lots of laundry

This is a permanent fixture at our place these days. And perhaps for a lot of days (weeks, years?) to come. So many tiny clothes to be washed, dried and put away. Most of the time the lines are cleared only to make room for the next load to be hung out.

On numerous occasions I have had wonderful plans of scheduling my washing; towels on Monday, kids clothes on Tuesday, sheets on Wednesday, etc; in an attempt to keep up with it. But I haven't had a chance to think through this properly. Or perhaps my subconscious is stalling me deliberately in an attempt to keep me from becoming way too obsessive compulsive? Also, winter throws things out a bit with our clothes taking days to dry. I'll keep fumbling my way through for now.

I have no trouble putting clothes into the washing machine. Easy! Well, easy, if you aren't a dunderhead who chucks black jeans in a white wash. In fact, I love my washing machine. I love hearing it busily chugging away. Important work is happening and I'm not doing it. It's the rest of the process that causes me to stumble.

I have come across web pages that are dedicated to organising laundry and even tell you how fun it can be. Decorate your laundry with colours! Display antique clothes pins in jars! Play upbeat music while you sort! Yay! Who knew doing laundry could be so much fun? (To be fair, the linked site did also have some practical and helpful advice to offer.)

Fortunately, this enthusiastic take on laundry caused me to think about the positives of doing it:

1. Everyone has clean clothes to wear.
2. While my hands hang clothes, my mind can be thinking up amazing ideas.
3. I've had some priceless conversations with the kids while putting clothes away.
4. The feeling of satisfaction I get when all baskets are empty is glorious!
    (even if it only lasts 10 minutes.)

the uprising of the socks

I hate socks. I know hate is a strong word, but I do. I hate them. I hate wearing them, I hate that they end up in every room of the house, I hate pegging them on the clothes line and I hate hate hate folding them to be put away.

Every day (or two, or three) I go through the house gathering up the socks to be added to the wash. I need to check inside all the shoes too because the socks like to hide there. Then into the washing machine and onto the clothes line... then in a few days, when I need space to hang out the next load, I put them into a basket and they are moved into our bedroom. After another few days (or several) I finally attempt to put the clothes away. This is when I discover that all except one pair of socks have lost their partner! How did this happen? Where could they have gone? Do they have a personal vendetta against me? It is a profound mystery. And, it is darn annoying.

I will usually leave the odd socks out on the bed with the aim of finding their pair but, inevitably, it becomes time to get into bed so they get shoved into the sock draw as they are.

This is the actual pair of socks my husband
chose to wear to work this morning!

There was a time a while ago when I noticed my husband's socks were never matching after being washed. Not even the usual one or two complete pairs were being spat out. What was going on? Then, all was revealed. I witnessed him putting his shoes on for work one morning, and I saw that he was just wearing odd socks to begin with! So he just grabbed the first two socks that touched his hand. Green with blue. Blue with black. Black with playing cards (?). He had become sick of the fruitless searching inside the mess of his sock draw. It seemed no sock had a pair.

So, my solution was to buy more socks. You may be surpried to know that this didn't solve the problem. It made it worse. And so the saga continues...

I hate socks.

Does anyone have any advice?
How can we improve this desperate situation??