15 at sign up. Bring money for lunch. Leave the Center at 10 a.m. 

ONE DAY BUS TRIP – NEW YORK CITY
Wednesday, April 6, 2022. Sponsored by Humana. Details coming. 

Netherlands, Belgium & France 
June 11-22, 2022 with Optional 3-Night London Post Tour Extension.

Western Canada’s Rockies, Lakes, Wine Country
July 30-August 7, 2022 

California Dreamin’ featuring Monterey, Yosemite & Napa
September 19-26, 2022 

Tropical Costa Rica
November 2-10, 2022 with Optional 3-Night Jungle Adventure Post Tour Extension 

America’s Music Cities Holiday
December 4-11, 2022

TRAVEL SLIDE SHOW with Collette Travel 
January 19 • 1 p.m.
Presenting informational slide shows on: 
• Western Canada’s Rockies, Lakes & Wine Country: July 30-August 7, 2022 
• California Dreamin’ feat Monterey, Yosemite & Napa: September 19-26, 2022 
• America’s Music Cities Holiday: December 4-11, 2022

If you have a headache, you’re not alone. Nine out of ten Americans suffer from headaches. 

Some are occasional, some frequent, some are dull and throbbing, and some cause debilitating pain and nausea. What do you do when you suffer from a pounding headache? Do you grit your teeth and carry on? Lie down? Pop a pill and hope the pain goes away? There is a better alternative.

Research shows that spinal manipulation – one of the primary treatments provided by Doctors of Chiropractic – may be an effective treatment option for tension headaches and headaches that originate in the neck. A 2014 report in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics (JMPT) found that chiropractic care improved outcomes for the treatment of acute and chronic neck pain and increased benefit was shown in several instances where a multimodal approach to neck pain had been used.

Headache Triggers

Headaches have many causes, or “triggers.” These may include  foods, environmental stimuli (noises, lights, stress, etc.) and/or behaviors (insomnia, excessive exercise, blood sugar changes, etc.) Ninety-five percent of headaches are primary headaches, such as tension, migraine, or cluster headaches. These types of headaches are not caused by disease; the headache itself is the primary concern.

The greatest majority of primary headaches are associated with muscle tension in the neck. Today, Americans engage in more sedentary activities than in the past, and more hours are spent in one fixed position or posture (such as sitting in front of a computer). This can increase joint irritation and muscle tension in the neck, upper back, and scalp, causing your head to ache.

What Can You Do?

The American Chiropractic Association (ACA) offers the following suggestions to prevent headaches:

•  If you spend a large amount of time in one fixed position, such as in front of a computer, on a sewing machine, typing or reading, take a break and stretch every 30 minutes to one hour. The stretches should take your head and neck through a comfortable range of motion.
• Low-impact exercise may help relieve the pain associated with primary headaches. However, if you are prone to dull, throbbing headaches, avoid heavy exercise. Engage in such activities as walking and low-impact aerobics.
• Avoid teeth clenching. The upper teeth should never touch the lowers, except when swallowing. This results in stress at the temporomandibular joints (TMJ) – the two joints that connect your jaw to your skull – leading to TMJ irritation and a form of tension headaches.
• Drink at least eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day to help avoid dehydration, which can lead to headaches.

What Can a Doctor of Chiropractic Do?

Your Doctor of Chiropractic may do one or more of the following if you suffer from a primary headache:

• Perform spinal manipulation or chiropractic adjustments to improve spinal function and alleviate the stress on your system.
• Provide nutritional advice, recommending a change in diet and perhaps the addition of B complex vitamins.
• Offer advice on posture, ergonomics (work postures), exercises, and relaxation techniques. This advice should help to relieve the recurring joint irritation and tension in the muscles of the neck and upper back.

Doctors of Chiropractic undergo extensive training to help their patients in many ways beyond just treatment for low back pain. They know how tension in the spine relates to problems in other parts of the body, and they can take steps to relieve those problems.

Dr. Matt Smith has been a Chiropractor in Saratoga Springs for 35 years. He and his daughter Dr. Kevy Smith Minogue can be reached at 518-587-2064 or at www.MySaratogaChiropractor.com

We have a lot of laundry in our house.

There are school and play clothes, underwear and socks, towels and washcloths. (I should note that we are constantly looking for socks, yelling that we have no socks, and arguing about who took whose socks.)

There are work clothes that generally needed to be treated more carefully.

There’s sports laundry: items needed for practices, and different items needed for games and matches, which also change based on whether the game or match is home or away. 

Seasonal clothes: bathing suits and beach towels that need to be washed in the summer; snow clothes that have to be washed or at least dried on a nearly daily basis in the winter.

Masks: we have about a thousand of them, though it seems that only ten or so can be found at any one time. We have small ones for small faces and big ones for big faces; it’s not a guarantee that the ten that can be found are the right mix of small and big.

We have clothes that started out clean but have “somehow” ended up on the floor. We have clothes that were neatly folded and sorted in a laundry basket or in piles on the couch and I look away for a minute or I have to do something else for a minute, or, I do admit, sometimes for a day or two, and “someone” ends up jumping on the piles, dumping out the basket, or throwing items around the room (why do toddlers/preschoolers like to do this?); the formerly clean items then get walked on or kicked under the couch or, as once happened, are found hanging from the curtain rod, and since I can’t always distinguish the clothes on the floor that were dirty from the clothes on the floor that were just cleaned, they all have to go in the wash.

Every night, I ask the boys to gather up whatever clothes they want washed for the next day so I can run at least one load. I often have to put in a second load to make sure everyone has what they need. I usually have to run the dryer at least twice per load, because there are usually some damp things after one cycle. 

I do it at night because it’s often the case that people want things washed that they’ve worn to their practice that doesn’t get out until 8:15, for example. Also, because getting the laundry process going makes me tired, so it’s not until the eleventh hour that I find the will to deal with everyone yelling about how they don’t want to get up to find their laundry at that minute (no one ever wants to get up to get their laundry, but everyone always wants things washed for the next day). I often put the first load of laundry in as late as 10:00; if I have to run another, it goes in at 11:30; sometimes I run out of time to finish the dryer so I run it first thing in the morning before school.

People have offered to help me with laundry. My mom is always telling me she’d be happy to do some if I wanted to bring it to her house. My husband often runs a load of the boys’ things and/or puts away what’s in the dryer or what’s been sitting in a pile on the couch, and he’s always done his own as well, which cuts down on what I have to do. My biggest boy really wants me to let him do his own laundry (I know I have to let this happen, and soon). 

But the thing is, I’m one of those people who, if I don’t touch every single piece that goes through the laundry, I have no idea where anything is, and since everyone’s always asking me where things are, I need to know where things are. I’m also one of those people who loses my steam to get a job done if I’m faced with any kind of obstacle-if I’ve summoned the mental and physical strength to do the laundry and I find that someone’s already using the washer machine, there’s a good chance I’ll fizzle. My husband has gotten pretty good at anticipating when I won’t freak out that he needs to use the washer, but that is a learned skill that took years of marriage-I know for sure that my son would not have the same awareness. “Set a laundry schedule!” some of you are surely thinking, and that would be my thought, too, if I wasn’t dealing with someone (me) who is a slave to infrequent bursts of energy-I find it nearly impossible to get a task done if I’m not in the right frame of mind, and my “right frames of mind” often refuse to conform to a schedule.

I am my own worst enemy. But also, on the whole, I don’t really mind doing the laundry. In our house that is rarely tidy and orderly, there’s something satisfying and even soothing about taking a nice, warm, clean load of laundry out of the dryer. I get a great measure of satisfaction out of sorting, folding, and putting away all the clothes where they go-this step is the one that gets dropped most often (people are often scrounging through a dryerful of clothes to find what they need because I haven’t gotten to dealing with it yet), but it doesn’t get dropped as often as so many of the other tasks I wish I would do more often, because I like doing it. I like having my process, I like being able to do it when and how I like without anyone getting in my way, I like knowing where people’s things are when they ask, and I like making sure my kids have clean clothes. As with so many things, blessings and burdens go hand in hand.

Kate and her husband have seven sons ages 17, 15, 13, 11, 10, 7, and 3. Email her at kmtowne23@gmail.com.