Laundry List

Laundry List

By Sarah Sexton

26.06.18

I took Helen to an overnight at her friend’s house.  I arrived at her friend’s house and sat with her mom.  I was an un-showered mess, disheveled from house chores.  Her friend’s mom is an amazing business woman.  I simply said, “This is what Cinderella looks like 18 years later with three kids….”  She quickly related to the reality of any fairy tale.

I now talk about the laundry as one would talk about the weather.  In fact, if somebody mentions the weather, I quickly bounce it to laundry, “yes, it’s a horrible day to dry clothes….I will not be able to catch up with laundry until Tuesday with these clouds…….I am so excited about this sunshine!  30 minutes of hanging clothes outside.  It is a great laundry day!”

I have never felt the strength of the laundry curse so strongly.  My sister and I have always grunted and moaned about laundry.  I might be experiencing the motherhood curse of, “…..just wait until you have your own children.”  I appreciate my own mom, a mom of six, hanging loads of laundry every day, rain or shine……in winter months because we had a broken dryer.  The ball is in my court and those sentiments are expressed to my three littles.

My battle with laundry is daily.  It is a war against the winds and those damn pigeons!  My laundry blows over (easily!). Pigeons poop causes rewashes–too often.  Ignites headaches.  Begins the rumbles of a war.  The pigeon dilemma runs deep like laundry.  They still try to sink my battleship and hit me where it counts.   If I skip a day of laundry, my pile of Mount Sexton, quickly puts Mount Everest to shame.  If you need endurance for Everest imagine my laundry day.

Last Friday, I took four garbage bags to the launderette.  Thinking of the hours in the day it would take to do that amount of laundry overwhelmed me. I was looking at a double shift on Friday with no overtime pay…….no regular wage either.  For about 25 pounds (cash) I can take my laundry (I sort and pre-treat) to the launderette and they will wash (with their detergent), dry and fold.  Four garbage bags would be about 16 loads for me due to washing size.  Last Friday, I caught up with laundry because of my service trip to the launderette.  I know how to drive there without sat nav. 😉  One would say I am an experienced launderette driver.  Far better than a launderer.

The girls had a garden party at school Sunday.  It was absolutely the most pleasant event (like our USA Fun Fair/school carnival).  I honed all my efforts last weekend working on last minute preparations for the garden party; making signs, painting, drawing and baking my “fairy” cookies.  Unfortunately, I am rubbish at balancing life.  Poor time management, but to be fair, it always gets done.  I tend to hyper-focus on events as they approach, instead of spending a little time here and there conquering projects.  During these times I ignore items like laundry.

I woke up Monday as “Moaning Lisa,” “W(b)itching Betty.”  First, I could not fathom we have two weeks of school left.  I am exhausted.  I am not a working mom out of the house or a teacher in the classroom, I cannot imagine how those women feel right now.  But here I am on Monday.  Monday came like a freight train.  I searched for uniforms, ironing, school routine,  library check-outs at school are still happening!, library day is Monday!, where is that damn book?!.  All done frantically.  I did not open Kate’s reading book over the weekend, so I read it to her while she ate breakfast, in hopes she would know what happened in the story during her reading group.

The girls arrived at school seconds before the start bell.  And as I dropped them off, kissed, I turned around and I walked home to the outskirts of a major storm.  There was no calm.  There never is.  I knew what I was up against and I decided I needed to document one day for Steve.  The above image is not even the full picture.  There were photos I could not fit into a nine-frame picture, like my sock causalities that I quickly tossed to rid me of my laundry hangover.  Also, not pictured is the master bedroom’s hamper (parents).  It was hiding behind my door and when I discovered it in the evening I dropped a f-bomb on that soldier and put the clean clothes away.

The picture above, if you could number it left to right….1, 2, 3.  The second row; 4, 5, 6 and the last row; 7, 8, 9.  The short break down is below:

 

1. I guess I did do some laundry over the weekend.  Picture one is all the clean clothes I brought in from outside to fold.  It looks like a mess on my floor, but you should have seen how they were splattered in my garden from the wind.  Over the weekend, Steve looked out into our garden and said, “You know the clothes are everywhere?” I was so calm.  I guess that was the calm before the storm.  It did not bother me.  I have to choose battles in all of life’s arenas.  I think I left the clothes out in the garden for two days.  I replied, “Yes.”  I knew.  I carried on with washing my hands.  Monday was beautiful, and I knew I could accomplish all my laundry.  I brought in that scattered mess and threw it in my sitting room.  I quickly ran upstairs and gathered all dirty laundry.
2. After sorting, the first load is done, and I hung it quickly. I have not tackled all the folding in the sitting room yet because I knew how important it was to get the first batch drying.
3. I had three loads of laundry that day. This is the leftover picture.  I already did loads one and two.  Load one is the red shirt hanging and load two is in the wash.
4. Load two, wet and ready to hang. My wash cycle is 30 minutes.  I am cleaning the house in between.  I get my 10,000 steps.  I do not need to leave my house.
5. This is some of the clean laundry from the launderette. I need to re-fold it because we rifled through it all weekend looking for “that” shirt and it was not there!
6. Gone with the wind (again!)! I must prop the clean laundry up against the brick wall which impedes the drying time.
7. Socks drying. The wind sets their sail as well.  Even without a dryer you sock wars exist.  Sock causalities.  Mismatched socks are universal.
8. Last load drying. First two loads brought in.
9. Clean loads of laundry from Monday that now needs to be folded.

Again, not pictured is the laundry that I folded from frame one and my causalities.  I put away all the laundry on Monday.  This was an all-day event.  This is the reason I cannot fight laundry every day.  I am exhausted.  This is the reason I cannot ignore laundry for a single day.  It will exhaust me.

I could never be a pioneer, in many respects, not just the laundry aspect, but especially the laundry aspect.  There are people who do not have washers today.  They have harder conditions.  I bet they have better spirits about laundry than me.  What a vacation to holiday with our family in Michigan and Ohio.  I am looking forward to washing and drying! laundry in their large appliances.  I will only have to do one load per day, or every other day.  Laundry holiday here we come!  Raise those flags!

And always a side note:

I know Steve adores my friend Christina, and she him, because for the first time I saw Steve give her a side-eye.

Christina and I love No. 7, a skincare system here.  No. 7 is made and only sold in the UK.  It is a magnificent product.  I am hooked!  Hooked!  We talk about it like laundry, except with so much excitement and enthusiasm.  The raffle at the garden party had a No. 7 gift basket worth 140 pounds, with the three main products I use.  Christina came to tell me about it straight away.  And then we both tried to explain to Steve how precious this was.  Christina did the sales talk to Steve about our beloved product.  Steve stood next to Christina with a side-eye, “You can never convince me it is worth that price.”

See, Steve we are all crazy.  Stick with what you know.  We re-capped and we laughed!

I did not mean to air my dirty laundry.