Do all my laundry

finally got detergent and stain spray.
i did one load of laundry.
i have 2 more loads.
i love it when everything is clean…....
you also get rid of old energy.

Seriously the pile of laundry is taking over my room starting with the corner of the laundry hamper. And I never do it all, just like one load a week, which does little to keep the size of the pile down.

last week i moved all the dirty laundry in to the living room, this way it was in my face all week, then my husband sorted, and i have been changing laundry more often this week, we started with 7 loads and i only have two left to start… i think to people who keep up with their laundry this must sound crazy but really i keep wearing things and piling up new loads… and i just never think about changing it, so then i have to rewash laundry i have sadly already washed… its awful… but i did much better this week and i think now that i am closer to on top of it i need to make a laundry collection day and then make a full day of getting it all done… you know we were totally out of towels and we have a bunch of towels. argh this is so embarrassing to write about.

This was so worth the time

Clean clothes = awesome.

Clean clothes = awesome.

I can pack for a 4 day trip in 10 minutes. I can pick my clothes out for the week on Sunday night in 10 minutes. I can walk from one end of my house to the other and NOT TRIP OVER LAUNDRY BASKETS. Nigel the kittycat is not sleeping on my clean clothes because they are still in the laundry basket. Getting all my laundry done and put it all away has been life changing and I’ll admit I was not expecting it!!!

I have arranged my clothes by “collections.” Like, everything that is yellow, blue and/or white goes in one area, winter and summer items mixed together. The other color collections are: black tan and red; orange kahkai and olive green; and purple cream and teal green.

(I am leaning towards giving away at least one color collection. Each collection lasts 2-3 weeks. By the time I get through 4 collections, the weather has changed. I start wearing the clothes it was too hot or too cold to wear the last time… That is way too many potentially dirty clothes!)

I have one pink blouse that has not found a color family yet. It may be destined for the thrift store.

“Orange” includes everything pale peach to deep coral.

“Purple” means: a pale lavender tanktop to deep egplant Liz Claiborn dress to bright purple sweat pants. The collections have no distinction of style or season, level of dressiness, or intensity of shade. Reason? Compatability. Efficency. I have discovered the pale lavender tank makes a great “peak out” under a purple wool blazer—previously I never wore it except at the beach or at a ball game. Tank tops lived in the tank top/shorts drawer in the summer clothes dresser. Wool blazers hung in the back of the closet.

My closet was organized: blouses by color and then sleeve length, ditto: t-shirts, sweaters, another place for pants, then skirts…. I could find clothes, but I constantly had to make decisions: what will go with this blouse? I had to look in 2-3 different sections (dressers, shelves, racks) to answer that question. It was overwhelming at times.

Now, everything that will go with a blouse is hanging with it, and the sweaters or knit shirt that go with it are in sweater boxes on shelves above or below it.

If I am going out of town, it is real fast to put together purple outfits one, two, three and four, then a purple casual outfit or two. I grab a nightgown, swimsuit, socks and underware and I am done.

Honest. I never knew it would make this much difference or I would of changed my arrangement methods years ago. AND put all my laundry away.

Cheers!

I have put instructions in my Palm Calendar: Repeating meetings every week on Tuesday evenings, 8-10PM from now until 12/31/2006. With these details, adapted from my last entry here:

“Seven loads is the most that ever should accumulate w/o warning bells going off in my head. If I get all hampers full plus one basket, that is 7 loads.

I can do 1 load a day until it is all done: Sort it out into 1 load bags so I can “dump a load and dash off” anytime. Wash 1 load at night; in the morning or the next evening, bring in the dry load, fold it and put it away; and hang out the wet load. Start the next load in the wash before I go to bed.

Crunch times: September - because of change of season. Post-Christmas - holiday wear and tablecloths. May - because of change of season. Before beach trip Memorial Day and vacation in summer - because house sitter is coming.

I can take the laundry to the beach house or Mom’s. I can take it to the laundry service at Hangers or Carolina Dry Cleaners. I can do an extra load at a friend’s house if I am pet sitting. I can go to the laundromat.

Clean dry laundry has to be put away before I start the washer for the next load. If I need inspiration, I can turn on the radio’s “sleep” button or set the iPod for 30 minutes of tunes to work by.

If something is difficult to put away, I have too many of those. I need to share the wealth. I’ll keep a thrift store bin in the laundry room and on the front porch. I’ll weed my clothes as I do laundry.

Best of luck!”

I have given all my laundry baskets away but 2. I have installed a clothes line in the laundry room from hooks in the ceiling. It is a sunny room and there is a furnace vent. I can hang up one load in there even if the weather is bad in the winter. I am going to purchase an “umbrella” clothes line tomorrow to go in the backyard. I have a new wooden drying rack that can stand over a furnace vent. I have a line in the bathroom over the tub. I will purchase a used dryer if I come across one.

We’ll see how it goes from here—but for now, I have done all the laundry and as much as I can do to make sure it stays done. I am calling this goal complete.

I am going to leave it active until I figure out a plan for when the washer breaks or I end up with 6 sets of sheets in the wash in 2 weeks. I need a PLAN for EMERGENCIES so this “Rubbermaid Bin Mountain” of dirty laundry doesn’t happen again.

I can take the laundry to the beach house.

I can take it to the laundry service.

I can go to the laundromat if I should get all hampers full plus one basket—that is 7 loads. I should never let more than a weeks worth (7 days=7 loads) accumulate without emergency bells going off.

I am going to think on these options and write them down and put some reminders there are options in my calender. These times are critical laundry pile-up times: when the seasons change, before and after Christmas (holiday tablecloths, vests, etc. fill hampers Jan. 1), and before and after beach trip in spring and vacation near 4th of July.

Short of getting the flu, I should be able to keep ahead of the laundry.

I washed the dog and cat beds and the sheets off my bed this week… so there is still one set of sheet in the “archival” laundry. All else is done and put away. I could of washed them last night, but I am going out of town today so I didn’t want to leave them on the line until Tuesday. I am going to put them in the washer with detergent, so all I have to do is pull out the knob when I get home.

By then I will probably have a load of clothes or two dirty… but that is maintenance—a result of being alive is having dirty clothes. So that wash I will look at with celebration so to speak.

One load to go: wash, dry, put away.