Wrinkles or Fold

I spent the better part of the day doing laundry at the Laundromat. It was very, very hot as they didn't have the AC on, despite temps in the eighties. We bundled all the laundry in our baskets and brought it home to fold (where we very sensibly have AIR CONDITIONING!)

As I sat folding a mountain of endless clothing, I wondered--WHY do we fold clothes? Why not have a basket of clean undies and a basket of clean socks and pick them out as we need? Why fold nighties? They just get wrinkled when we twist and turn in our sleep. WHY do we waste hours of our precious time FOLDING?

I can understand folding sheets and towels because they fit better on the closet shelf. But underwear and socks? What's the point? And imagine all the drawer space that would be freed up if you just keep them in a basket...

How many chores do we do needlessly because 'that's the way we've always done it'? Wrinkles in my underwear are waaaay down on my list of priorities. There are possibly two or three people in the world who will see my wrinkly underwear (though honesty compels me to admit the wrinkles disappear when stretched over my fluffy body).

As I look around my apartment, it occurs to me that much of the standard housework is really 'make work' from long before my generation. I've never understood the logic in making the bed. If it was up to me, our bed would never be made except when the sheets are changed. However, the hunk feels uncomfortable with the unmade bed so HE makes the bed everyday. *Shrug*.

Anyway, I think I may go with the basket idea. I could save at least an hour every time I do laundry. Time is precious. Besides, at heart, I really hate laundry.

anny

Rub-a-dub-dub...

Laundry day, finally. After delays and illness, we packed four weeks of personal laundry plus sheets and towels in the back of our SUV and hauled it all off to the Laundromat. And I'm still folding, folding, folding...

That's a lot of clothes.

Tomorrow we have doctor appointments and are expecting snain about the time we have to hop on the Interstate to drive downtown. Oh, joy! Can you tell I'm excited?

Anyway, I apologize for taking so long to choose two winners of print books from my commenters on last weeks blogs. Winners by random pick by the hunk were Julia Barrett and N.J. Walters. Ladies, please get in touch with me so I can mail your books to you!

Thank you to all the other commenters. In March, I'll have another contest so keep your eyes open for the details!

anny

Laundry Hijinks

Regular readers of my blog know the dreaded Laundry Day rolls around every couple weeks. We have no washer/dryer in our apartment so that requires a trip to the local Laundromat. Yesterday was the day.

Now I have certain intimate items I don't dry in the dryer so the house hunk went out to the car to get me a plastic bag for my damp clothes once the washer was done. While he was gone, I started folding my dry clothes.

In a bit he returned, his wadded-up beige bandana hanky held to his forehead. Naturally, I asked, "What happened?"

He moved the hanky to show me two deep gouges (still bleeding) in his forehead, almost dead center. "Is it bad?" he demanded.

"Yes." I was blunt and to the point. "What happened?"

"I didn't move far enough from the car when I closed the back hatch."

Ouch. We have an SUV. Apparently, he slammed the corner of the door into his forehead. We had wet clothes in four dryers still running. So I told him to sit down. As soon as the dryers finished running, I bundled the clothes into our baskets, hauled them out to the car and drove him to our doctor's office.

There he acquired four stitches in each gouge.

I always say laundry day can be the most exciting day of the week...

anny

Laundry Math

It was laundry day today. Again. It seems to roll around with appalling regularity though we actually go to the Laundromat every 2.5 weeks. We average spending $40.00 a month to do laundry for two of us.

One of my readers asked why laundry was such a big deal for me. Today I added up all the pieces I washed, dried and folded in about two hours. This was laundry for a little over two weeks. Bras--17, panties--19, T-shirts/tops--18, jeans/pants--17, socks--19 pairs, gowns--6. That was my clothes. Not counting the house hunk plus sheets, towels, and two sweat jackets. If you multiply that by two, that's a lot of laundry. And by the time it's all folded, my shoulders hurt.

I never used to mind it so much when I could toss in a load whenever I wanted. I have to admit this is tougher. I really admire those men and women who are doing laundry for themselves plus a passel of children.

Anyway. Laundry done for another couple of weeks. Shopping done until the weekend. And then I spent the rest of the day hunting up receipts for income taxes. That's what we'll be doing on Thursday morning. It will be interesting to see how it all comes out.

If any of you out there are of the praying persuasion, I ask that you remember a little two year old boy named Kiashon. He had brain surgery to remove a tumor on his brain stem today and it didn't go well. As you might imagine his family (part of my extended family) is having a tough time tonight. The doctors aren't very encouraging about his prognosis.

All my blessings on y'all today.

anny

Washing

Ahhh, yes! I did laundry last night. Three hours at the laundromat. Washers were not working quite right, nor were the dryers so I have damp laundry, but hey! I'm done until next time. Why doesn't someone invent a new way to deal with cleaning the clothes?

It occurred to me that laundry is pretty much same-old, same-old for millennium. We wet the clothes, agitate them in some manner, wring out the water, and dry them--whether we use the good old hang 'em in the air method or a dryer. The cave ladies were doing laundry the same way. That's just sad.

So why hasn't someone invented a new way to deal with laundry? Back in the sixties, paper clothes were all the rage. They were touted as the wave of the future. Of course, they didn't go very far, except for those freaking paper gowns at the doctor's office.

Why not take all the plastic bottles, bags, etc. and make them into clothes? They wouldn't end up in the land fills because they would all be sitting in the closets with the other clothes that no one can bear to get rid of. I bet they wouldn't fade as bad as the stuff we have now. Waterproof, drip dry, maybe we could even just clean them in the shower while we clean the rest of us. Dual use of the water that way.

Can you tell that I'm laundried out for now? Yeah, you probably can. But I would like to hear any ideas y'all have for kicking the laundry into the twenty-first century.

anny

Wash Days

Yesterday was laundry day. We did fourteen loads of laundry. Sheets, towels, and lots of clothes. I sure by now that you're tired of reading about my laundry. I'm perfectly aware that things could be worse. And it's not as if I've never had to do laundry before.

But most of my married life I had a washer and dryer in my home. A laundromat was someplace that other people went to do their laundry. Not me. I had a nice little laundry room where I sorted the clothes and washed the clothes and sometimes even folded the clothes. And laundry was done one load at a time as the urge hit me.

Now laundry day takes on a forbidding aspect. There is all that sorting and packing to do. Then hauling the laundry bags to the car. Then hauling them into the laundromat... Yes, yes, I know you're tired of it.

Anyway, today I started thinking about the loads of laundry I've done over the last forty years. There was a lot of it. Back when I had babies, the disposable diaper hadn't been heard of. I used cloth diapers. Yes, I know the idea is shocking, but there you are. Cloth diapers needed to be folded -- especially if you were one of those modern young mothers that owned a diaper hanger. It was a neat bag that was designed to hang on the crib or changing table. It could hold about six dozen cloth diapers. Folded.

I had two diaper hangers as I had two babies in diapers. And I washed about six dozen diapers a day so I actually owned about eight dozen. And of course, what had to be washed and dried also had to be folded. That did not include the other baby clothes, blankets, sheets, etc. When those two kids were potty trained (ages two and three) I compounded my problems by having another baby. More laundry.

The thing is, I used to take the laundry into the living room and toss it on the couch. Then I could sit down and fold laundry while I watched television. When the babies were little, they could hang out in their playpen or walker while I folded laundry. Quality time. One big happy family.

When my children were a little older, I used that little potty stool we kept in the bathroom for potty training out in the laundry room. Then it was a stool to make them tall enough to set the washer dials so they could do their laundry. Ah, the cruelty of it all. But it seemed to me that if they could dirty their clothes, then they could clean them. I found it very interesting when the amount of dirty laundry was significantly reduced. They found that they really didn't need to wear four t-shirts in one day. Amazing.

Do you know? The same amazing discovery worked for the dishwasher, too? Once they started loading the dishwasher the number of dirty glasses dropped by an amazing margin.

Anyway, I'm ashamed to say that it took much longer to teach the house hunk how to do his laundry than all the kids put together. But the time came when he was on a temporary transfer to another state and he had to be responsible for his own laundry. Now this temporary transfer lasted eighteen months. By the time he came home for good, he was extremely nit-picky about his laundry. After a couple of rumbles over how I didn't do his laundry right I informed him that it was all his and wished him luck. He's done his own laundry ever since--even when we go to the laundromat. The disgusting thing is he never loses a sock! Not even one!

Laundry is one of those fact of life that no one talks about when you're thinking of getting married. They talk about cooking and cleaning house and sharing a closet, but does anyone mention that you'll have to do twice as much laundry? Noooooo. That's a shock waiting to ambush you the second week you're married. Where did all this stuff come from? Why are there six towels in the laundry instead of one? And what are these disgusting shorts doing in my underwear hamper?

Well. I guess I'm done with my laundry rant for another couple of weeks. Then I'll have to empty the laundry baskets of any stuff that I haven't gotten around to wearing. And I'll have to sort the laundry that's piled up next to the bathroom door. Yeah... we'll worry about that then. On laundry day.

Anny