Of course you have the normal stuff like clothes for five people but it is the tedious stuff that drives me nuts. Like matching up socks. At a minimum we go through four pair of socks per day. You might have seen my post where I had ten unmatchable socks at one time. Ridiculous!
Not only do you need to wash and dry it all but then you also need to fold it and try to get it put away before the cycle starts all over again. I also need to wash towels, dish towels, wash clothes, napkins (we use cloth ones) hand towels, bath rugs/mats, etc... Keep in mind that there are four sets of sheets to wash and change.
The biggest challenge with the sheets is washing the kids' sheets and getting them back on their beds in between when they wake up and when they nap. Yes, having two sets per bed is a good idea but I don't see wasting the effort to fold sheets, just put them back on the bed. Heck, if it wasn't for the CFO I am not sure I would fold anything. I would probably only have seven or eight outfits for the kids and we would rotate through those each week.
BTW, what is the deal with the hostile fitted sheets and mattress covers? I do not remember having this problem before moving to Birmingham but now anytime I wash the fitted sheet/mattress cover they end up taking all the other clothes hostage. It is the same thing every time... I take care to separate everything coming out of the washer going into the dryer. I look back after thirty minutes and all I see is a ball of laundry, damp of course. I must then wrestle the rest of the load from the grasp of the fitted sheet. In the process it inevitably spits some of it's prey into the dog's water dish as retribution for freeing it's quarry. I can usually get it to give up on hijacking the entire load but it always picks off a few stray socks or shirts just to remind me of who's in charge. The coupe de grace is when I notice a lump in the bed after making it... THERE'S the missing sock!
I try to keep to a semi-usual schedule:
- Sunday - kids' clothes
- Monday - towels
- Tuesday - darks
- Wednesday - cleaning towels and napkins
- Thursday - Sheets and whites
- Friday - kids' clothes
Of course this is contingent on our weekly activities. There is extra laundry when we go swimming and the time line gets compressed when we go on vacation.
Marriage is about the most expensive way for the average man to get laundry done.
Burt Reynolds
Al
2 comments:
I was thinking that when everyone stops puking on themselves 8 times a day that the laundry would slow down. This post gives me no hope. But good for you for having a schedule!
Yours is a noble undertaking. But, let’s just admit that you’re not ideally suited for it. That’s because evolution has provided women with parenting abilities that no mortal man will ever know. I’m not talking about the obvious ones, like oozing breasts. I’m talking about, for instance, the ability mothers have to suddenly remember childhood songs from their deep pasts, maybe even from previous lives, and receive pleasant smiles when they sing them. Fathers try to sing the Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” and receive blank expressions in return.
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