Editors note: We are pleased as pink to welcome today’s guest post author. We love the way Jacqueline folds her laundry and know you will too! PS: We think step number 8 is brilliant!
Of all the chores necessary to simply keep my family going, laundry folding is my least favourite. I’m great at the throw-it-into-the-machine part, and the move-it-into-the-dryer part, and I don’t mind the putting-away part, either. But I—although I should say “we” as my husband ignores the piles just as well as I do—seem to get stuck on the folding part. And with six not very clean people living here, this can become a bit of a problem. Here’s a picture of my current laundry pile:
My Plan A to deal with this is to invite my mom (or even my mother-in-law, because I’m very lucky), over for coffee and just see what happens. This plan is usually quite effective. But when it isn’t (What? Mom! Why are you just sitting there, reading delightful stories to your doting grandchildren?), I’ve come up with a great system for getting the job done. I’ve decided to share it with you so that your life, like mine, can be full of delightful free time. For, you know, knitting and checkers and long walks and collecting stamps.
[bctt tweet=”I’m conquering the Laundry Mountain! Here’s how you can too! #losethecape @onefunjac”]
How to fold seven loads of wrinkled laundry in eight simple steps
1. Dig around for the sheets and towels and fold those. They are big, and so simple to fold! Suddenly you have only five baskets of laundry left. What a great start; you are amazing and deserve one of those lemon cupcakes your mom left here yesterday.
2. Take a snack break.
3. Dress everyone in your entire household using only clothes from the unfolded piles. If they are wearing them, you don’t need to fold them. What a time-saver!
4. Dig through the piles and throw all the socks into one of your recently emptied baskets. You can match them later. As I’m sure you will.
5. Grab the underpants and pile them up based on whose they are. Do not, under any circumstances, fold these underpants, because why would you do that? Also, take a moment to wonder why the six year old’s pile is so much bigger than the four-year-old’s again. Shouldn’t they each be wearing approximately one pair of underpants a day? Make a mental note to ask four-year-old why she has so few clean underpants. Wearing the same pair over and over again? Wearing her sister’s underpants instead of her own? Occasionally skipping underpants altogether?
6. Grab your own favourite items off the top of the pile and fold those. Then sift through, looking for more of your own things. Fold them. You are running out of clean clothes in your closet, and that’s getting a bit irritating.
7. Take the four remaining baskets and push them to the corner of the living room, kind of behind the couch—out of sight if possible. Send email to husband at work informing him that he can watch more Breaking Bad on Netflix this evening, which is a show you don’t watch yourself so this is very considerate of you, if he simply folds a few loads of laundry at the same time.
8. Congratulate yourself on a job well done by eating another cupcake.
My name is Jacqueline Melissen, and I write the blog TwoFunMoms.com. I’m an editor and a writer, a practical thinker and a reader of books, a lover of laughter and a user of sarcasm. I have four very young daughters, one out-numbered husband, two very part-time jobs, and no time to shower. I can be found tweeting, @twofunmoms, Instagramming pictures of my snotty-nosed children, @onefunjac, and Facebooking to my heart’s content on my blog page: Twofunmoms. My writing can also been found on the Huffington Post, among other places.