I sometimes get crazy ideas.
Like when I wanted to become a professional cupcake baker. I started experimenting with recipes. I made Andy’s office into my unofficial cupcake tasting laboratory. I consulted with a coach for entrepreneurs. I did one day at the farmer’s market and realized that I did not enjoy baking in mass quantity. But I still make some pretty delicious cupcakes.
Or that week when I considered going back to school to be a graphic designer. Good design makes me drool. It would be so fascinating. I didn’t go to art school the first time around, maybe now is the right time… right? Having a couple kids and a mortgage is the PERFECT time to go back to art school. Excellent idea.
And that weekend when I was absolutely certain that I should buy a laundromat and start a nonprofit to offer a clean, well functioning, affordable place for people in need to do laundry. And people could get a cup of coffee and hang out with positive people who love Jesus while they waited for their clothes to dry. Maybe two nights a week you could come and do free laundry for a couple of hours. There could be those big water-cooler jars all over town for people to donate quarters. IT WOULD BE AWESOME. Because doing laundry sucks anyways, but hauling your laundry to the nasty laundromat where you spend half of your paycheck to just have clean clothes is… the worst.
I am smack dab right in the middle of this one. I’m pretty sure I didn’t actually think it up by myself. I read a blog post. NPR wrote about it. Laundry Love is doing it. My friend Lauren also had the same idea. Friends, I am stirred up. I live in a comfortable little suburb in Iowa where the lawns are green and manicured and the SUVs are gigantic. But within a mile of the wealthiest developments in town, there is real poverty. My world has been pretty insulated and I think I haven’t seen what my friend calls the “hidden poverty”. Just because a property is nicely landscaped, doesn’t mean that there aren’t people struggling to put food on the table inside. There are families who could use more hope. What if the daunting task of doing laundry could be better? What if it could be a positive experience? What if it didn’t burden your family financially? What if you made friends that would give you some encouragement?
But maybe I could really do it. Like… for real. I told Andy yesterday morning while I was drying my hair that I wanted to buy a laundromat. People… he did not give me crazy eyes. He did not laugh. He asked real questions. He did not say no. Maybe he has built immunity to my crazy ideas. He is totally unaffected by my sensationalist tactics. For a shameless attention seeker who kind of loves drama, it’s basically torture. There is nothing worse than wanting to drop an information bomb on someone so they can enter into the chaos that is my thought processes, and being met with stone-faced silence. Maybe his strategy is to just hang in there until it blows over. But he didn’t say no.
We will see what God has planned. Now I’m praying, asking questions, listening, researching, and talking about it a lot. #sorrynotsorry
Like when I wanted to become a professional cupcake baker. I started experimenting with recipes. I made Andy’s office into my unofficial cupcake tasting laboratory. I consulted with a coach for entrepreneurs. I did one day at the farmer’s market and realized that I did not enjoy baking in mass quantity. But I still make some pretty delicious cupcakes.
Or that week when I considered going back to school to be a graphic designer. Good design makes me drool. It would be so fascinating. I didn’t go to art school the first time around, maybe now is the right time… right? Having a couple kids and a mortgage is the PERFECT time to go back to art school. Excellent idea.
And that weekend when I was absolutely certain that I should buy a laundromat and start a nonprofit to offer a clean, well functioning, affordable place for people in need to do laundry. And people could get a cup of coffee and hang out with positive people who love Jesus while they waited for their clothes to dry. Maybe two nights a week you could come and do free laundry for a couple of hours. There could be those big water-cooler jars all over town for people to donate quarters. IT WOULD BE AWESOME. Because doing laundry sucks anyways, but hauling your laundry to the nasty laundromat where you spend half of your paycheck to just have clean clothes is… the worst.
I am smack dab right in the middle of this one. I’m pretty sure I didn’t actually think it up by myself. I read a blog post. NPR wrote about it. Laundry Love is doing it. My friend Lauren also had the same idea. Friends, I am stirred up. I live in a comfortable little suburb in Iowa where the lawns are green and manicured and the SUVs are gigantic. But within a mile of the wealthiest developments in town, there is real poverty. My world has been pretty insulated and I think I haven’t seen what my friend calls the “hidden poverty”. Just because a property is nicely landscaped, doesn’t mean that there aren’t people struggling to put food on the table inside. There are families who could use more hope. What if the daunting task of doing laundry could be better? What if it could be a positive experience? What if it didn’t burden your family financially? What if you made friends that would give you some encouragement?
But maybe I could really do it. Like… for real. I told Andy yesterday morning while I was drying my hair that I wanted to buy a laundromat. People… he did not give me crazy eyes. He did not laugh. He asked real questions. He did not say no. Maybe he has built immunity to my crazy ideas. He is totally unaffected by my sensationalist tactics. For a shameless attention seeker who kind of loves drama, it’s basically torture. There is nothing worse than wanting to drop an information bomb on someone so they can enter into the chaos that is my thought processes, and being met with stone-faced silence. Maybe his strategy is to just hang in there until it blows over. But he didn’t say no.
We will see what God has planned. Now I’m praying, asking questions, listening, researching, and talking about it a lot. #sorrynotsorry
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