Dirty Laundry!! (long post :)

Like the socks in a previous post, I wish clothes were disposable! We have been out of school for almost a month now. We are enjoying the departure from homework and bus schedules, the freedom to stay-up late to make and hang new curtains in the boys' room, play in the sprinklers at 9pm as they go off around the yard, etc.

However, about a week ago I was feeling a little overwhelmed with all of the laundry piling up! Everyone has their assigned laundry day for quite a while now and they all know how to do their own laundry. But just because they know how doesn't mean they do it. With 8 people, laundry is an everyday day activity, at least 2 loads. And when you get behind it is not good!

I had had enough! So we went through everyone's bedrooms, including mine and Steve's and filled the van with laundry. I marched down to the laundry mat and 20 washer loads ,$35 in quarters, and 2-1/2 hours later I had everything in the house clean. Every towel, sock, jean, shirt, jammie, etc.... It was unbelievable the amount of laundry that had been hidden in bedrooms!

So now our new routine is to have ONE laundry basket out in the hall outside bedrooms. EVERYONE puts their laundry in that basket each night. The next day we wash it all and fold it and put it away. No one has a laundry basket in their room anymore. They are all stacked up in the laundry room. I really don't mind folding one or two baskets of laundry and each person puts their own away. We have been doing this now for a week and a half! I have been so excited to have conquered the impossible, thankless, mindless, endless, task of dirty laundry! Yeah!!!!

Well, back to those new curtains in the boys' room, I mentioned above. We stayed up late and made curtains to match the quilts that I had made for the boys years ago. The new curtains have blackout lining to sheild their east facing window from the hot sun and give them a good dark room during these summer nights. As I was hanging those curtains, I am on the top of the triple bunkbed and I see around their room, dirty laundry everywhere! They took it upon themselves to bring a basket to their room to place both dirty and folded laundry into. I guess every once in a while they would put their clothes into the hall basket, but not everyday! Oh, I was hopping mad! Not only did we have the daily basket to wash today, but three more loads from the boys' room. So as I was hanging their new curtains at 11:30pm, they were cleaning out their drawers, closet and any other secret hiding place in their room. And I had no sympathy for those needing sleep at that point! All I could think of was how they had messed up my new and "successful" laundry routine.

(20 loads sounds like a lot but it is only really 2 and 1/2 loads per person which would include the towels and sheets and blankets that I washed in those 20 loads)