When I was working, PWM and I kind of shared laundry duty. There was always laundry being done by someone. It worked out pretty well. When I quit working, I kind of de facto took over the laundry, except when I have week-long migraines, which is every couple of months. This can be pretty inconvenient if you are someone in the family who values things like clean underwear. And, PWM, at least, does. So, he can be counted on to step in and get us through crunch times with my migraines.
I did come up with a very helpful solution to some of my laundry issues. And a few other things. I turned kid laundry responsibilities over to the kids. Rosie Girl was 11 and Wild Man was 8 when I quit working. Within about a year, I had taught them how to do their laundry. (Since we bought all washable clothes, there were no delicate clothes to worry about.) By the time they each had reached the age of 12, they were responsible for their own laundry. Since they took the responsibility of taking care of the clothes, they also had the right of not having me or PWM worrying about how they chose to store their clean clothes. We only required that the kids look and smell presentable. So, laundry taken care of and no arguments about clean rooms. (It also helped that we don't allow food and drink up in the bedrooms.)
There have been some interesting lessons learned over the years. Wild Man, in particular, has been up late sometimes on Saturday night to get his Sunday clothes clean if he is part of the Sunday morning worship team. He's getting better at thinking about this earlier in the day on Saturday.
Rosie Girl found that it was nice that she knew how to do laundry when she left for college. However, she also found that the 45 minute drive home was actually not that far to drive to do her clothes at home since she also got a home-cooked meal (usually) along with seeing the family.
I decided today, though, that, in addition to my usual LaundryPalooza for me and PWM, I would wash Wild Man's clothes because Solo and Ensemble is on Saturday and Wild Man has had rehearsal's for the school play and for S&E and we're planning to go to another's school's play tomorrow night. I felt kind of sorry for the kid. And I hadn't seen his dress clothes in a few weeks, so I doubted they had made it through his laundry rotation yet. He tends to operate on a "need it now" basis.
Since I'm not a great laundress, I already had some white clothes from last week to fold (bad Mama! bad Mama!). I went ahead and did my and PWM's clothes and then got Wild Man's clothes from assorted locations - primarily the floor of his room. I think the boy has a month's worth of T-shirts!! I had him sort through and give me any that he doesn't wear anymore and he only gave me two. Wow. He ended up having four loads of clothes. I have no clue if they were all dirty because he doesn't actually keep his clean clothes in his dresser, but, whatever. The clothes - they are clean!!
And while I'm expounding on laundry, let me tell you about my great plans for towels. Because I'm sure you have nothing better to do than read about me and my towel issues. First of all, we have a rather motley collection of towels in our house. We have a full (tiny, but full) bathroom downstairs and a half bathroom upstairs. Our bathroom is right by the front door and there is not enough storage space in the bathroom for our towels, so we have a bookcase in the front hallway with our towels and a few other bathroom items on it. So, basically, we use the side door. Because coming in to see our muddy floors and boot collections is still classier than seeing our motley towel collection and how much toilet paper we have at the moment.
I've always been a towel folder myself, but I saw something the other day that reminded me that some people roll their towels and they look nice and neat. So, I'm thinking of getting some metal baskets and putting on the bathroom wall above the laundry hamper and storing our towels in there. I haven't measured to see if it will work, but it would solve a whole bunch of problems. If I could figure a few other storage solutions, we might could even have a front hallway again. The bathroom door would still be there, but the toilet paper would be gone. That would be an improvement.
Our motley assortment of towels is the result of having some nice and newer towels but also keeping in the rotation the towels that I bought when I left home to go to college. 30 years ago. I've been just cutting the strings off the sides as needed. PWM suggested tonight that I could throw those towels away. I'll make them into rags or give them to Goodwill so someone else can make them into rags. They're perfectly good fabric. In any case, PWM agreed that I should invest in newer towels that actually absorb water. Maybe that were made in this decade. And I thought I was being so frugal.
Well, LaundryPalooza is almost over. The clothes are clean and all but a few are folded and hung up. I'll put them away tomorrow - I promise!!! And it's midnight and I'm tired and Wisconsin won their basketball game which I can't believe I even care about. And, no, there is no deeper meaning to this post about laundry. It's just about laundry. And you're welcome to leave you're deep and insightful or shallow and silly or practical and useful ideas in the comments. And that would make me very happy.
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