Today’s guest post is from the author of 31 Days to a Younger You, Arlene Pellicane.  Her new book 31 Days to a Happy Husband comes out this summer. Arlene has three children, Ethan(7), Noelle(5) , and Lucy(2) and one happy husband named James.

I had to laugh at something that happened today while doing laundry. I was checking my 5-year-old’s pockets and I felt something. I pulled out 5 raffle tickets from Noelle’s pants and laughed out loud.

You see, these were the exact same raffle tickets that had been sitting on the dryer for weeks. I had finally tried to get them to the right place only to find them right back where they started!

Let me explain. My kids Ethan and Noelle collect these tickets at church and then once a month, they use the tickets to buy prizes. Ethan had left his tickets in his pockets weeks ago. In an act of kindness, instead of throwing them away, I put them aside to give to him later.

You know how this goes. I kept forgetting to give them to Ethan. Those tickets sitting on that dryer kept bugging me. I wanted to throw them away numerous times but the thought of Ethan shopping at the store kept me from tossing them.

Finally, I gave the tickets to Ethan (age 7) and told him to put them away. That evening, to my chagrin, I found the tickets downstairs on a chair after he had already gone to bed. The next morning, I showed him the tickets.

“Oh rats,” he said. “I forgot.”

Ceremoniously I gave the tickets to his little sister Noelle. “Since you forgot to put them away, I’m going to give them to Noelle.”

Noelle shoved them in the pocket of her pants.

Her pants went in the hamper. And now I am holding the tickets again. In the laundry room. On the dryer. Again.

I think I will just throw those crazy tickets away!

Do you ever feel like you are going around in circles? That you are moving quickly around the house but you aren’t quite sure what is actually getting – and staying – done?

Take heart! Find the humor in those “reappearing tickets.” Someday, the halls of your home and the pant pockets in the laundry will be empty. You and I may actually miss this feeling of running around and some days getting nowhere!

Have you had an experience like my tickets lately?