Drowning in Laundry
I cannot believe how much laundry one extra person in the family generates. My laundry baskets are bulging, and I swear, I just did a load of whites yesterday! There must be little laundry gremlins who cackle and multiply exponentially.
Now, I grant you, a newborn baby tends to mess up clothes pretty quickly. I think I could have an entirely separate load of burp cloths and receiving blankets. Today my son went through three changes of clothes in the space of three hours between spitting up and leaky diapers. Yikes. But sweet heavens above, the laundry has tripled. And somehow after I finish it all, the baskets will magically be full again. I have a load of regular towels, dark towels, bleach clothes, off-white clothes, dark clothes, and delicates. Um, and yes, we really do have 6 laundry baskets. Hey, I’m married to an engineer. He believes in separate facilities for each form of laundry to save on sorting.
And now, I’m reduced to blogging about laundry. Do you see what having a newborn does to brain cells? This morning, after a night of feedings at midnight, two a.m., and 4:15 a.m. (each of which lasted an hour and I just stayed up after the last one), I was attempting to make sugar cookies for my son’s kindergarten class. I decided to just use the Pillsbury refrigerated dough that was already rolled out into sheets (could I BE any lazier??). Anyway, I was in the middle of pressing cookie cutters into the dough and was talking to my mom on the phone at the same time. The act of cutting out a cookie and holding a conversation was almost beyond me. I swear, there were moments when my mom must have wondered where my brain had departed because it was just too hard to press the cutter down and answer a question at the same time.
Tomorrow (Dec.19th) I will start tackling the loads, but I will also be hanging out at eHarlequin for their Christmas Open House. It will last all day, and almost 100 Harlequin authors will be participating. There will be book giveaways galore! I’m offering up a signed copy of Her Warrior King and it should be fun. All you do is click here or you can wander around the different Harlequin book imprints here. Come and visit me over at Harlequin Historicals! The boards will be set up, and you just post a comment or two, participate in the discussions, and the authors will be around to answer questions. If you have any burning questions about the MacEgan brothers, or the Irish Warrior books, bring them along! Free books! You can even ask me how many loads of laundry I did! (Or…not.) 
And because I will likely be operating on less than four hours of sleep while I’m there, to help me prepare for the discussion, are there any questions you have about the books? Characters? Things you’d like me to chat about? Recipes? Thanks in advance!
Michelle posted in Writing @ 10:35 pm | Viewed 2479 times
Nicole Reising Says:
Hugs Michelle on the ‘little-to-no-sleep’! My last son was my biggest sleep stealer. Four hours of sleep became the norm.
Cole
beth Says:
Your hubby cracks me up. He’d probably be appalled that I still do college laundry (i.e. one big load on cold). I imagine that’ll change soon, but for now our single basket works great.
Here’s my burning question about the books: how did your characters get over the language barriers that must’ve been present (mustn’t they?). Did the Medieval Irish speak English (or French…or Latin?) as a matter of course…or did their English or Norman brides just learn Irish as they went along? Is there a historical basis for that or is it just a “suspend your disbelief already” type of thing?
Kim A. Says:
You need help in the house! Someone you know needs to volunteer to come over and do the laundry for you. Among other things. (I’m serious here.)
I will echo Beth’s language question; it’s a good one. I hope you can post the answer in your blog, as some of us won’t be able to get on to the chat.
BTW, my copy of “Her Warrior King” arrived on Monday…Hurrah!
Sending (((hugs))) and Light (positive energy)!
-Kim
kacey Says:
Ha! Laundry. Try 5 adult male offspring home for a week at Christmas time…
(the cookies look good though! 
)
Michelle Says:
Beth–good question! Spoken language was mostly Irish, but the languages present during that time also included spoken and written forms of Latin, Hiberno-Norman French, Old Norse (Viking influence), and later English. I founds many references to language barriers between the Normans and Irish, and battles did break out due to linguistic misunderstandings. I didn’t want to put too much focus on it in HER IRISH WARRIOR, which is why I gave Genevieve a nurse who was of Irish descent and taught her the language. I also made the MacEgan brothers bi-lingual in Norman French in order to make that easier.
I did bring up the language issue in HER WARRIOR KING, because it was a big problem when blending both Norman and Irish forces. The good news is, in true history, the Normans liked the Irish so well, sources say that they became “more Irish than the Irish themselves.” They just learned Irish and the Irish learned Norman.
One source I used was http://celt.ucc.ie . It had medieval documents from my era, including the Annals of Ulster, which were some of the few historic documents available during the 12th century and earlier. They are translated from the Irish, and also there are lots of medieval documents in all of the aforementioned languages. It’s kind of fun to skim around and see what’s there.
Crystal* Says:
Bless your heart!!!
How are the little ones? And the littlest one?
I’m sure you’re house is a bit hectic.
Have a lovely holiday!!!
Grins*
Kelly Boyce Says:
I remember always being baffled by the amount of laundry my brother and sister do with having babies/little kids. Especially where I only do one load about every 10 days. I don’t know how you stay on top of it.
beth Says:
Thanks for the answer - I knew you’d have a good one! I will definitely go poke around the website you listed. Of course, I fully admit that this could have been averted if I’d had a chance to get to book 3 yet - it’s on my list!
Good luck with the chat and the laundry!