lint

so i thought our dryer was done for.
kaput.
i'd need a new one.

not good news for this time of year for me.

noah had checked one area for lint, thinking maybe
it was overheating and stopping. it seemed fine.

then purely by luck (???) i was sittin' on my
back porch goofin' off and i looked over at the dryer
vent.

hey........
hey............
hey....................

that's a lotta lint there.

and so the lint saga began.
i went right over to that vent and cleaned the
lint out with a vengeance.
i put my arm up the vent as far as i could reach.
i cleaned that sucker out with great delight.

then got carried away and dug in as best i could here
and there without pulling the whole dryer apart.

with each gunk of lint, i was thrilled beyond belief!

and lo and behold the dryer worked better........
better.
but not quite right yet.

okay.
it was settled.
there was hope for this thing yet.
but we had to take the dryer apart.
the guys were great.
we all landed and the disassembly began.
i gasped a lot.
'you're gonna what???'
'do you REALLY need to take THAT off???'

'mom. you gotta get okay with taking things apart.
you gotta know it's okay.'

'well, yeah, but i watched your dad...and he wasn't
real big on putting things back together.'

they laughed.
no worries, mom.

so there it was....apart.

'remember yellow goes near the furnace' noah said to me
as he unhooked a yellow wire.

yellow. furnace.
yellow. hot.
yellow flame.
i repeated this to myself seriously.

noah turned into the teacher.

'so mom, how does this work? what's this for?'

and so began my lesson in dryers 1o1.

we found a ton more lint. stuff that would really make
a difference.

i suddenly felt so grateful we all hadn't burned alive
from a dryer fire!!!

putting it back together, i crouched behind the dryer with
noah and watched him tighten the belt back up with the coolest
little doohickey thing.

'how on earth do you know all this stuff???' i asked him.

seriously...how do THEY know how a dryer works????

and then i remembered.....they grew up with the 'living
is learning' philosophy. it really worked.

and now they're teaching me.

i'm about to go try the dryer out now......
never before has a load of laundry been so exciting.
and never before has lint thrilled me like it has thru
my dryer saga here.

there was empowerment in that lint for me......
empowerment and learning.
and a few sneezes.