Laundry…Must. Do. Laundry.
Dear Mouthy Housewives,
Now that I’m raising a family, I’m doing laundry ALL of the time, so much so I hear the dryer buzzer in my sleep. Do you have any tips for how to handle laundry without it taking control of your life?
Signed,
A Beautiful Launderette
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Dear My Beautiful Launderette,
Laundry is like capital punishment. Both are potentially offensive and yet, for the most part, constitutional.
Today only on The Mouthy Housewives, tell me how you’d prefer to be executed, and I’ll tell your corresponding laundry strategy.
Personally, I’d go with the firing squad. Because it’s dramatic and there’s fair chance that a bunch of them would miss and I, like Gloria Gaynor, would survive. Therefore, my laundry strategy is to do it all in one day, preferably on the weekend, so that I get the maximum impact. Also, there’s a good chance that there will be an unforeseeable event that will occur that will prevent me from doing the laundry on that day. Especially if I schedule the said unforeseeable event.
If you’re more of an electric chair kind of girl, have the kids do the laundry. You may be pleasantly shocked.
Lethal injection more your speed? Why not do a smaller load of laundry every day.
Prefer death by episodes of Gary Unmarried? No worries! A first year law student will get you off with an insanity defense and then you can come over and do my laundry.
Happy Folding,
Marinka, TMH
9 Responses to “Laundry…Must. Do. Laundry.”
Comment by mel.
We do 1 load of laundry a day. Each kid has their own basket, we have one for our darks, towels and one for whites. It makes life so much easier having them already separated.
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Comment by Wendi.
Ha! Love that your worked “Gary Unmarried” into this. But Kelcey’s gonna be pissed.
And ever since we got our fancy new washing machine with all of the buttons & gizmos, my husband’s been doing the laundry. Worth every penny.
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Comment by hokgardner.
I do a combination of all of the above, which means it seems like I’m always doing it. When I was in college, I lived around the corner from a place where I could drop off my dirty clothes and pick them up the next day. I’d kill for that kind of service now that I have four kids. But I’m afraid we’d all have to run around in bathing suits for the two days all of our clothes were gone.
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Comment by mari.
Just be glad you don’t have to cart your laundry to the basement, share washers and dryers with other tenants and hope that everyone else keeps things clean when washing. I LONG for the day when I’ll be able to do a small load every day. But the grass is always greener.
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Comment by Lara.
I’ll do your laundry if you come wash the hardwood floors in my kitchen…
I’m serious. Where do you live?
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Comment by Karen at French Skinny.
I decided to introduce laundry as our new pet. We are trying out different names but nothing has really stuck. I wave to the piles of laundry every day and sometimes laundry likes to sleep on the couch. At first our friends were a little taken aback at our new pet but now they bring laundry little treats. It’s all worked out wonderfully.
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Comment by amy.
When I learned that another mother got her kids to FOLD laundry a light bulb went on. Her kids were my kids’ age at the time 14 and 10.
Yeah, why the heck CAN’T they sit in front of the tube and fold laundry? So they do. And if they don’t they do not get their allowance! 
And, they have learned that wearing clothes that are still clean after a wearing just mean more work for THEM. Baaa Haaa!
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Comment by mom, again.
amy has got it. involve other people. the sooner you can fob off their own clothing and linen care on them, the better.
also, think seriously about more old fashioned standards for clothes. Buy fewer clothes to begin with. expect they be kept clean and worn at least twice. designate older clothes as play clothes and newer outfits as school or church wear ONLY. When home from church or school, take off the new things and put on the old things.
when my girls were little, I wished I could follow the rules that existed when my grandmother was little, pre-world war one. She had 3 dresses at a time. A new one, with deeep hems and seams, decorated with lace and such, and worn with a white lace trimmed pinafore on sunday only. A less new, former sunday dress. trim removed, hems and seams let out as needed, and worn to school with a school pinafore (black, to hide ink stains), and an even older dress, seams and hems let out and perhaps even an extra bit added at the bottom to make it long enough, worn with last years black school apron for play and outdoor chores, or covered with a clean kitchen apron for helping in the kitchen or with other inside chores.
My grandmother was not poor (she had lace on sundays!) her father OWNED a foundry. Not super wealthy, but on the well off side of her small town in the midwest. 3 dresses, 4 aprons. Her sisters were the same, until high school when, they might begin to accumulate dresses by virtue of not outgrowing them, and by earning pin money, buying fabric, and sewing another dress. (The boys in the family had similar shirt & pants combinations in Sunday best, good enough for school, and bad enough for everything else.
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Comment by writingmama04.
I’ve often wondered what sins I’ve committed in my past life to be faced with such a mountain of laundry hell. I tried the one load a day – but then I sperad my misery out of the whole week. I’d love to just devote one day to this awful tedium – but with 6 people in the house, I’d never get it all done. I can’t remember the last time my pre-teen daughter’s sheets were changed – I don’t go in her room anymore for the mess on the ground. What I dream for – outsourcing this task. Anyone know a good housekeeping service that does laundry? Please send my way – worth every penny.
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