Can y’all believe it’s already April? Me neither!
I’ve been meaning to share our new laundry system and how we’ve been making it work. Honestly, I’ve been scared to mention it because I’ve made such a big deal in the past about how well a weekly Laundry Day worked for me.
And it did. Really. For almost six years, a weekly day of focusing on washing, drying and putting away all the laundry in the entire house was perfect for my tunnel-vision prone, project-loving personality.
But this way is even better. I have switched to doing laundry monthly. Like, one day each month. That’s only twelve times a year that my washing machine gets used!
I know what you’re thinking. How does she have room in her house for enough clothes to last an entire month? I don’t. I don’t have enough room, and we don’t have enough clothes to wear something different every day of the month.
(Not that I didn’t, pre-blog, have more than enough clothes to last an entire month! But I wasn’t willing to undo all the clothing decluttering progress we’ve made around here!)
Let me explain how this happened. Last summer, we went on an epic trip. Like, three weeks epic. We loaded up the Suburban with everything we needed, downloaded some apps to help us do the trip as cheaply as possible, and hit the road.
I knew when we left that we simply did not have room (or enough clothes) to pack different outfits for each day of the trip. I decided to bring seven complete outfits for each person.
I assumed it would be easy to find a laundromat wherever we ended up at the end of each week, and we’d just spend a day washing clothes as needed.
I’m not sure if it was a unique quirk of the towns where we ended up on days 7, 8, 9 and 10 of our trip, but we could not find a laundromat to save our lives. Seriously. Not a laundry room in a motel, not a place on the corner of the town square, nothing. And we had our SMART PHONES, so it’s not like we couldn’t search properly. I even made Hubby stop at a Chamber of Commerce on Day 9 (I was getting desperate), and the lady at the desk looked at me like I was crazy when I asked where someone could do laundry.
But it was on that day (day 9) when I got desperate enough that I told the kids to hang all of their clothes on hangers and put them out on the hotel balcony to air out. The next day, as I folded the aired out clothes and packed them away, I was shocked that they smelled and looked fairly fresh. We didn’t even have to keep the windows down as we drove to our next stop.
We stopped at the first Walmart we saw and I purchased several packages of hangers since I wasn’t sure every single stop would have them available.
After the initial airing out of all our clothes, we got into the habit of hanging up each day’s clothes after we took showers in the evenings.
Much to my surprise, when we got home from our vacation, the entire family easily kept up the nightly hanging-out-0f-the-clothes routine. After we’d been home for about a week and half, I realized I had never done the typical wash-everything-we-own post-vacation laundry thing. And we were all fine!
I did eventually make everyone sort laundry into piles and went through my old Laundry Day routine, but after this experience I realized there was absolutely no need to wash clothes as often as we had always done. Since that time, I’ve made the first of the month (today is the first of April), our Once-a-Month Laundry Day. Since we don’t have any more clothes than we did when I washed weekly, it still only takes one day to get it all done!
There are some things I have learned over the past almost-a-year of this laundry routine:
- Be sure you have plenty of hangers. Each person in the family needs at least two (but probably three) hangers. Hang tops on one, pants/jeans/skirts on another, and clothing that’s layered (sweatshirts, jackets, etc.) on another. Undergarments usually go around the top part (the hook) of the hanger, so they don’t need their own.
- Weather permitting, airing clothes outside is ideal. There’s nothing like a gentle breeze to lift away the vast majority of body odor from most fabrics.
- Accidents happen. If someone spills something on their clothes or falls in a mud puddle, simply turn the clothes inside out until the next once-a month Laundry Day comes around.
- By Day 27, going commando is a good option. Do I really need to explain?
- Always, when reading a blog post that seems highly ridiculous, check the date. If it was written on April 1st (also known as April Fool’s Day) disregard everything in it.
P.S. My weekly Laundry Day is most definitely not a joke. Read about it (and how it helped me get laundry under control FOR REAL) here.
--Nony
I figured it out before I got to the end! Yay me, I am known for being GULLIBLE!
That said… it’s really not necessary to wash clothes every time you wear them. It’s bad for the clothes, the ocean, the world. Especially if you wear a lot of polyester.
Wash clothes when they are dirty, not before, and you will save time, money on laundry products, water, and eco systems. That’s no April fool’s joke!
I TOTALLY agree, Hayley! It was a huge adjustment to move away from always having to wash everything during those baby years of daily spit up and other grossness on mama’s clothes.
Dear Dana,
I figured it out almost at the end, when you mentioned hanging the undergarments… That’s when I remembered it’s April 1st! Excellent April Fools Day post!
PS. I also fell, I think it was last year, for the post about drinking from a funnel so as not to have to wash glasses. That one I figured out when hot coffee was mentioned!
Best,
Eugenia
I figured it out at the underwear part, too!
Hahaha… too funny! Loved the post, Nonny.
You got me. The lack-of-laundromat thing happened to me when we traveled to England. They don’t have them there. Period. A couple places we stayed had in-house machines that we used, and once we sent out laundry (heaven! It came back folded!), so I bought it all.
Thanks for the laugh.
We do have laundromats in the UK but they are quite rare. my town only has two. Of course to add to the confusion we use a different word, laundrette! I like the idea of sending out laundry…. 😀 x
LOL! Happy April Fool’s Day!
Ha ha! You had me going for a while!
Boy am I gullible! You had me fooled until the end, when you started to talk about ‘going commando’!
Ok. You totally had me. Right up until “hanging the underwear” and the going commando by day 27.
🙂
https://gwingal.blogspot.com/
LOL!! I was wondering about the undergarments. You totally had me going for a while.
That’s so funny. And yes. I believed it because I actually only do laundry every 2-3 weeks but we have a fair number of clothes and lot (30 or more) pairs of underwear. And bras are hand washed more. I also realized it was a joke only when you got to the part about underwear.
I admit, you had me going for a little bit! I kept thinking the following : “eeew” “is she serious?” And “she’s usually somewhat neurotic about dirty/gross stuff”
Good one!
I fell for this and if you hadn’t mentioned it was a joke – I would think your family runs around at the end of the month commando. I realize now how I believe everything I see on the internet. Thanks for the lesson 🙂 SO funny though. I was chuckling pretty loudly at my desk while I was “working”.
Ha! Happy April Fools’ Day! Still working on weekly laundry over here. Can’t try anything new until I get that right. 🙂 But this did remind me of living in Spain during/after college. My roommate and I always hung our clothes on the balcony after a night out to air out the smoke smell. It worked! Good memories, even if it was a laundry memory.
April fool! Wish it was true…
You always have the best April Fools Day posts. 😀 Of course, if my family wanted to do once a week laundry, we’d probably have to follow several of these suggestions. I’d never get all the clothes done in one day. Big family problems!
You got me! I was even wondering how in the world that would ever work with boys and that you must have lost your mind. Good one!
You got me again! LOL! I fell for it last year too! 🙂 Keep up the interesting posts! I often laugh, and my children are asking me, “mom, what’s so funny”, and they come look and see your picture, and say “oh, it’s her, the funny lady!” LOL!
I read this on April 2- already in forgetting about April Fools Day… You completely got me… lol!
You actually got me. I thought you were crazy.
Good one!
I’ve been sick the past few days. I kept wondering how on earth this could work with underwear. You totally got me!
I bet you didn’t hear about this.
https://curiosity.com/memes/goodbye-laundromat-you-may-soon-clean-clothes-with-light-curiosity/
I never fall for April Fools jokes, and you totally had me.
I was thinking it was pretty gross to rewear all of your clothes…but to each their own LOL!! So funny!
Today is laundry day, but I’m going to be out of the house all day, so I told my husband that I was going to get started last night. I got as far as bringing some of the dirty clothes to the door to the basement.
When I woke up this morning, I saw the basket of dirty clothes sitting in my room and realized that Hubby thought they were clean and brought them upstairs, so I walked them back down to the same place I left them last night.
I just went upstairs to get the toddler and the clothes were gone again, back into my bedroom.
I love that he is helping me with laundry day, but STOP TAKING THE DIRTY CLOTHES BACK UPSTAIRS!!! Also, I finally took them all the way to the laundry room and started a load in the wash, which is what I should have done in the first place.
Wow. I fell for this. Hard. I read through this thinking, seriously?! This actually works?!
Sorry!!!
You got me good. I kept thinking…I better keep doing laundry once a week with a husband and two sons in the house. When we went to Disney last year, I did wash my bras and a sock (how I ended up with one random sock for my DH, I can’t tell you) in the sink.
I was believing you until the part about the underwear.
You got me!!!
You totally got me!!! As in, if you hadn’t written point number 5, I’d still be shocked that a Christian woman such as yourself was so openly promoting going commando.
I SO wanted it to work — I was fantasizing about how great my life would be in this new life (almost in a what-if-I-won-the-lottery way), but I admit the underwear part did cause me to cringe.
Gave me a good laugh, ultimately, which is much needed in our COVID-19 world!
Got me going until the mention of underwear !!!! Love your books. They are downloaded onto my tablet and when things are a bit difficult I read them again -they make me grin and make so much sense.