Wash Day

I'm not the most organized person. I like to have an orderly house, but, I just don't see the big picture sometimes. Just this week I was doing laundry. I do laundry every day. Every day. Usually, I just wash it and dry it and leave it in the "clean basket". Once the "clean basket" has become Mt. St. Laundry, we dump it all - about eight loads - on the couch and we all sort it into piles per person and put it all away. This takes a while, everyone dreads it, and it's just a big hassle. This week Rachel said, mid-fold, How about I do my laundry on one day, then Samantha, and so forth? That way we don't have this mountain every week?

And with that, we bought a few extra laundry baskets, set up a chart and instituted a few rules. The rules are: each family member gets one day to wash clothes. On your given day, you must wash and dry and put away all your clothes, towels, sheets, pillowcases and blankets. If, for whatever reason, you do NOT do your wash on your wash day, you have to wait until the following assigned wash day.

So far, it's going well. I went through how to work the washer and dryer with everyone, how to time it so you have your sheets back on your bed by lights out, and the general concepts of laundering your own clothes (stain sticks, overstuffing the washer and cleaning the lint trap. Laundry is complicated!) The ladies seem pretty excited; not because they are doing laundry, but, because they only have to do their own. The size of their individual piles is surprising them. Sometimes they have two loads each, due to school clothes, sports practice clothes, towels, sheets and blankets. It's been a learning experience all around.

I've learned that I took way too long to assign wash days!