When I sit down with God in Heaven (because I’m going there damn it) we will probably assess how many hours I spent doing X amount of activities in my lifetime. Eventually he’ll come to the topic of laundry.
“Angela, 36% of your life was loading, folding and putting away laundry.”
“What? No! Seriously?” I’ll say in shock and dismay. I had spent 36% of my life doing laundry?!
I’ll just hang my head and cry in complete regret.
“There, there now,” God will say, attempting to comfort me. He uses his index finger and raises my tear soaked face. “Look on the bright side! You’ve prepared your whole life for your new role in Heaven.”
“What’s that G?”
“Why you’re the new laundry maiden of the apostle sector.”
“NOOOOOOO!” I scream.
Naked Day
I’ve only half jokingly announced in my home that I would be instituting naked day. A day where we all only wear a towel or something. If my calculations are correct, that would reduce laundry by 14%. I could get behind that.
How does my family have so much laundry? I’ll tell you how. We live in flippin’ Ohio where you must wear layers as it’s snowing in the morning then 68 degrees by 4 pm. Couple this with 2 kids having a combined total of 6 soccer practices and it’s a nightmare.
But at least my family does absolutely nothing to help me on laundry. The 13-year-old will occasionally bring down his hamper and throw it in the wash but that’s just because there are things in there he wants to quickly rewear again. I have stopped putting away everyone’s stuff. I just lay it on their dressers.
My favorite is when my youngest doesn’t put his clothes away for a like a week and accidentally drops an article of clothing on the floor. A day or so later I’ll demand he cleans his pig-sty of a room. Rather than pick up the piece of clothing from the floor and place it in a drawer, he’ll just throw it in his hamper, still clean. This is when I lose my shit.
“Listen, I don’t looovveee,” I put an emphasis on love, “to wash laundry. I don’t wake up every morning hoping my family has laundry to wash, cause I don’t! I hate doing laundry so if stuff falls on the ground, you need to pick it up. Comprende?”
This blog post has absolutely no plot or ending. It’s just me whining out loud. Do you guys go through this? Do you feel like you and your family could be away from your house for 3 months and someway, somehow, there would be laundry to be done?
There is an apocryphal story passed down in our family of a recent ancestor in service as a humble laundry maid at The Big House. Monday was wash day and the Lady of the house would occasionally flit through the laundry twittering ‘Oh I do love wash day, the smell of soap and bubbling steam..’ of course she had never washed a thing in her life.
Omg, seriously? That’s too funny! Thank you for sharing!
Preach sista girl! I HATE laundry. Abhor it. And yet it’s somehow one of my assigned chores. Boyfriend has trash, mowing the lawns, etc and the first on my list is the damn laundry. It’s just us in this “family” and I’m already feeling this way, I can’t imagine adding children and all their clothes *shudder*
Yeah, it’s amazing how many garments little people produce. Then trying to fold it properly is on par with origami.
Oh sweet Jesus, I have come to HATE laundry. If I’m not washing dishes at work, I’m doing laundry. Sometimes, the laundry piles up for a few days, 6 or 7 baskets just chilling upstairs on the sofa waiting to be folded, and I’ll mention something about getting to it tomorrow and the response I get is “yeah..it’s really starting to pile up”.
Last week, the youngest and I were playing a board game because she was already in her pj’s. She passed me and I caught a little whif of non-washedness and so I asked her if she had taken a shower. She said “ooo hehe whoops”. She had been in those pjs for about 20 minutes. She went upstairs, had a shower, and put on brand new pjs.
But the thing that gets me the most would be clean socks. Clean, still folded together, socks. That are put into the hamper, then sent through the wash, still clean and folded together.
Who is saying its piling up? Are they supposed to be doing it or you? Kids are amazing when it comes to personal hygiene and clothes, aren’t they?!?! So you totally get the 6 to 7 loads every few days. Even as I sit here at soccer practice. I know that the boys have now 4 dirty outfits I must wash. Ghah!!
It was the mom. And technically I’m responsible for all the children’s things including laundry. The parents will get it washed and put the baskets of clean clothes upstairs for me – especially this week since I’ve had no time to even load the washing machine
Ah, I see. So you are in the same boat as me. TONS of laundry! It’s the worst!
yup!! I’ve felt so bad all week because I haven’t had a chance to start anything. Even on Tuesday when I was there for an 2.5 hours, all I did was dishes. It was insane! But my boss is going to talk to the other lady lol this other lady just started school this week so she’s been working less hours, so I know it’s just a matter of balancing out her time but I literally did nothing all day Monday and Tuesday but wash dishes when I was in the house lol
How can you was dishes for 2 hours? Omg! It’s like you work in an orphanage. I am so sorry to hear that. Geeze! When you are my nanny in Los Angeles, you wont have to do dishes. Promise!
Lol I put away the dishes I did the night before, then loaded the dishwasher with as much of the dirty stuff I could. But didnt want to put any of the lunch containers in there because thet are plastic and dont dry in the washer. Then I filled the dish rack with clean dishes and walked away to let them dry. Come back put away the dry ones and finish filling the dishwasher with as many of the dinner dishes that would fit, than hand washed the rest to fill the dish rack a second time.
The house feeds 20 people 2 meals a day plus school lunch containers lol. Its a lot.
Laundry has yet to cause me to want to pull my hair out- probably because Fella and I tag team pretty much all chores (laundry, mowing, dishes, trash, etc), but I detest scrubbing anything other than a pan. Floors- nope, Inside of microwave and fridge- no thank you. Bath tub/shower- please don’t make me!
Cleaning the shower is THE WORST! Do you know I’ve had Comet and CRL sitting by the shower for 2 weeks? I think some how magically it will get cleaned. You are so lucky you guys tag team! Go you!!
Yeah. I trained him early on. 🙂 When I have to scrub the shower, I usually use the bubbly one and let it sit for a while then wipe it away. It works pretty well.
We have hard water. I have yet to find something that works on the glass. That shower is the bane of my existence.
Absolute bane of my life…why are there always odd socks left over? My family can just about manage to get the clothes into the machine, with much prompting, and occasionally remember where to put the detergent and which programme to use…..but they have yet to work out that there is not a magic elf who takes it from machine and hangs on the line to dry!!!
Do you not have a dryer? If not, what do you do in the winter? I know what you mean about the socks! I have a drawer next to my bed that is the orphanage of socks. I have socks in there that haven’t had a mate in 2 years. I keep thinking that Little Lost Sock will come home one day!
Ha, ha, ha….my mother in law just sent a stray sock back that my 22 year old left behind – it will never find its other half!! I do have a dryer, only really use it in the winter….x
Oh, that’s good you have a dryer. Didn’t want to hear you going out in the snow to hang laundry! That’s funny about your mother in law and the sock!
See, people think it’s weird that Husband does his own laundry and Offspring started doing his own laundry when he was… I want to say 7 but honestly I might have had him working under supervision earlier than that. But I’m not all about that laundry life and these people are capable of washing their own freakin’ clothes. Sure, we sometimes had to do some negotiating around “I need to wash this stuff for tomorrow and you’re hogging the washer” but that was mostly negated by communication before anyone started a load.
I am still, somehow, responsible for “household” laundry (towels, dog beds, etc.) When this stuff is in the wash, no one is allowed to complain. Complaining about the way I do it carries the risk of those duties getting reassigned.