Laundry.
It's never ending. It seems to find it's way into every nook and cranny of the house. You can never get the best of it, and if you don't keep on top of it, your house will end up looking like an episode or Hoarders because you have to keep buying new clothes to wear since all your other ones are dirty.
My mother enjoys doing laundry. She only does laundry for herself.
I do it for a whole family. I know some say I should make the kids do their own laundry, but that gets complicated with figuring out washing schedules and nagging them to get their loads out of the washer and into the dryer. Easier to do it myself for the most part. They do throw a load in here and there, and are all familiar with how the machines work, so I figure I've done my job.
In the old days everyone had a clothesline in their back yard. I believe they came with the houses. The older homes in the city have them. My grandma's house had one. I have an old cloth bag, sort of a tapestry material, that my grandma made to hold her clothes pins in while hanging up the wash. I think the clothespins inside are probably hers too. I don't have a clothesline. I've always wanted one. I have an idealized picture in my head of what hanging clothes out on the line is like. It looks something like this:
In the movies women bring loads of sparkling clean laundry out to the line in large wicker baskets and then with homemade pies cooling in the window, they proceed to hang up their laundry while the little ones play happily at their feet. This is the manner in which I would prefer to do laundry. Pies and all. I asked my husband to get me a clothes line. He wondered where we would put it. I suggested a few places, but no go. The girls didn't like the idea and thought that laundry hanging in the yard was somehow beneath them. For some reason they didn't want their unmentionables hanging outside for all to see. I assured them that no one could see into our backyard at an angle that would allow them to view said unmentionables; I don't think they believed me. Finally, after much nagging, the dear husband picked up a package of clothesline rope from the nearest hardware store, and strung me a three level clothesline between two trees in the back corner of the yard. YEA!
I angled these shots to not show the cute little undies hanging
right up under the tree branches on the left.
I told you they couldn't bee seen :)
I love the smell of clothes dried outside. I love that the sun kills germs. I love seeing the clothes and sheets and towels wave in the wind. It's not quite the ideal picture that I had in my head, but it will certainly do. Big bonus? In the middle of summer and during heatwaves of 100 or so degrees, the clothes dry lickety split; much faster than in the dryer. Saving energy isn't a bad outcome either. I find it a bit surprising that doing laundry this way has made it so much more enjoyable for me. I haven't yet made the pies that should be cooling in the window while hanging out the wash, but when I do, they'll probably be cherry.
Have a great day!
