I've been laundering constantly for the past week and I am still up to my armpits in dirty clothes. I discovered part of the problem when I found all the dresses Camryn
"tried on" before church were in the hamper. I guess it's easier to throw them in there than to hang them back up. My children are using the laundry pile as a quick fix while cleaning their rooms, which explains the plastic dinosaurs I found hiding under a pair of jeans.
I go though phases of sorting and not sorting. Sometimes I just cram everything from not-so-whitish socks to red sweatshirts all in the same load. It doesn't matter if you are a towel or a lacey pair of underwear, you are riding the tub of suds together. Then other times, I become compulsive sorter. Today, I sorted. Camryn has been my star sorter. I taught her early, and she prides herself on knowing which pile to put the white pajamas with pink stripes in. Since she has been at school for two years now, I am passing her torch to Caedmon, who learned how to sort last week. He was very proud of himself. I hope I'm not breaking any child labor laws by making my four year old do laundry.....
And so today, our family room floor is littered with piles of jeans, colors, whites, towels, and darks. I guess segregation isn't a bad thing when it comes to laundry.
Do you sort your laundry? What are your "sorting categories"?
Do you feel sorry for me because I am out of fabric softener?
18 comments:
Here's what we have.
Whites
Blacks
Blues
Pink & Red (I confess, I wash all Tiffany and my clothes together - whatever the color - they're mostly the same)
All other colors
Socks & underwear
White-like towels
All other towels & sheets
And I admit, I wait to do laundry until I have FULL loads of a color...and sometimes even more than a full load. Shhh, don't tell. As of now, my laundry status is SO scary because I can't exercise my laundry rights.
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We only have four (sometimes five) categories.
White - this stuff gets bleached and is mostly socks, t-shirts and white towels.
Lights - all light colors (Mostly Mel's and my clothes)
Dark - all dark clothes (lots of jeans)
Towels and Sheets
Sometimes the 5th load is dark colored delicates.
I don't waive from this very often and it seems to work for us.
I meant "waiver".
No worries on the fabric softener. Dump 1/2 cup of white vinegar into your wash. It works great. If you want something fancier..
2c baking soda
2c white vinegar
4c water
Mix ingredients and store in a plastic or glass container in your laundry area. Label the container and keep it out of the reach of children. To use: Shake he mixture and add 1/4c to the final rinse in your washing machine. If you have hard water, use 1/3c.
sara
Big boys' darks
BBs' lights
Little boys' darks
LBs' lights
Aidan's darks
Aidan's lights
My darks (I hang many of my things to dry, or they have to lay flat so I separate those too)
Hubby's darks
Ours (the grown-up's whites---it's pretty scandalous)
Towels and sheets
I have been known to mix it up when pressed for time.
And I do feel sorry for you---no sickeningly cute snuggly teddy bears deeply inhaling your sheets today, eh?
The tossing everything in the laundry pile so they don't have to hang it up must be instinct. Oh that bugs me!
Whites
Lights
Darks
sheets
I feel very sorry for you whole family who will now have to wear clothes that are not Downey fresh.
Think your could wait 6 -8 weeks to do your laundry?
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LOL, Well you are one up on me with the sorting! Boys have their basket and the girls have theirs... I throw everything in for the boys everynight and the girls get the morning wash...honey and I get the inbetween...we hang everything up...except socks jammies and undies...everything else is hung up so everyone helps and as each load comes out someone has to stop whatever we are doing (usually me or the 2 older ones I have 5) and hurry and put them on hangers and the younger two put them in the closet...short sleeves with short sleeves and organized according to age LOL..ok i sound so um micromanagey as I reread this LOL...the laundry dictator
We do whites, lights and darks, plus a load or two for my hubby's work clothes. It works out to 11-12 loads. A couple of years ago we bought a front-loader and I LOVE it! I washes more than a regular machine.
I find my daughter's clothes in her princess tent and the oven of her play kitchen--why can't she just throw them in the laundry basket!?!
Wow, I'm a slacker. I rarely sort my clothes. If I'm motivated enough I sort into two piles, lights and darks. I wash everything with cold water and use the cheapest detergent I can find. I use a dryer sheet with them when I dry. Then, after my clothes are dry, they sit in a laundry basket for a good 3-5 days until I get motivated enough to fold them and put them away. So, that means I do a lot of digging through baskets and ironing lol.
Laundry is the ONE thing I am terrible with. It's not like dishes or anything else in the house where you can start to clean, keep working, and have it finished in 30 min. or just be able to start and finish w/out major interruptions.
With laundry, I have to put the clothes in the washer, forget that I put them there because I got busy doing something else, discover them almost dry the next day, re-wash if they got that icky smell from sitting too long, dry them, forget them again in the dryer, then pull them out of the dryer, and eventually fold...
Pass the torch!
We sort like this...
Lights
Darks
Reds
Having four girls we have a heck of a lot of reds, pinks, purples and hot pinks!
While you are passing the torch...why not just pass the whole thing to Nate????? Matt has now become our laundry-man. Bless his heart! He is great! Over his Christmas "vacation" he did like 27 loads of laundry. He washed everything! It was great! Two Sundays in a row we haven't been late for church because we can actually find clean tights in each of their sizes. Now that is amazing. I know you can relate to that one.
We still just keep buying new packages of socks, due to the fact that we have about 4 boxes full of socks that need pairing. Those have been there since the move...who needs socks anyway???
Fabric Softner...too bad, now you guys are gonna stink!
I am in the excact boat. I always have laundry i hate it. I have four kids a husband and a grandpa to do laundry for. my children did the exact same thing. so now all laundry basdkets are in my room. and as harsh as it sounds they get aa spanking for putting clean laudry in the hamper. its laziness and my husband is trying to help me.We are looking into the front loaders since my dryer takes over 160 minutes to try one load of clothes. my blog is mommy to four j's stop by and say hi sometime.
Laundry categories:
whites
light colors
dark colors, sometimes separating out reds, depends on how many
towels and rags
sheets (most of the sheets in our house are dark colors, but the girls' light sheets don't get washed with the dark sheets
diapers (we cloth diaper)
I was going to say you could just use vinegar instead of fabric softener, too, but someone did before me. However, if you live in a place like we do, that doesn't do the trick in winter with the dry air, and you need softener sheets in the dryer.
If I have 2 empty hampers, I do lights and darks. But usually most of the hampers are full of clean clothes that haven't been put away yet. If I have something new in a dark color, I'll try to not wash it with the light stuff.
We do lights, darks, denims, and lots of towels--these are never sorted, regardless of color. Usually I try to keep my children's clothes in separate loads from my own, because you never know whose poopy panties/Hulk underwear might have made it unnoticed into the washer without being scraped and soaked. Somehow that smell never seems to exit if it gets mixed in with my clothes -- even with two rinses with my favorite fabric softener. Hope you get some new soon : )
I just noticed that you are married to a Nate...our son's name is Nathan and we call him Nate. You have set me on a wonderful daydreaming moment of my son's future...it just seems so far off...
We do whites, darks and mediums. The whites are white whites only, becuase I bleach them. I used to wash Tommy's clothes seperately, but now they just get thrown in with everything else.
And I do feel sorry for you that you're out of fabric softner. I cannot do laundry without it. I hate stiff clothes.
Stinky husband's work clothes with dirty son's clothes.
Red, orange, pink girl clothes.
Green, blue, yellow girl clothes. (Yellow and blue make green right)?
Stinky white husband socks go with my cleaning rags or dog beds right into the bleach load.
White towels with whitish pjs.
Sheets with pillowcases.
I'm sure there are other categories.
Good or neurotic?
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