Saturday, August 20, 2011

Real Life: A Day to Remember

August 19, 2011.

A day to remember.

For one brief and exhilarating evening, I have been able to say that ALL of the laundry (except the clothes actually on our bodies) is clean and dry in the Campbell home. There isn't so much as a dirty hot pad left to be found around here! There is definitely something to be said for packing up an entire house. The dirty laundry seems to settle to ground level and get left behind when more exciting things like toys and sentimentals are being packed up. I was determined to not take ANY dirty laundry with us to the new home tomorrow, since we now have a laundry closet rather than a laundry room. We've had an entire laundry-garage here in this house. Yes. Laundry in the garage. That was ... ahem... effective? I was terrified of critters after dark so avoided doing laundry at night as often as I could get away with it. And the kids never did quite get the concept of putting laundry in the baskets in the garage and even after I'd painstakingly sort and separate stuff, we'd soon have socks on shoe shelves, towels draped across the bikes and dirty underwear in the toy bin; clothes were strewn about from corner to corner in the garage it seemed and it was a never-ending battle. So anyway, we now have an indoor (yay!) laundry closet (meh). I begged my friend to share her laundry tips with me since she has the same floor plan that we're moving into and she has one more child than me and she always seems to be so on top of her laundry situation. Her laundry routine is so simple and brilliant I kind of wonder why I never tried it her way. I've always had some kind of general laundry dumping ground where everyone piles everything and I just try to keep up with it so it doesn't turn into Mount Washmore. (I don't succeed, by the way. Hence "A Day to Remember - August 19, 2011") She gives each bedroom it's own laundry basket and one day a week to do their laundry. Brilliant. Simple. I'd like to say that even I can't botch that up, but I'm pretty sure I'll prove that arrogant little statement wrong within a week or two. But I figured if I was going to even give it a fair try I had to start with clean clothes and empty baskets.

Crap.

Empty baskets.

I forgot to mention that while all the laundry in the house is clean (yay!) it's all still sitting in the laundry baskets in my front room (meh). Guess it's not quite bedtime yet! I've got some laundry routine prep to finish up! And since it's 11:30 p.m. and I know there's no chance I'll have the laundry all folded until after midnight, then August 20, 2011 can also be a day to remember!! That one will be "The day all the clean laundry was folded in the Campbell home"!  Exhilarating, I tell ya!



PS Please say a little prayer that everything goes smoothly tomorrow with the move, that the giant freak-out I had over our post-dated September rent check being cashed early will have been unnecessary because landlord reimburses us the money on Monday as he's promised, and that the cleaners come back to us with some kind of reasonable estimate for the cleaning job so we can actually afford to take advantage of their service. Mahalo!

6 comments:

  1. Ang, whatever the cost of the cleaners, SPRING FOR IT! You will already be brain dead and muscle weary from the move... one less hurdle will feel like a well deserved "vacation".

    Laundry with many kids used to get ahead of me too. I started doing 2 loads a day (1 morn, 1 nite) every other day, and was able to get it done fairly often.

    One room per day sounds workable. Although my friend taught her children to sort the laundry in her "closet" to color coded laundry bags on the wall. Whoever filled that bag threw it in the wash and walked away. They began helping with laundry when they were old enough to operate the machinery, usually about age 8 or 10. Instructions were on the wall if they had any questions about a particular color they were loading. It worked, and the kids did their own laundry by the time they were teens.

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  2. I second the cleaning crew expense. You are NOT going to want to be in your old place once everything is waiting to be unpacked in the new place. :)

    As for laundry ... When all my kids were home, I did "people" laundry only on Tuesdays & Thursdays and "house" laundry (sheets, towels etc.) only on Mondays. I did the baskets in each bedroom and had them bring everything to the laundry room the night before. If they forgot, then their laundry didn't get done until the next laundry day.

    When they were in highschool they learned to do all of their own wash and were allowed to use the machines on Mondays & Wednesdays so they didn't get in my way. :)

    One other tip .... fold and/or hang EVERYTHING as it comes out of the dryer. Then you won't be folding after midnight. :)

    Enjoy your new place ... I hope we get to see pictures!

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  3. Pictures BEFORE you move in and after you unpack and BEFORE the laundry piles up! :D

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  4. one room of laundry per day -- that does seem simple. Hmmmmm i'll have to try it.

    hope you are surviving the move!
    xoxo

    ps - don't forget you have sewsara credit that i owe ya for the TRADE :)

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  5. I had that same laundry goal when we moved over here. Nobody could quite seem to understand why I woke up early and cleaned all the sheets in my house the morning of our move, but it made plenty of sense to me. . .and we slept on clean sheets in our new home that night. Hope the settling in isn't too overwhelming for you. It's all worth it. -Teresa

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  6. I'm trying to do one batch a day...Monday-Towels/Sheets, Tuesday-Lights, Wednesday-Darks, Thursday-Jeans, Friday-whites. I guess that way I'm doing laundry EVERY day, but at least it's only one load and I can get things folded and put away. (Well, in theory anyway! When does my life ever work like it's supposed to?!?) Good luck!

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