Did you ever have one of those days?

One of those days when nothing seems to go right, and you wonder what you accomplished when you fall into bed, exhausted, at the end of that seemingly endless day.

Today was shaping up to be one of those days. I woke, discouraged, because my house was a mess and I was starting today with yesterday's work. (It really pays to be organized and to go to bed with a clean house, especially a tidy kitchen. Mine was a disaster. I got home late with a week's worth of groceries, which we put away, but the dishwasher was full and hadn't been run, so we did not do the supper dishes. The animals and little people had tracked in mud, so the white floor was a curious shade of gray, with interesting patterns. Not a pretty sight.)

One of the first things I did today was to put on a load of laundry. The kids had informed me that there was a problem with the washing machine, but I didn't want to believe it.

I got the kids going on their jobs, after having a talk with them. They simply hadn't obeyed the rules yesterday. Sigh.

Someone came running. "Mom, the washer is beeping and there is an error message."
I went and investigated. F 02. Looked up the owner's manual on the internet, which took forever because we have an unbelievably slow connection. I wouldn't know that except that I work part-time at Carey Outreach Ministries, which is blessed to have high-speed. That brought me "up a notch" in my expectation of how internet should work, so I am impatient as I sit and wait for the 76 pages (in English, Spanish and French) to take their interminably long time to download.

FINALLY, I discover that there is a drain problem. Well, duh. I knew that, because the machine went through the entire cycle, but would not spin, and drained very slowly.

Daniel took the hose off. Yuccky smelling gray stuff came out. He, blessed child, knows how to use the air compressor, so he cleaned out the hose. Put it back on. Same error message.

Took it off again. I reached up inside where the hose connects, and was able to pull out gelly-like gray matter. Ugh. Maybe that will do it. Put the machine back on, waited for the thing to drain. Same old, same old.

So, what to do. I did a search on the internet (slow connection, remember....it took forever) and found the phone number for the store where I bought the machine. Talked to John, the guy who sold it to me. He suggested taking the back off of the machine and cleaning out the pump.

Ok. So, we did that. But, after removing some 12 or 14 screws, we discovered there was no way to access the water pump from the back of the machine. There was a panel in the front of the machine, at the bottom, that had three screws. Maybe that would work.

So, we took the panel off, and lo and behold, found an unscrewable thingamajig. Unscrewed it, and water and junk came pouring out onto the floor (note to self: next time, have a container handy). Daniel pulled the thingamajig away, and found it was completely clogged with hair, labels, nails, a screw, and numerous other small objects. One wonders how that got into that area of the machine. But hey, we cleaned it, put the whole thing back together, and presto! My machine is working. No more clogged drain. A much cleaner receptacle for the soap and other additives.

It is now 4:29 pm, and if my dh were to phone and ask me what I accomplished today, I would have to say, "I did one load of laundry." That is the truth, sort of.

But when I think about it, we accomplished so much more. We tackled a problem and worked a solution. We kept at it until we reached our goal. We saved money by not having to call in a repairman. The leaky water had to be cleaned up, so we got the floor clean, and while Daniel and I were concentrating on all of that, the rest of the family did their chores, scrubbed the living room and kitchen floor, and played with three of my grandchildren.

I guess one of those days wasn't so bad, after all.

The steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord.