Friday, May 28, 2010

Careful! It's hot!

Yeah, found that out yesterday afternoon while I was ironing.

I have pretty much accepted one overwhelming fact about myself.  I'm clumsy.

If I can step in it, step on it, burn myself with it, trip over it, bump into it and so forth, there's no doubt, I'll find some way to absent-mindedly hurt myself.  There's got to be some kind of record for pulling bonehead moves in your own home.  If there is a record on the books, I've got to be close.

Yesterday, it was a face off of epic proportions...me versus the clothes that needed to be pressed.  I'm a procrastinator when it comes to ironing.  Truth be told, it's because I'm afraid of three things:  1.) Burning myself on the iron, 2.) ruining my clothes or 3.) a combination of both.  Yeah, nothing's more fun than burning yourself then scorching your shirt.  *eyeroll*

My mother is a champion ironer.  She is.  She gets a really big kick out of doing the whole, "Look!  My iron is a steam-breathing dragon..." as she hits the steam button as she points it at me.  I know, it's my mom, she's got her cute moments.  But one thing is for certain, she has some amazing gifts.  She can turn a potato into an origami, she can improvise delicious meals AND she wields one mean iron.  I think the clothes might just iron themselves rather than come up against my Mom.  Nan and I know...you get the "look" from Mom and you straighten up real fast.  The clothes know...and they're afraid...

So with the back of my laundry room door loaded down with clothes that needed to be pressed, I made a command decision...come hell or high water, it was going to get done.

Last week, I cleaned out my iron.  Las Vegas, for all of it's wonderfulness...well, it has helluh hard water.   And as anyone that has ever lived in the Texas Hill Country will tell you, hard water is a real pain and wreaks havoc on appliances.  So, I got some iron cleaner at my local Bath, Bed and Beyond and sat down to clean my iron.  It wasn't too bad actually.  Just some hard water deposits and I was amazed that someone else that had also used it besides me (he doesn't have an identity anymore, so let's just leave him alone) didn't screw the thing up to high heaven as he had done to my other household gadgets.

So with clean iron in hand, I set up my board and for about 3 hours, ironed my clothes.  Now, I'm not like Mom, she can just look at the clothes and they'll go stiff as a board.  Me?  Forget it.  I can screw up a shirt in a matter of milliseconds.  Ironing is just not my bag.  I would run over my Polo shirts and just when I thought I had it right, what happens?  The fabric bunches and I end up with a big fat crease in the middle of everything.  ARGH!  I hate ironing!  So, what happens, I have to go back and fix it and you know how hard that is to do.


After about 3 hours, dodging some scorching steam and by some miracle NOT burning my fingers to kingdom come, my clothes are in my closet, pressed and ready to go when I want to wear them.


Lucky for me, the TV had some good stuff on...I flipped back and forth from "Wanted" to "Dune".  It was a great moment for me.  It was me getting stuff done along with two of my most favorite inspirational sayings in the world...

"Arakkis was created to train the faithful." from Dune...which I paraphrase for all my friends in the Myst Universe by saying "Uru was created to train the faithful", and trust me, when you've been through the ups and downs of Uru Live, trust me, you learn faith real fast.

Then...

"What the fuck have you done lately." from "Wanted".  It's my go-to phrase when I need to kick myself in the pants and get motivated and do things I need to do.  I even printed it out in huge type on 7 individual 8.5" x 11" pieces of paper and taped it to my wall above my computer screen.  It makes me ask myself what I did during my day that was worth while and getting me closer to my goals.

What have I done lately?  I tamed the wrinkle beast!  I ironed!

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