Sometimes I daydream about my life as a writer. I am sitting at a clean, expansive desk, typing away on my newest laptop. I am writing crisp picture books or dense (but meaning-full) prose. I am bedecked in a cashmere wrap and probably sporting a pair of vanity glasses.

But that's not reality. This is what my writing life looks like this week: my dryer broke, so I have clothes hanging on the drying rack and dripping from every shower curtain rod. I can't hang clothes outside as we are experiencing a deluge of rain. Roads are closed and school is cancelled due to significant flooding.The boys are home and my mother-in-law is recuperating from knee replacement surgery on our couch. Needless to say, I'm not doing a lot of writing.

I certainly don't want to live out a bad counrty-western song: my dryer done broke and the river is arising! Tomorrow I will go to the laundromat and I am forever grateful that we have the means to order a new dryer. The kids will be back in school and my mother-in-law will be dancing a jig by Thanksgiving.

There's a lot of life going on right now, but its all grist for the mill. Someday it will filter down into my creative work. And for all you writers out there: I've discovered that the laundromat is a great place to get some writing done! (Thank goodness, because a lot of life is doing laundry!)