I don’t know why laundry is my biggest hurdle when it comes to housework, but it is. Floors are a distant second, but it’s not even close. Laundry is my achilles heel. It’s not that I don’t do it. I do. Constantly. But doing the laundry isn’t enough. It has to be sorted, washed, dried, folded, and put away.
Part of the problem is that my washer and dryer are located on the second floor. While this certainly means that I don’t have to carry laundry from one floor to another, it also means that the laundry is not located where I spend my days. I have to make a conscious decision to break away from what I’m doing to make sure that the laundry process progresses from one step to the next. I can always get it started. I just throw a load in the washer before I go downstairs and move the previous load to the dryer. The load that was in the dryer gets put in a basket or (when there’s no more room in the basket) the floor around the basket in my room. (I know that I should fold it right away, but I can’t!!! I have to get downstairs to let the dogs out before they pee on my floors again.)
So far, so good. Laundry has been started and life is good. The problem is that, a lot of the time, the dryer needs to be run a second time. (This could be because I put way too many clothes in there at a time.) Since I’m no longer upstairs, the clothes in the washer and the dryer have to sit until I find myself back upstairs and remember to restart the dryer. It’s usually the kids’ bedtime when I get back up there to pull the now dry clothes out of the dryer and transfer the clothes from the washer. As soon as this has been done, I’ll start washing another load of laundry. (I know full well that it will sit in the washer overnight, but - if I remember to restart the dryer when I go to bed - then we can start the whole process over the next morning.) Unfortunately, about 50% of the time, I don’t remember to restart the dryer before bed and everything sits until morning. (This is horribly demoralizing because it means rewashing the laundry in the washer and probably dealing with complaints from my family members that their shirts smell a little mildewy.)
This process, while fraught with snares and pitfalls, does ensure a constant supply of mostly clean clothes. What it does not do is get the clothes folded - ever. The kids are used to this system and simply come into my room to find the clothes they need in the mountain of clean clothes. The more the kids dig through the mountain in search of the shirt that they just have to wear, the more the pile spreads across my floor. When the pile reaches the door, I can take it no longer and finally declare that “today is laundry day”. The kids go off to school, I stay in my pjs, and I spend the next several hours sorting, folding, and (on good days) putting the still-mostly-clean clothes away.
Today is that day - except that I’m no longer in my pjs and it’s already 10:30 in the morning. I’ll collect my youngest from gymnastics and we’ll go home and watch tv. Nothing can make laundry day more miserable than watching Dora the Explorer while you fold clothes that are mocking you for your slovenly ways.
4 comments:
:) - Heather
In fact I read your post knowing full well I have had a load of whites in the dryer for 2 days. I occassionally add 15 minutes to the cycle which some how indemnifies me from neglect. I grab them a piece at a time to wear and eventually, the dryer will be empty and ready for another load.
I used to be a laundry "Nazi", but not so much anymore...watching paint dry catches my attention in more entertaining ways.
I feel your pain :)
Ron
Heather, this is just how I operate, and I take such comfort in knowing there is another out there like me. :) Usually I get to a point where I proclaim, "I can't live like this anymore!!" and then the many piles finally get put away, only to have the whole process start all over again. I think I have to get my act together in order to encourage my children's outfit independence; laughable as it may sound given the piles, I am too anal to let them go out in whatever mismatched concoction they might dig out, since there is no order and thereby no way to find anything that matches. So if I want them to have any sense of style, I feel at some point I must help them organize. **Sigh...* maybe next week. :)
LOL! Thanks Ron and Samantha! I spent my afternoon actually folding everything. I took a picture of the "before" and I'm going to take an after shot when it's all put away. I might be too embarrassed to post them though. ;) We'll see... Thanks again.
I must say, I am fortunate that my husband does all of our laundry, but I do the kids. However...he REFUSES to put my clothes away. So, I am constantly pulling clean clothes from the mountain of clothes on top of the dresser where he likes to stack it. I was to exhausted from traveling last night to put it all away, but it is one shirt away from falling all over the place! Though, I must admit, your process is exactly how the kids clothes are handles, so I am just as guilty! :)
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