If It Ain’t Broke…

Over the summer we spent a couple days with some friends of ours.  The mother (my friend) is amazing.  She is the primary president in her ward, she was the PTA president last year, she runs a salon out of her house two days a week, she is the mother of four kids and her house is always clean, warm and welcoming.  She would tell you that she isn’t organized and that her house isn’t always clean, but it is.  She runs a tight ship – her kids did their chores both days with minimal eye rolling and the laundry was always done. 

I was in awe of this – laundry always done?  How?  At my house there is almost always clothes that need to be washed.  Come the end of a week, there are four over-flowing laundry hampers. 

This is how she did it:

• Monday morning she would do two loads of laundry – one light and one dark of clothes from the weekend.
• Tuesday morning she would walk through the house and gather all the used towels and do one load of towels.
• Wednesday morning she would again do two loads of laundry – one dark and one light from clothes worn on Monday and Tuesday.
• Thursday morning she would strip the beds and wash all the sheets.
• Friday morning she would do two loads of laundry, from the clothes for Wednesday and Thursday.

I came home determined to do this.  This was going to revolutionize laundry at the D home.  I would start a load of laundry first thing, instead of spending all day one day a week doing laundry.

Yeah.

I didn’t even make it a week.  Day 1, I started a load of weekend clothes and promptly forgot about the clothes in the washer so when I went to start a load on day 2 they were still sitting there.  Day 3, I didn’t feel like folding clothes so they stayed in the basket waiting for clothes from day 4 to join them.  They never joined them.

Then I had an epiphany: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  I swear someone said that, although I don’t know who.  I don’t normally use the word “ain’t” but it fits in that saying. 

Before I tried to change this, I would gather all the dirty laundry in the house on Monday morning.  My youngest son and I sort them – darks, lights, sheets, towels – and I spend the whole day washing, drying, folding and putting away. 

After my week experience, I realized, this works for me.  It works! I don’t mind spending all day washing, drying, folding and putting away.  It all gets done this way.  Sometimes it takes me a day or two to get all the clothes put away…eh, who am I kidding, most of the time it takes me a day or two to get the clothes put away ~ that is the worst part of doing laundry!  The point is, though, that this works for me.  It wouldn’t work for my friend, but it works for me.  And her way works for her.  And it’s okay!  We both have families sleeping on clean sheets, wearing clean clothes and drying hands on clean towels.

Do you ever do this – try to fix something that ain’t broke?  How do you handle laundry at your house?