The irony is that as I put the first load of laundry in the washer Wednesday morning, I actually gave thought to how blessed we had been to have such a large capacity washer; and I remembered with thanksgiving how John had been able to repair it more than once. 
Imagine my shock when just a few short hours later I was presented with this:

An error code.

I looked up the code online and tried to fix it myself to no avail.  I needed to wait until John could deal with it.  When he looked into it Wednesday night, he express ordered the part he thought we needed.  We had nothing to do but wait (and continue to accumulate dirty clothes).
Oddly enough, we’d already been operating without an overhead light in the laundry room, because John hadn’t been able to get the part for the fluorescent light.  Stewart had come through with one of the boys’ lamps to help illuminate the room.  It did the trick to give enough light for laundering clothes, but it wasn’t the ideal situation for John to work under.

We run a pretty tight laundry ship at our house.  Certain things on each day of the week.  It keeps the laundry moving and no one ever runs out of things.  If we know something is coming up schedule wise, we shift the schedule a bit.  It is a system that works really well… when the machines are working!
With uncertainty about how long we’d be without I decided a trip to the laundromat would be wise.  John preferred I didn’t go alone.  I preferred to not go alone.  And Stewart found himself volunteering requested to go.  He was a great help.  We used three side-by-side washers and had it all washed in 30 minutes. 

I want one of these!! 

Home to dry, and wait for John to get the part.
(It worked and we were back in business over the weekend.)