Mindful Monday: Creating A Laundry Design

Laundry is the mountain of mountains - the Everest that I seem to almost get to, and never quite climb to the top. Part of the reason it is such an issue for our house is that there is no good place to fold laundry. It's a Major Chore, right? All the other Major Chores have a place - dishes have sinks and dishwashers, washing the laundry has a designated space, there's a corner for the broom and vacuum to hang out when not in use, and so on. But not the unfolded laundry. Some people use the bed, some keep it on the couch, one co-sleeping mom I know uses her crib. But these aren't solutions.

All to frequently, our couch is unusable due to Laundry Mountain. I hate it. There is an answer out there. I just need to think about it. I need to think as carefully and thoughtfully as I did when I re-did the errands. Now is the perfect moment. Daisy Dog likes to sleep on piles of clean laundry, so I have no choice but to keep it off the couch. Papa-Bug made this wonderful folding table in our tiny laundry room - plenty of clearance for the dirty laundry sorter underneath, room on top to keep clean laundry and to fold it.

A place for clean laundry, made of recycled materials. I love my husband.

Who: Me (and the family as applicable)
What: Create a plan to keep the clean laundry flowing to its proper place...dressers come to mind.
Why: This is my Everest of housekeeping. I want to figure it out.
How: Watch the laundry dance, where it works and where it doesn't. Make a plan and implement said plan.

I can't tackle the "how" in a more detailed way right now - first I have to do some thinking and unraveling of the mountain. I'll keep you posted.

Come to Laundry Mountain...

This is the mountain of laundry - now clean - from our weekend of dressing up. There are still three loads, maybe four loads, to do.

But it was fun. And totally worth it.

How long will it take to fold it all, I wonder? We'll find out later this evening!

Ugh....Hack....Sniff....

Back from the Country Fair with 12 loads of laundry to do, unpacking galore, storing the Fair supplies for next year, thinking about ways to improve our 2012 Fair (we have only 362 days to plan, you know), and trying to decompress from the craziness with the kids... And of course I get an awful head cold.

A head cold in the Summer is just cruel. In the fall and winter it is expected. It makes sense. It's time to snuggle inside and drink hot tea anyway. I still hate every snuffy minute, but at least it is seasonally appropriate.

This all leads me to the grander question: how does one lovingly and effectively parent with a head cold? These are the days when I am at my worst. I look back on the day as I wheeze in bed, and I hate the parent I was all day. Cranky. Crabby. Impatient. Irrational.

I know that I can only do so much, but it almost seems like some other part of my brain wants the kids to be as miserable as I am. Or something like that.

What doesn't help is that I really don't like to be touched at all when my nose is stuffy. And I have a one-year old co-sleeping snuggle-bug.

I'll repeat my question: how does one lovingly and effectively parent with a head cold? If you give me useful and/or inspirational advice, I might just give you a prize.

Back to the trenches now.

Wordless Wednesday: Sunny Summer Helper

Few things as good a freshly sunned laundry and a toddler to help hang!