Yes, washers really do eat socks!

So today didn't turn out exactly how I had planned. I knew it was going to be a busy day. Abbie and I had our weekly "girls day out" trip to the grocery store; I had oodles of loads of laundry, Michael had homework, and I wanted to do some more organizing when Michael was around to tend to children emergencies. Things started out great. We were up early, and I started the first load of laundry. Halfway through the load, the washer stopped and was making a bad noise. Fearing the worst and after talking to our chief repairman (thanks again Dad), we started to drain the washer by hand. I bailed out the machine pitcher full at time with Michael running bucket brigade to Abbie who stood at the kitchen sink dumping all the water down the drain.

Michael then jumped right into the repair. In no time, he had screws out, parts off, and hoses detached. We determined that we needed an extra set of hands so we recruited Grandpa (isn't he just great!), and after taking the skin off the washer, they found the broken part and a sock, yes you read it correctly a sock in the pump! So yes, all you laundresses out there, washers really do eat socks. I do not recommend encouraging your appliances to do this because apparently the sock got stuck in some part which was causing all of our trauma. After a trip to the parts store and several more hours trying to get everything back in place, I now once again have a working washing machine. Although it was definitely financially less painful, judging from the number of loud and strange noises coming from the laundry room during the repair, I am not completely convinced that the cost in pain and suffering was not astronomical :-). While we didnt' get everything accomplished that I wanted to do today, we did make it to the grocery store (and we even got our free Thanksgiving turkey! yeah for coupons!), and we are able to do laundry even if I am about 12 hours and still three loads behind.

On a side note, while I was bailing out the washing machine and standing in huge puddles of water I was thinking what a great blog post this experience would make, and my stress levels dropped dramatically. Blog therapy can be very relaxing in a crisis.

After all is said and done, my advice is to keep track of those socks!