I think that at this exact moment in time, all of my dishtowels and dishcloths are clean.
A good thing, right?
Hmmm.
I don’t know how to answer that exactly, because when they’re all clean, the cute little basket where they’re supposed to go . . . overflows and looks awful.
I have a lot of them.
And yet, somehow, there are many, many . . . many times when I can’t find a clean one.
Hmmm.
When I was in college, my mother bought me a package of about 100 washcloths for washing my face. She was being realistic. She had accepted the fact that I would not do laundry until every last item of clothing I owned was dirty. I’m assuming I must have had 100 pairs of underwear too.
She was compensating for my fault, and it was a brilliant solution. Accept her daughter for exactly who she is, but don’t let her walk around with a dirty face.
I really think that it was the best way to go at that time. After all, I had much better things to do in college than spend a few hours doing laundry.
But now I’m a grown-up. And I have my very own washing machine and dryer. No quarters required.
And I’m a mommy who has 4 other people who need clean undies. Every single day.
So my question is whether or not it’s a good thing that I have so many dishcloths. If I could conquer laundry, there would always be a clean one, and I could whittle down the stack to just what looks pretty in the basket.
There are times when I need to be realistic about who I am and how my brain works. I should balance a checkbook, but I don’t, so I’ve set up a system that keeps me from ever spending more than our budgeted household amount. In that case, it totally works, and is much smarter than lamenting my organizational skills while checks bounce everywhere.
I am not knocking being realistic about myself and coming up with systems that make things run smoothly. In most cases, it’s the right thing to do.
But there has to be balance, and I have to analyze how it’s really working.
Having so many dishcloths means that I can go quite a long time without washing, drying, folding and putting back any of them. But if I didn’t have so many, would it motivate me to do better?
My resolution/change of thinking for 2010 is to find a place for everything. This has to be a place in a neat home.
So I should probably get rid of some dishcloths.
But I’m scared.
My husband and I have this discussion often. I say if we decluttered our clothing (for you, dishtowels) down to necessity, it would be so much *easier* to keep up with laundry. Less to wash, less to fold, less to put away (my biggest challenge, it seems). He fervently disagrees, and says we need 100 proverbial washcloths to protect us from ourselves. If you're really worried about not having clean dish towels, try boxing up all the excess in your basement or garage for 6 months. Mark the box June 2010. If you haven't broken into it by then, feel free to pass it on to someone in need. That's what I plan to do with all of my too small clothing. If I actually lose 2 sizes in 6 months, I've got clothes — woohoo! If not, they're going to Goodwill!
That is a great idea putting things in a box with a date to dispose of. i like that. Now, they may get lost in the grage for who know how long but the date is great Thanks…..Julie
Dish towels are something I need alot of, and I too struggle to keep up with the laundry. So my advice; ditch the small cute basket for a big cute basket to keep them in. I'm sure you can find another use for the small one. Good luck
The problem is, it's not all that little of a basket!
I'm also thinking about the box it up and see idea. That's kind of what I'm doing with the garage sale stuff going into the garage. I figure that when I have the sale, if I see something I've been missing, I can grab it back!I just don't want to bring a lot back into the house.
Shhhhhh! You’re not supposed to say that out loud! When we say it, people know that somewhere in our house is a pile of damp, very stinky towels that haven’t been washed all week!
Re the problem over balancing the checkbook, you might like to know that in 1690, Queen Mary, in a pickle over pin money, scrawled across her accounts “I can’t tell how it has been laid out but I know ’tis all gone.”
Cath’s comment is HIGH-larious! Love that! Maybe I’ll try that with my bills next month? 🙂
Hi, Heather! Glad you liked it. It only goes to prove that nothing changes.
I recently had this problem with our dishes and silverware. We had 12-16 of most items. This is great if you have a large family or entertain frequently, but there’s only 3 of us and we never have people over for dinner. With that many plates, forks, etc you can go almost the whole week without washing anything…but then the kitchen’s a mess and you’re stuck with a marathon dishwashing session. To encourage us to “be good people” I took us down to 6 of everything; enough for comfort but not enough to encourage laziness. I boxed up the rest to store in the back corner of a cabinet for now. It’s been less than a week, but so far it’s working out nicely and all dishes are getting washed shortly after being used.