Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Laundry...

Everyone has it and most people I know DREAD it...if you don't dread at least one aspect of laundry, I'm pretty sure something is wrong with you, please go get checked out...

Ok, so of the many "2 dimensional" (aka online) friends I have who have wandered over to my probably relatively useless blog...the majority of them want to know my "tips" on laundry...

I didn't used to do these things, I used to be that mom who geared up every weekend with stretching exercises, hydration, and warm-ups just to climb "Mount Laundry"  I'd drag it out by the armload, dump it into a pile, and dive in...it sucked, I hated it, it took forever and then I had the even more daunting task of putting it away.  I hate putting laundry away, detest it, loathe it with the white-hot intensity of a thousand burning suns.  It would take forever to put away and I'd get so sick of it, I could have cared less if Vince's boxers ended up in Sam's dresser...she could totally wear them to school, it could be a new fashion statement!

So now that we are a family of five and the amount of laundry seems to multiply daily (I swear dirty clothes somehow mate and reproduce while in the hamper) I HAD to figure out a way to make it easier on myself.  The separating is a given...so I don't need to go there, especially since it's counter-productive to my whole "time saving" thing...

1. FOLDING...I fold EVERY load as it's coming out of the dryer, no more dragging piles out of the laundry room.  Nary a bit of clothing leaves my laundry room unfolded (try using the word "nary" in conversation today...)

2. SOCKS...I hate the damn things, I never wear them myself but for whatever reason my family does, therefore some poor sucker has to wash and fold them.  Since I fold each load as it comes out of the dryer, folding socks has become much easier...their "mate" was already in the wash with them.  So the socks get folded last and DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT get thrown in a basket to be "folded later" while you're watching Grey's Anatomy on DVR.  Remember, NOTHING leaves the room unfolded!  A girlfriend puts her family's socks into a lingerie bag so they get washed and dried together, making it much easier when it comes time to fold...I may try that, especially since I still have so many little socks to deal with.

3. PUTTING AWAY....again, it happens IMMEDIATELY upon departure from the laundry room.  For hanging clothes, I keep a stockpile of hangers in my laundry room.  Things that need to be hung are put on hangers right away, no need to fold them only to unfold them and hang them upon getting them to their destination.

4. CHILD LABOR....one thing I love about kids is that they get older...as they get older, they become useful :)  My oldest is 7 and PUTS HER OWN LAUNDRY AWAY.  You read that right people, I only fold her clothes, she is fully responsible for putting them away.  My son isn't that great at it yet, but if I hand him one stack at a time (ie: shirts, then jammies) they make it into the right drawer relatively unscathed and semi-folded.  This is a HUGE time saver for me, of my 3 kids I really only have to put laundry away for 1 of them!

Now, again you may be thinking "duh, does she think I'm stupid?"  Why does she keep posting these "tips" as if I didn't already know them...But seriously this saves me SO MUCH TIME I can't even believe it.  An entire load of laundry takes me 15 minutes, from folding to putting away.  It used to take me 2-3 hours on a Sunday to rotate everything from washer to dryer to folding to putting away.  15 minutes a day vs. 3 hours in one day?  You do the math...and the laundry... :)

4 comments:

  1. great points and I do the same thing...it took me forever but not anymore...I have my 10 year old son and 7 year daughter helping too. They fold the socks and towels

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  2. Watching a trashy shoe is my reward for folding the laundry. I force myself to get it all done on Mondays while Grace is at school. The only things that don't get put away are Cory's clothes, he has to try to find room. Despite the fact that you only see him in Hawaiian shirts, he has LOTS of other clothes. That is what I've been working on, but the 'pack rat' that he is doesn't let me get rid of anything. Do you see why I want to move, maybe the movers will lose one of the boxes! ;)

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  3. I do the same things (in theory), although I notice it gets messed up when DH tries to help by unloading the dryer. He will hang up the shirts (his shirts mostly, but not the kids) and then everything else goes in a basket. Since it is usually at night, he just brings the basket to our room and plops it down. There it sits till I dump it on the bed to fold it - usually the weekend. Ugh. But when I do have those 15 minutes - I do it your way! With 6 in our house, the laundry never ends! I could do 2 loads every day and never be done.

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  4. oh Anne, you crack me up!!
    I throughly enjoyed reading this!!

    Alecia

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