Twenty years old. This washer&dryer.
They’ve seen a few loads of laundry between then and now. They’ve churned away at a lot of dirt and grease from my farmer man’s jeans, cycled who-knows-how-many-times and fluffed a lot of loads to dryness.
Blankets. Sheets. Dear, dear baby laundry. Load after load of everyday laundry. Laundry from sickie days. Summer loads of swimsuits and beach towels. Loads and loads and loads of bath towels over the years.
We bought this set, brand new, a month or so before our wedding. Two teenagers getting ready to “tie the knot”. Two teenagers on the verge of housekeeping. Two teenagers who would need clean laundry.
We spent the day shopping for a washer and dryer, weighing pros and cons. New or used? The best brand? Any stand-apart features? And we certainly didn’t have Google or Siri to help us out and quickly bring up the best models and brands. 😉
We settled on this set. Brand new. Not inexpensive but not overly expensive.
We set up housekeeping with our new washer&dryer, a lot of love, hopes and dreams, a passel of nice wedding gifts and not much else.
We owned that washer&dryer, a gray Chevy Blazer and a tan Chevy pickup. The beginnings of our farming operation could be found in the John Deere 4640 we were buying. This 4640 started out with my man in his farming career and I’ve told him he’s never allowed to sell it. Looking back now, my nostalgic self says, we shoulda left from our wedding on it, though that would have been quite a feat since it resided in Kansas and we got married in Ohio.
Other than that washer&dryer, we didn’t own much in the way of home furnishings. We had a nice microwave that we’d been gifted. We had my old dresser and a bookshelf cupboard Matthew’s brother built in woodworking class.
We had a pretty, Amish-crafted kitchen table and two chairs that my parents had given us as a wedding present.
Our rental house came equipped with a stove and a bed and one ugly, ugly chair in the corner of the living room that I promptly covered up with a sunflower throw we’d been gifted. We used a very old, avocado green refrigerator that had belonged to Matthew’s parents to keep our food cold and it did the trick.
We settled the washer&dryer into their new first home…and ours as well! The washer went in the smallish, darkish basement of our cozy rental house and the dryer settled into its space in the back room at the top of the stairs. I didn’t love the washer in the basement and the dryer not right beside it, but we were young and it really didn’t matter and there we were in our first home-to-us for $125 a month rent.
I hung bright-colored curtains in a vegetable print at my kitchen windows and sewed up a cover for my mixer out of the same fabric. I put a few Longaberger baskets on my kitchen counters and filled them right up with my wooden spoons and spatulas. I placed my watermelon shaped salt and pepper shakers on top of the microwave, {the ones my new husband would bang on with a table knife, only attempting to get the caked up salt to come out, when instead the said shaker would break under the sharp raps it received} 🙂 🙂 {too funny} and had terrible fun deciding where the Tupperware should go and the cans of food and the pottery dinner plates, with the green ring around the edge.
A year-and-a-half found us moving our household and our washer&dryer to a house of our own. A very old house, a very cold house, but ours nonetheless.
This time they got the privilege of residing side by side in the backroom of the cold, old house. It was rather nice to have them in the same room.
We’d acquired a couch and recliner and they moved to our house, leaving the ugly, ugly chair by its lonesome again. We’d been using the bed that was in our rental house, so now here we were with a house, but no bed. A foam mattress on the floor can work just fine for a time. So there you go. That’s what we did. {it’s the story to tell our posterity that’s equivalent to the whole “When-I-was-young-I-walked-five-miles-to-school-uphill-both-ways!!!}
Close to fourteen years later, we found ourselves moving that washer&dryer once again. They crossed the field to settle into our home of now. Once again the washer&dryer got to settle in side by side. Another back room. This one, square, instead of long and narrow, a whole lot warmer and a good dash of handier as well. 🙂
If our washer&dryer could talk, I wonder how they’d tell the tale? Since they can’t, I’ll finish it myself and here’s a bit of what I see.
Twenty years. Three houses. A lot of fun. A lot of laughter. Good memories.
We own some furniture. We own a few beds. We still use some of the nice wedding gifts we were blessed with. We still have our pretty kitchen table, though it has some wear and tear to it. The sunflower throw is gone. Along with the avocado green fridge. The Blazer’s long been gone, but John Deere 4640 can still be found on the farm. Pickups have come and gone. We have a different microwave. And a lot of the laundry cycling through the washer&dryer has had its season.
NOT EVERYTHING IS MADE TO LAST. MOST THINGS DON’T LAST FOREVER.
Marriage, though? It’s made to last. Till death do us part. Among all the daily living and working and ugly chairs and changing furniture or appliances, in seedtime and harvest, summer and winter, for better or worse, uphill and down, we’re together in this gift of marriage.
And, Yep, we still have that washer&dryer set we bought as teenagers. So far they’re lasting right well.
They’ve been worked on some. They’ve had some squeaks and squeals and parts that quit working. But with some love and care and attention, my mechanic man had them running again.
That’s not so different from a good marriage, really. We run into bumps and hard places. Dark days. Discouraging times. Opportunities that don’t happen. Dreams that get laid down. Things that cause squeals. Words we can’t take back. Hurt feelings and misunderstanding. BUT, with some love and care and attention, thrown together with smiles and hugs and compassion, smothered in commitment, misunderstandings are mended and a marriage grows closer, stronger, better.
Because twenty years ago, there we were. A couple of kids. In love most days, 😉 chasing a farming dream, without much clue about a lot of things in life.
I’d do it all again. Oh, I’d like to cut out some of the grumpy days and parts and do a whole lot better on showing patience and kindness and compassion and living out how much I really do care about that man of mine. Thing is I’d really like to do better today than I do, even with all the lessons from the past days and my mess-ups.
But I’m not going to get all wrangled up in guilt. Not today. Yep. I’ve failed. Way too much. But guess what? I’ve grown too. I do do better. I do have days when I let things go and I realize it doesn’t matter in the big picture or I recognize that I can offer some grace just like I need offered.
And I do better at remembering that my God is very in to this redeeming and refining business and I run to Him a lot more readily.
Marriage is HIS idea and HIS plan and He loves good marriages and I think He’s celebrating every bit of these twenty years as much or more than we are.
Twenty years.
Unbelievable.
Yet, I’m doing all the fist bumps and arm pumps and cartwheels and whoops and whistles, hurrahs and sidekicks.
{hypothetically in my head}
Because I’m so excited about twenty!!!
TWENTY YEARS. Twenty years, babe. Twenty years, my love.
Not everyone is given this gift. Not all marriages get to celebrate twenty years. Some people get a lifetime together, some only a few years.
I hope and pray for twenty, thirty, forty more.
And I wonder………………….will the washer&dryer make it that many more too? 😉 Because maybe instead of saying we go together like peas&carrots or cookies&milk, I’ll say we go together like a good washer&dryer set! 🙂
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Alisa Nicaud says
Congratulations on 20 Years!! My hubby and I just celebrated 20 years a few weeks ago. What a feat that is! Praying you have many more. Thanks for linking up at Salt & Light today!
deborah says
Oh hooray! Thank-you and congratulations to you guys and many more as well!! I’m so happy to get to celebrate twenty.
Christa sterken says
Oh jeesh, your post totally made me tear up, it is so lovely! These kinds of heartfelt stories, woven into life lessons, just move me. Congrats on the marriage, and thanks for sharing 🙂
Christa sterken recently posted…One Thousand Words: A Love Letter To Myself
deborah says
Thank-you for your sweet words! Blessings on your week.