Friday, January 1, 2010

Laundry: My Nemesis

Anyone who knows me knows how much I detest laundry. Detest to the point that laundry at my house is constantly in crisis mode. As in, "Mom, tomorrow I won't have any more clean underwear!" or "Darling, I looked in the dryer for clean socks and also on the guest bed and I still can't find any, can you help me?" So, here's how this works. I gather up the clothes that I know need to be washed and then I wash them. Then (if I don't forget them in the washer and then need to re-wash them) I put them in the dryer. THEN, typically, the clothes just sit in the dryer, getting wrinkled while they wait to be pulled out as needed. (This is the key reason that Ernie bought me the LG Dryer with Steam Wrinkle Release). If I'm in a hurry or doing more than one load, all the clean clothes go from the dryer to the guest bed. I mean seriously, who needs folded clothes in a drawer when you could have a Treasure Hunt every morning! So my system works fine until someone comes to visit and actually needs to sleep in that bed. So that brings us to this morning and the impending arrival of Ernie's parents. I ran to Wal-Mart to grab some extra things and when I got home here's what I saw:




Ernie had rallied the troops and was clearing all the laundry out of the guest room so that May and Big Ernie would have a place to sleep tonight.


They folded laundry while I made chili to put in the crock pot for dinner tonight. I made a separate pot of Vegan chili for May and used my newly purchased small stock pot. I LOVE the color of this pot!

So I guess the moral of the story is that if I wait long enough, Ernie will take massive amounts of pity on me (and also his parents) and fold the laundry for me while letting me doing something I enjoy.

4 comments:

amyraye said...

i used to hate laundry, too.

now i have a system that i love: i simply sort it- and my kids fold their own laundry. the only clothes i fold are mine and damon's. it's way easier for me. i also keep my youngest 3 kids' clothes in cubbies in my laundry room so it doesn't get out of control in their bedrooms. it's much easier to manage when it goes in the laundry room.
i used to have piles and piles of clean laundry in my laundry room, but since i started this system a few years ago, the laundry actually gets put away. it's life-changing. simplify as much as you can.

Rebecca said...

Amy- I really like that system, thank you for sharing! My older kids are definitely old enough to fold their own clothes, it just never occurred to me before. Why is it so hard to delegate sometimes?

Kitty Smith said...

OK, where's my comment? I commented on this the day you posted it! I have a sign still for you in vinyl lettering that I never got to give you that says "Do the Laundry...... Tomorrow". That about sums it up. Also, just get an ayi, then you don't have to worry!

Joni said...

I *know* you hate laundry, and that is why I love you! Also, I love that your family automatically *knows* to look for clean laundry either a) in the dryer or b) on the guest bed... not actually IN THEIR DRESSERS!