Thursday, February 26, 2009

Wash, dry, fold, put away, repeat.

Day 57.

I had laundry to do today. Really, what day do I not have laundry to do? If I follow the flylady's lead, then I put in a load every morning after I empty my dishwasher... I got the dishes part down, but laundry is my ever-present nemesis. It piles up on bedroom floors, goes washed and not folded for days, and then folded, but not put away for another few.

When we remodeled our kitchen, we got a stackable washer and dryer. I really love these machines. I adore them, as much as is possible with something that does a job you hate. When I bought them there was a honeymoon period, and I genuinely looked forward to the high-tech chore of doing laundry. That was two weeks, tops.

Today, as I'm folding yet another load (in order for it to sit in a basket), Noah wanted to help. Dylan has helped fold wash clothes/napkins every once in awhile and it has actually worked out quite nicely. But, clothes are another story, and today, his "help" was throwing the clothes high in the air to land all over the family room floor. Even so,

I am grateful for clean laundry.

As I write this, I think of my lack of gratefulness for my high-efficiency washers. When I lived in Costa Rica for three months, on Study Service Term with Goshen College, I lived with a host family and would help with the laundry. They had a very low-tech (I think it was crank?) washing machine, and still did many items on a washboard. Everything was hung to dry. I could count the hours saved by my high-efficiency washer/dryer, but instead I usually loathe the task of laundry. Today, I am grateful.

2 comments:

  1. see, this is where i hugely disagree with the fly lady. and maybe that is just because i feel that my completely opposite system works for me, but it seems really inefficient to be constantly doing laundry every day...not to mention tedious and annoying. you know i'm not telling you what to do, of course, but when i think about doing laundry this way it makes me tired. obviously just my opinion, of course. and in my way, laundry is an event needing to practically be scheduled as an all day time block. but for me it works and the rest of the time i just forget about it.

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  2. I'm with you, Lara! I'd much rather have it be the event for the day, do 5 or 6 loads, then forget it for a while. Maybe it's the aftermath of my laundromat days, bringing every item of clothing I own, spending 4 hours and $1,000,000 in quarters but getting 12 loads done in one afternoon! Hilary, Ruby is on the same page with Noah on "helping" with laundry - tossing clean clothes in the air, usually the few items I've managed to fold already. Lucky for them they're so darn cute...

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