I’m what you would call laundry-challenged. It’s amazing I have a five kids. I’m so not the domestic type. I can’t cook. I can’t seem to remember the kids’ dentist appointments. [Sadly, I just forgot another dentist appointment earlier this month.] And I can’t do laundry. Lee has quite a few pairs of pink underwear thanks to my ability to always accidentally throw one red sock or shirt in with the whites. Major fail.

I also hate HATE putting laundry away. Throwing it in to the washing machine and then the dryer is no big deal. It’s the act of folding and putting away that I loathe. It’s so repetitive. And boring. And then you have to carry it all upstairs. And shove it in to dressers. Or hang it on closet rods. It makes me shudder just thinking about it.

But I have some tricks to make that part a little easier.

First, I make the teens do their own laundry. I don’t even want to see their laundry in the laundry room. That’s just another pile of clothes I don’t need to care about. The less laundry for me to do the better.

Second, I make the younger kids put their own clothes away. I actually fold and hang up Caleb’s clothes. He’s only 6. He still needs a little help. But he carries all of his clothes to his room, put them away in his dresser, and hangs them up in his closet. For Skyler & Spencer I just pile their clothes up and make them come get them. They then fold them in their room and hang up the rest.

Third, we have a sock basket. I don’t match socks up anymore. I just throw them in the sock basket. The sock basket stays in the laundry room. So every day everybody comes downstairs to search for a pair of socks to wear. It works. I’m telling you. Go the way of the sock basket and never spend a whole Sunday matching socks again.

Fourth, Lee set up a laundry system in the laundry room. It started as his closet (which is still there on one side of the wall) and turned in to shelves and rods galore. Our towels haven’t made it to the upstairs hall closet in years. I just fold them and leave them on a shelf in the laundry room. I also have a big counter top where I fold clothes and make piles for the kids. Love it. My whole laundry system was one of the best gifts Lee ever gave me.

Since Lee’s “closet” is in the laundry room I never have to carry his clothes upstairs. And in the last year or so I’ve given up on taking my clothes upstairs too. I just leave them folded on the counter top. Or hanging from one of the rods. When the seasons change I have the kids help me carry everything upstairs and then I keep the current seasons clothes downstairs. The first thing I do every morning is come downstairs to check my cell phone (email) so I walk right by the laundry room, grab a towel, and my clothes. Then I go back upstairs to shower. It’s quite a system I have going.

But for some reason, when we got back from Disney I decided to put clothes away. I think it’s because the suitcases were upstairs so I thought I’d be nice and put the kids’ clothes away for them. And apparently I put my clothes away in my bedroom too. Mistake.

For the last several weeks I have been missing my favorite pair of jeans. I washed every. single. article of clothing we had in this house. But I still couldn’t find them. I was on the verge of accusing one of the boys of stealing my totally awesome jeans when all of a sudden I had a flashback to the day we returned from Disney. Surely I didn’t put my very favorite jeans in my dresser. It’s winter. My jeans don’t go in my dresser. Only my shorts are in the dresser.

I decided to go look…just in case. And there in my jeans drawer (that is normally completely empty all winter long) sat a lone pair of jeans. My very favorite jeans in the whole world.

So see, sometimes it doesn’t pay to put things away. Sometimes away isn’t where it’s meant to be. It’s kind of like making your bed when you’re just going to get in to again in another 12 (or 18) hours. Just throw the sheets up towards the pillow and call it a day.

Saturday night I went out to dinner with some good friends. During the meal one of them mentioned Cheese Pizza was going to be playing at a local bar later that night. I am apparently completely out of touch with all things cool because I thought cheese pizza was a really boring flavor of Italian pie. But it’s actually a fairly well known and popular band. Who knew?

I finished nibbling on my salad that was really just shredded lettuce with a couple of tomatoes and strips of grilled chicken (note to self: don’t order salad at a Mexican restaurant), we paid our bill, and headed to the bar.

There was a $10 cover charge at the door. $10. WTH?!? I know you people in the big cities are all like “what’s the big deal about a $10 cover charge. That’s cheap.” But here in the country we don’t pay $10 covers. Five bucks max, but never $10. However, I was assured that it was totally worth it.

As soon as we stepped in to the bar I wondered if that was really true. Dude. The music? It was so loud. I proclaimed, “Either I’m old or this music is really loud.” I believe the consensus was that I am really old. But seriously, do rock back have to be so damn loud. Can’t they just rock out a little bit quieter?

The warm up band played a bunch of oldies. Some Def Leppard. A little Metallica. All very loud. Did I mention it was loud?

Then finally Cheese Pizza took the stage. This is what they looked like from our vantage point.

I’m not really experienced in all things rock. When I was much younger (like junior high) I tried to get tickets to the Bon Jovi concert. But Ticketmaster sold out before my dad got home from work. Other than seeing Quiet Riot at the fair a few years back, I’ve only been to two concerts; both of them Boyz II Men. Nothing against Boyz II Men, but they aren’t exactly hardcore. So I might have tattoos (very pretty tattoos), but I’m far from a bad ass.

But here I was at a rock concert. The music was already pretty darn loud for me. Another couple years and I’ll be scowling and stomping out of places with bands playing “that ear piercing noise kids are listening to these days.” So I needed to whoop it up before I started getting arthritis and needing a cane.

I decided we needed to get closer. Be groupies. Beg for beads. Trample young girls for the slightest chance of actually touching a smelly, sweaty, cross-dressing rockstar. Every girl needs the chance to be up close and personal when a fat guy strips down to his g-string. Good stuff like that.

So I dragged my friend up to the front. Here’s a shot from the front row.

Hey, at least I was very nice about pushing people out of the way and elbowing my way to the front. I threw on a big smile and apologized to every person I stomped on. I’m such a conscientious line budger.

So now I can scratch off “become a groupie” from my bucket list.

Jessica had quite a postpartum scare this week. Thankfully she’s doing well now.

Did you know aluminum foil has a tab to lock the roll in place?

I’m not the only one having some trouble with companies not fulfilling their end of the bargain when it comes to marketing on blogs.

An 11-year-old wrote this poem? Fantastic!

Sarah has a blog pet peeve. Music. I couldn’t agree more.

Apparently that “free” soda wasn’t free after all.

Like many of us, Undomestic Diva has become a big screen TV widow.

This is both ICK! and totally funny. That poor college kid.

Kids are easily impressed.

A year or two ago I created a Facebook account so I could stalk spy keep tabs on my teens. I didn’t really think I’d use it that much. In fact I was a little overwhelmed in the beginning. I didn’t understand all those applications and groups and whatever else. So I pretty much ignored Facebook all together. I just got on about once a month to check out Keaton & Justis’ profiles to make sure they weren’t posting naked pictures or photos of themselves drinking from a beer bong at some party.

Then I started to see some fellow bloggers posting a link to their Facebook profiles on their blogs. I eagerly clicked and added them as my friend. Squee! I had friends on Facebook. I was so cool.

A few months later I came across an old high school classmate and became her friend. Then I looked at her friends and found more high school classmates. It was like a class reunion. On Facebook. In fact some of them decided to have a get together around Christmas time for a real life meet up. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it to the impromptu “reunion,” but I was starting to realize the power that Facebook has. It brings people together.

Eventually I was checking Facebook every day. And I was telling all my non-Facebook friends how cool it is. I’ve pretty much recruited all of my IRL friends to create their own profile on Facebook. I’m even working on my mom. If she’s not on before we go to BlogHer (hey, btw, I’m going to BlogHer this year…are you?) I’ll help her set up her profile then. Sometimes I talk to my best friends on Facebook more than IRL. Which is both a little sad and quite exciting.

The summer before 4th grade my dad (very cruelly) moved me 2 1/2 hours away from my best friends in the whole wide world. I remember going to the cable company to drop off our cable box on the way out of down and I just sobbed. That cable box was the last thing we had of our life with all my friends. Sure we could have written to each other, but we’re old you know. There was no such thing as Facebook, or Twitter or IM. There wasn’t even email for crying out loud. None of us even had a computer. We would have had to actually find paper and a pencil to keep in touch. *gasp* So, of course, we lost touch.

Until yesterday. Yesterday I found an old friend from elementary school. She looks exactly like I remember her so I was almost certain it was her. I sent her a message. I said, “I hope this doesn’t sound weird or stalkerish (as if that’s a word), but did you used to live in Des Moines…like 25 years ago? When I was in elementary school I lived in Des Moines and was friends with a [her name]. Is that you?”

And this morning she wrote me back and confirmed it is her. And she remembers me too. I don’t have delusions that we will now pick up where we left off, become instant BFFs, and have slumber parties in our PJs and bunny slippers. But there is just something totally rad about connecting with somebody you haven’t seen in 25 years.

So excuse me while I obsessively scour Facebook for new (old) friends. This Facebook thing rocks.