WHERE DOES ALL THIS LAUNDRY COME FROM???

These pictures were taken at Foreshore Park in Burnaby around this date last January....actually the 22nd of January but close enough. It was a day very similar to today with clear bright blue skies and yet rather chilly. The river in the background is the Mighty Fraser River. It is a working river with container boats and barges frequently travelling it. My Grandpa used to fish for sturgeon fish in this river many moons ago. He once caught a huge one...and brought it home to my aunts house and put it in the bath tub. When she got up in the morning and went in the bathroom you could hear her screams for miles...for anyone who has never seen a picture of a sturgeon, they are a very ugly almost prehistoric looking huge fish. My Grandpa died when I was 22 months old so I never really knew him. He was apparently notorious for showing up late at night to "rock the baby" who was already asleep, much to my mother's dismay. Both my Grandpa and my father's ashes are spread in this river.

Now where does all this laundry come from? I have been washing for two solid days and still there is more... Actually that could be a catchy song title "Where is all the laundry from" sung to the old song from the 60's tune "Where Have All the Flowers Gone"... Now those who know me know I love laundry....the washing and drying part. Even the stain part. I have been known to spend days removing stains and see them as challenges...no stain is going to beat me!! haha...so much so that when others who have something they can't get out, like my son's family, they bring it here for me to work on. I do not like the folding and put away part though. Maybe if I had a nice big counter to fold on it would be different but at present I do not and fold on the washer. I used to fold in the living room while watching TV in the evening...but those were in the days I had clothes baskets. I have given up on clothes baskets because as soon as I buy more, it seems Ben needs to clean out his car and of course what works better than my clothes baskets...sigh...so I do own lots of them however they are scattered throughout the basement and carport and filled with the contents of Ben's car that he never quite gets around to sorting out. So today I am determined to get the rest of this laundry done before more appears. One would think I am taking in laundry for the amount we seem to acquire around here. Of course having two little kids around daily does tend to add to the wash load....especially when one of them stays multiple nights a week and adds her clothes, towels and jammies to the mix. Ah well, it will get done...soon I hope!!

And while I am in "complaining mode"...has anyone noticed that "reduce, reuse and recycle" are a sign of the times yet at the same time the companies making stuff couldn't get more packaging if they tried? I am so darn sick of fighting with hard plastic coverings on things. Not to mention metal twist ties, tape, thread and whatever else the manufacturers can find to totally prevent us from getting the object of our desire out of the box. Take for instance straw cups for children. We went to the mall on Friday and found a really good deal on them. I love these things as they keep whatever the beverage of choice is off of my floors and carpets. My favorite ones are the Playtex ones and while at the mall we found some that were about 3.00 less than Walmart is currently charging or was when last I checked. We bought 4 of them and I just attempted to unpackage them for washing before using this week. Well, I am sure it took me all of 20 minutes to get the plastic off of them. And that hard plastic is not fun to deal with at the best of times as the edges are sharp and getting cut by it is usually inevitable. So, 20 minutes later I managed to saw, chop, pull and rip them out of the packaging and get them into the dishwasher and now I have a full bag of the refuse from the packaging...so much for the reduce, reuse etc.... so that is my gripe of the day!!! Cut down all this packaging, think of the environment...I know there is a risk of theft from stores however, doesn't anyone but me see this as a bit of overkill? Unless you enter a store armed with metal cutters, scissors and possibly pliers, this stuff is not coming home with you without going through the till first...