Really laundry is the bane of my existence.
If you do a load or two every day you ALWAYS have some to fold and put away. If you wait to do it all once a week, by the time you get to it, people in the family are out of clean underwear!
I actually don't mind separating, washing, switching it over...its the folding and putting away that kill me. I can't fold when the kids are awake. They are too much "help". And I can't fold them fast enough to get them out of the way. So I wait till they go to bed to fold and I'm tired...Jody helps...but its a lot! We bring it all upstairs, spread it all out putting them in little piles all over the floor and furniture and watch a movie or something. Then we put them in the laundry baskets. The girls in one, the boys in one, and Jody and I in one or sometimes different ones and the linens.
I HATE to admit this, but I loath putting the laundry back into the appropriate drawers so much there are many times that the baskets of clean, folded laundry sits in the rooms for days.
Jody and I folded clothes (that had been sitting in the baskets, clean for a while!!) last night. Today I decided I was going to put them away! (Well, the kids' at least, not mine. And I don't put Jody's away...I let him do that. ) Hattie decided she was going to help me. Millie Grace sat in the middle of the room and we went to work. Hattie was so helpful, really. This is not sarcastic. She even helped me with the boys clothes! When we were finished, Hattie said, "Mommy, I LOVE laundry!"
What?? How wonderful! I was thrilled!
Now, I have a few questions for you.
What is your laundry system?
Also what is your favorite choice of detergent? Do you care? Is it whatever is on sale or what you have a coupon for? Or are you brand loyal? I like All Free and CLear...I like clear for some reason. But I recently had a coupon for Tide and it was on sale and EVERYONE loves the smell and feel of the clothes. I thought that was funny.
Merry Christmas From The Via Colony
2 days ago
9 comments:
Here's my laundry system (and I only have three people to do laundry for, so you probably think I shouldn't even be commenting - lol!). I try to do a load every day if there is enough or every other day. As soon as it is dry, I fold it and put it in baskets. That is not to say that the baskets don't stay downstairs or even migrate upstairs but stay in baskets - that is the WORST part of laundry. Putting it away - ugh!!!
For detergent, I use Surf's Ocean Breeze scent from Sam's. You can get a BIG box (180 loads, I think) of powder for like $13. It lasts a long time and does a great job getting the clothes clean! I love Tide too but it is so pricey.
Ahhh, laundry. Also the bane of my existence. Ugh. It never, ever ends, does it?? Ok, my system: I have laundry baskets in each bedroom and the bathroom. I also have a basket in the laundry room, specifically for towels...which we use a LOT of. Monday is usually my big laundry day. I do laundry all through the week, as my bedroom basket and the bathroom basket get filled, but most of it is done on Mondays. I do not, however, wash anything from the girls' room. They're old enough to do it themselves. If their clothes are in the bathroom, I'll wash them, but if it's in their room, they can forget it. It's always deadly delving into that room anyway. lol
When I do the laundry on Mondays, since I'm usually also doing school, I pretty much just keep it going and pile the clean clothes on the couch until the end of the day. I try to fold them in the late afternoon, while dinner is cooking, before Nicky gets home. It usually doesn't happen that way, but hey, I can dream, right? When it's not that smooth, I end up folding it all after dinner while watching evening tv with Nicky, then put it all away the next morning. I hate doing that, too (the putting away, I mean). I have found, however, that when the weather is nice and I hang the clothes on the line to dry, (which saves a lot of money on the electric bill) since I fold them as I take them off the line and put them away as soon as I get into the house, my laundry actually gets caught up! The first time that happened, I was flabergasted! But now I know. Ah ha! So I hang stuff out as often as possible. lol
As for laundry soap: I have always used Wisk. It works great on stains. However, in the last 8 months or so, I have been making my own liquid laundry soap. It works well, too, and is waaaay cheaper. I do still keep Wisk on hand for the constant barrage of stains, but for the regular loads, I use my homemade stuff. If you want the recipe, post a comment on my blog and I'll send it to you or post it.
Hey, don't you just love when I comment? It only takes up half your comments page!! lol
Hey! You don't know me but I found your page via your sister's and, after reading about your miracle this summer, I've kept up with it :). We have 6 children under 3 years old and one on the way- they're comprised of foster children, adopted children, and biological children. I am IN LOVE with my family closet- I got the idea from the Duggars and then researched it more on the internet.
I have a regular-sized closet near my laundry room. I have all our clothes in there- mine, my husband's, and all 6 kids. (We don't have many clothes, so you may need 2 closets if you have lots!) Next to the closet I have several sets of drawers that are labeled and have all the kids clothes in them. The only clothes not in that area are mine and my husband's underthings and pjs, which are in our bedroom still. When I take laundry out, I put it straight on a table by the "family closet" and put it away. Also, the kids' hangers are color-coordinated so that my husband or babysitters, etc, know exactly whose clothes are whose. I have pictures on my blog if you want to take a look. Last, we just began making our own powder laundry detergent and it's working great! It costs about 3 cents a load. I even use it on "wipes" which are baby washcloths that I use instead of baby wipes to save money. (We're not into cloth diapers with 4 children in diapers and another on the way!) Anyhow, hope that helps. I enjoy reading your blog!
I just do laundry when the laundry room gets full...so I guess I don't have much of a system. I usually manage to keep things from getting out of hand, so I guess that works for me! When we moved 10 months ago, I received a wonderful blessing. My laundry room is upstairs - right next to my bedroom! So, the laundry from Sara and Joshua and I go straight into the laundry room. Sky's bedroom is all the way down in the basement, so I keep a basket in his room and collect it periodically. I sort laundry as I load it into the washer. As I throw all the darks into the washer, the lights end up in one, big pile and wah-lah!, my laundry is sorted! When the laundry is dry, I just transfer everything to our bedroom and fold things on our bed. That makes it easy to put away mine and Joshua's clothes because I'm in our room already! My kids HAVE to put away their own clothes - I think Sky started doing that when he was 3! I keep their drawers organized, so they know exactly where to put things. A couple of things I try to do to cut down on laundry:
- I check all clothing before it gets thrown into the dirty laundry. If it doesn't smell bad or have immediately noticeable stains (if I have to search for a stain, it isn't worth washing - nobody else will notice it either!), I fold it and put it away to be worn another day.
- I DO NOT wash towels after every use. It is much cheaper in the long run, to invest your time and money into installing hooks or bars to hang EVERY person's towel. I wash towels once a week. If you don't have room in the bathrooms for all the towels to be hung, install a hook or bar on the back of each bedroom door.
I use Purex liquid detergent. It's on the cheaper end of laundry detergents AND smells good! I have a front loading washer, so I have to buy High Efficiency detergent. For some reason I can't buy a huge thing of detergent in the HE, so I have to buy the more expensive smaller bottles. I just have to save my pennies on other things, I guess!
I was just talking to Jenn about this this afternoon, how funny=) I've been trying something different with my laundry routine, as if I ever had one, HA! Mine sounded just like yours...but now I'm just trying a load here and there every day or two and trying to keep up with it that way so I only have 1 smaller load to fold and put away as opposed to a mountain of clean laundry that we start pulling from when we're out of something=) We'll see how it goes!
I'm not brand loyal at all. We go with the coupon/sale deal, minus a few that we've tried and absolutely don't like=)
My favorite detergent is purex free and clear. seems to get the clothes cleaner than all and I think is maybe cheaper, but the clothes seem to be softer. I don't know, maybe it's in my head. AND I very much dislike putting away the clothes, so it ends up piled (neatly and folded) on top of dressers!! :-)
Don't forget about the good ole days, when our grandparents (and my mama, too) used to wash clothes without a machine. They had to scrub the clothes on a wash board to get them clean, and that would take a long time, especially if you had a big family, which most families had then. Then came what you'd call a wringer. You could feed the clothes thru it to get the water (and dirt) from the clothes. I know of a few that had their arms pulled into the wringer, and ended up in the hospital. Couldn't get your hand too close to it. Of course, after the mom (men didn't do the washing) washed everything, she had to put the iron by a fire to heat it up, then spray water on the dry clothes, so the wrinkles would come out. We didn't have wash and wear back then. It was a long day just to do the clothes. Then, a couple days later, they would do it again. By then, there would be about a dozen shirts, a dozen dresses or skirts, a dozen pants or more, plus all the underwear things. (due to large family size) P.S. You're getting there, too. Aren't we blessed today? We all need to go back to our grandparents, (or parents), and thank them for all they did in those days. Patience and hard work were the two ingredients that it took to care for the family, back in those days. No washer and dryer, no tide, no dishwashers, no bathrooms, (just well water), no electricity, no TV, Radio, autos, etc. Not even a computer. Does anyone out there want to return to those days of the past? Thank God, we are so blessed today.
Pops
I also hate to do the laundry. I wait to fold till all the laundry is done ( so this could be several days) and then fold or hang what we have. I to have left it in the baskets for a few days. I have even gotten out of practice with folding the socks-they stay in a basket and I go searching each day for the socks that we need-how bad is that!
Jen Baltrusch
I also only have 3 people...so I'm sure it's totally different. 1) (here's a confession) I rarely sort by color unless I have enough clothes for 2 loads (of mine and Alex's clothes). This has worked for years w/out fading my clothes or darkening whites - I think that's a lie that detergent companies tell us to use more detergent. 2) I also love Tide for the smell. But have had to switch to free and clear stuff b/c Caleb has such sensitive skin that the Pedi told me to use that. Although Ididn't wash his clothes in Tide either - she said to use extra sensitive stuff. 3) I TRY to wash, fold and put away quickly because I DESPISE ironing. I will re-dry an entire load or the wrinkly stuff rather than iron.
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