Laundry Day

Currently I have 6 baskets of clean laundry to fold, 2 more in the washer and dryer and about 3 more to do after that and these are not little loads of laundry. So little more than laundry is getting done today.

Since it seems my real life friends have really been enjoying my more down to earth posts as of late I was inspired to share another one with you, a fact I don't often share here on the blog or in real life - I am terrible at laundry.

I want to pre-empt anyone here by saying my mother taught me right, even my MIL has shared all the good tips for me when I asked her. This is truly an area of my life where I know there is a better way to do things but I still can't seem to master it. Here are 10 reasons I am lousy at laundry.

1. I don't keep up with it so it grows into big piles on my laundry floor

2. I don't sort - honestly. It all gets washed together with VERY few exceptions

3. I forget to check pockets. So crayons, chapstick, gum, you name it it's been through my washer and sometimes dryer.

4. I forget about laundry and can leave it in the washer and dryer overnight and in the winter sometimes even longer.

5. I don't iron. Period. It is not because my mom did not teach me to. She irons everything and very well, she did teach me how and make me iron when I lived with her. She even still encourages me when we are together to iron though in some things I think she knows I am a lost cause. I even had lessons again as an adult by my FIL an expert ironer and I just can't bring myself to do it - poor Serona. At least he knew it when he married me - I don't iron and that is not changing.

6. Since I don't iron I dry everything. The only exception was when we did cloth diapers I actually line dried those to preserve them longer but not clothes - it is too much for me to remember what needs to be hung up. So I have been known on occasion to shrink family members clothes. If you buy us anything 100% cotton please make sure it is two sizes too big then it should fit :)

7. I prefer to fold all at once rather than when the comes out of the dryer, even though I know it is better to fold as they come out. Since I forget about my clothes in the dryer they get wrinkled. Then I dump them in a basket to fold upstairs. Only then the basket sits because I want to fold all at once and I always seem to have clothes in the washer. Then they get more and more wrinkled and eventually we reach the point where we are digging through baskets for clean clothes.

8. I hate matching socks and therefore don't do it until I absolutely have to leading my family to go digging through big bucket of unmatched socks for a pair. So if you see my kids in unmatched socks - it is completely my fault and they probably did try their best to find something that matched.

9. I fold clothes on my bed - I know I should not every wise source tells you not to but I do - at least if I fold them there I really need to make it through otherwise I can't sleep or I have piles of clean clothes on my bedroom floor which is really not good - so I guess it is a motivator for me.

10. Last dirty little laundry secret - I don't use stain stick or stain remover or anything like that. Once it is truly stained in our home all hope is lost. I have tried in the past and simply can't do it well so I have stopped trying. So yep you will probably seem some stains on my kids favorite shirts that a better laundry mom could have gotten out.

So the long and short of it - we buy easy to maintain clothes and much of Serona's nicer work clothes now go to the dry cleaners as I have ruined one too many nice shirts! I spend at least one whole afternoon folding and folding and did I say folding. Today is that day for me so don't be looking for any creative President's Day Lesson plans. Best I can do is point you to Enchanted Learning and the White House Kids page.