This shirt.
This shirt.
Do you hear the contempt?
This shirt has been in my laundry pile THREE WEEKS IN A ROW.
Clean.
Ooo-hoo-hoo. I can not properly express the loathing I feel toward clean clothes found in my dirty clothes pile.
It is one of my Mommy Pet Peeves.
I know that I used to do it to my own mother, but really . . . it is the worst.
Little else makes me feel so unappreciated.
I purchased that boys’ tank in a 3-pack last Christmas when my kids needed to make a modest costume change for our church play. It was the cheapest way to go.
But my boys don’t wear those kinds of shirts. Somehow, the gray one ended up in the dirty clothes three Mondays ago. I washed it.I put it away.
Then the next Monday, it was back in the pile.
I grumbled. I put it back in the drawer.
But when I found it BACK in the pile of dirty clothes this week . . . I’d had enough. Anything that is unloved enough to end up on the floor UNworn three weeks in a row needs to go.
So it’s gone.
Three strikes? You’re donated!
--Nony
Hi Nony! I do the same with the toys that always end on the floor, or just the things that are moved from one spot to another. They go in the donation box or on Freecycle. Bye bye mess!
I sold our Thomas the Tank Engine sets when they kept getting dumped out of the toy bins and spread around the room and never actually PLAYED with (or picked up). One day, in a rage, I scooped all the train sets up into some big bins, put them in the garage and waited for them to be missed. Months passed and no one asked where the trains went. I just sold them and bought my boy a new snowsuit with the proceeds.
I haven’t told the kids the trains are gone yet and they haven’t asked.
I have a three year old boy and at this point the trains would be missed before the next potty break. LOL. The stacking cups on the other had need to go!
I donated our large Thomas collection to my sons’ preK teacher. The oldest played with them so much, but the next son just didn’t care about them. They were barely missed at home and got a lot more use at school. (I asked the preK teacher for her wish list and wooden train stuff was on there.)
I don’t even want to think about how many clean clothes I’ve rewashed, most of them….gulp…mine. While I don’t have anywhere near as many as my daughter, I have too many to fit in my closet (which is EXTREMELY tiny) and my dresser. So I fold them and set them in piles on my dresser. But I have a cat who likes to sleep on those clothes, and who sometimes knocks them off. I’ve accepted the sleeping part, and cover the clothes with a towel…but when they get knocked off, into the washer they go. I seriously need to get rid of stuff in the drawers.
As for the three strikes rule…definitely need to put that into effect around here. Of course if I’d just do what Jen does…get rid of things that are unused and won’t be missed, the vast majority of the clutter in my house would be gone. I seriously haven’t seen the contents of some of the moving day boxes…for almost six years.
Oh how I needed this post today! I feel the same as you–clean clothes in the laundry basket makes me feel like my work goes unappreciated. I spent time, money and resources on cleaning/folding laundry–and it ends up thrown back in the dirty basket with no thought. Ugh! Frustrating.
My 8 year old has thrown the same couple of pieces of laundry back in the dirty basket many weeks in a row now and I had no idea how I was going to address the situation, although I knew something had to be done. Now I know–its gone!
Thank you for a fantastic idea of one more way to eliminate clutter in our home! I will begin implementing this rule immediately and enforce it hardcore this weekend during household clean up!!!!
My son is a Marine, and when he left home he left his room a huge mess (think, clothing tornado). I washed everything, hung it, put it in the drawers, etc. (and quietly purged LOL) because I was using his room for guests so it needed to be clean. When my son came home after basic training, he immediately took what wanted out and took it with him. Not to mention he bought a ton of clothes, and then left another clothing tornado of what he had thrown out of the closet and drawers. In a fit of rage, I took everything on the floor and in his dresser drawers and donated them.
Maybe that sounds mean, but he was home over the last weekend and asked where his stuff was. I told him straight up, you left it and I got rid of it. Oddly enough he said nothing, and this time when he left he cleaned his room and put a pile in front of his door of things – that he wanted me to donate! I think that perhaps me getting rid of his unwanted clothes was a relief for both of us.
I also notice that the more I implement the one in, one out rule – it gets easier. I used to have my dressers and closet stuffed with things I never wore. Now giving myself permission to rid myself of what doesn’t work – its a relief.
What a great story! And I love how he got into the spirit of donating!