I have a confession to make–I don’t do laundry “right.” I know all the rules. My mom taught me well. But somewhere along the road (actually, I know exactly “where” it happened) I threw it out the window. (The window, the second story window. High, low. Low, high. Threw it out the window.)
I was doing laundry alongside my mother from the time I could toddle. Year after year, I separated my whites from my colors. (Although I was forever confusing which side of the hamper was which.) I knew heavy fabrics like jeans and towels should be separate from permanent press items.
But then I went off to college. And all of my training went *splat.* Now, before you go assuming I was going through some kind of rebellious stage, let me assure you I was not. No, friends, this was all about the money. Yep, the money. You see, doing laundry in a coin operated laundry room is REALLY EXPENSIVE (especially when you’re 19), and saving up all of those quarters was a pain (even though my mom did it for me for four years straight. thanks, mom!)
[side note: if you do need to save quarters for any reason and you happen to have old film canisters laying around the house *ahem,* they hold exactly seven dollars in a very convenient fashion. You’re welcome.]
Even though the quarters weren’t really mine, I just couldn’t bear to put quarter after quarter into those little slots in order to do multiple loads of laundry the “right” way. AND besides the money, I just didn’t have enough clothes to make properly-separated loads of laundry without running out of every last item of clothing in order to make a full load.
And so (hold on to your hats, people), I combined EVERYTHING INTO ONE BIG LOAD. Yep, that’s right. OH, THE HORROR!! And load after load, year after year, everything’s turned out all right. I’ve never had white-turned-pink-items-because-of-that-darn-red-sock. I keep those likely-to-bleed-fabrics separate a time or two and have no problems.
So here I am, 8 years later, and still having the audacity to throw everything into one load.
Yes, it’s awesome that my husband and I only make 1 (or maybe 2) loads of laundry of week. But you know what, I actually enjoy laundry. And if I didn’t have to pay the water and electric bills and if we had enough laundry to fill up more than two baskets (future-me will probably want to punch present-day-me in the face right now), then I totally would do all of those extra loads.
But for now, I’m just enjoying dropped jaws of classically (laundry) trained women everywhere.
Haha! My mom freaks out when I'm too lazy to separate clothes according to colors. I just put the temp. on cold and the clothes turn out fine. And now they have these "color catcher" sheets that you can put in the wash if you're afraid to put a white piece of clothing into a colored load.
I do the same thing! although, now that we have more laundry with 5 of us, it is easier to do one "delicate" load and 1 towels/sheets load… but for the most part, I don't stress separating things!! :)
I can relate…I mix everything now EXCEPT my husbands work clothes. :)
This post made me smile! My husband does most of the laundry in our house, and he's the one who started doing everything together. It works! We still do occasional cold water loads, but save up for those.
Haha! I do the exact same thing. Except when I have a brand new bright red sweater or something. Then I'm too afraid to mix it in with the whites. And oh, my goodness. Laundry for 3 seems so much crazier than laundry for 2. I'm not sure how my little guy makes so much dirty laundry, but I think it has something to do with his multiple wardrobe changes due to messy dinners and peed-through jammies. LOL!
Love this post! It made me think of my daughters and the audacity they have to throw everything into one big load…despite all my training!!! thanks for the smile!