John asked a simple question over breakfast, “Do you need laundry done?”
You have it right – he does the laundry, and I am grateful. It wasn’t always his job. When we had three children at home and I was the stay-at-home mom, I did whites six times and colors two times a week. That is not to say that we were squeaky clean. Just walking through our undusted house could contaminate you. He volunteered to do the wash when he had his office next to the laundry room, and I was working outside the home. That slid into the era of necessity when I was recovering from having total knee replacements. The “look Ma, no hands!” could not be applied to laundry baskets on stairs. Well, it could, but there would have been bodily harm to someone. We moved to a one-floor-fits-all house in the mountains, and he continued his clean act. In return, I say thank you every time I find clean clothes laid on the bed, always folded or on hangers. It is truly a blessing. He’s a keeper.
John’s morning query made me wonder what drives other people’s laundry. There are the questions of who does it? and what is the trigger? Most people I know, including Facebook and WordPress friends, have some cleaning routine, otherwise I would have smelled you long ago. Do you wash because the laundromat is empty at a particular time? Perhaps you know you have to do this chore when you retrieve your socks from the floor and wear them ten days in a row.
I answered John’s question by saying I would look in the drawer and see how many pairs of jeans I had left. I asked, “Why are you asking? You have been washing exactly when I needed clean clothes. What has changed?”
He replied, “I threw away some underwear and opened a new package.”
Ah! The necessity marker had changed!
Mehrling Muse 
We split laundry here. My husband does his own plus the bedding and towels. I do my own. There are specific days we do the laundry although sometimes we move it for convenience. With my clothes it would take a while until I ran out of clean clothes! Yes, they are keepers.
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Sounds good. I remember how to work the dishwasher, but I’d have to read the knobs to get the washing machine going.
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Anne,
I laughed aloud when I read this post. I wish my John would ask me too, if I needed laundry done.
As to your question about who does the laundry in our home. well, we throw our clothes into the laundry basket- colors and whites and all that we don’t care if they are washed together and we are sure colors wont run of, and then the guy who comes to help with housework puts the clothes into the washing machine. The job of hanging out clothes on the line is mine as he usually forgets to put the clothes out( we have no dryer)- so we dry clothes the old fashioned way- wind blown, and clipped on long lines put up at the back of the house.
For clothes that are expensive or which need more care,we send them to the laundry, where they are washed pressed, folded and sent back , all ready to use. And here again there is a segregation- there is a cheaper laundry where we give clothes that don’t cost too much and where the wash is rough and tough, and there is another one where we give our expensive clothes.
At home the ironing is done by the house help.
I am a very poor housekeeper so I am glad to not have to do the laundry.
Thanks for sharing your story and making me laugh.
Susie
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Your system is elaborate, but you seem to know how it all works. I’d probably have to make a chart.
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Susie, would love to find a laundromat that would actually do our laundry for us! And household help to do the ironing! Heaven.
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We’ve got the ironing nailed. We don’t do any. Every few years John wants something pressed, so he goes out and buys an iron. I know where there are three in the house. The latest one is on the dryer, so I hope he sees it before he buys another one.
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Honestly, and the guy who comes to help with the laundry is a keeper.:)
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Such a cool husband you have! I live alone – and am doing a load even as we speak, er, write! 😀
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Ah! An independent woman bearing the load!
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That man is a boykie! An affectionate South African term. I can load a washing machine, hang things out on the line when our housekeeper is away but spare me the ironing —
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John gets desperate to have something ironed about every three years. Thankfully, most irons are user friendly. That doesn’t make me like them. I show him how to get steam, and then I usually iron the darn thing for him.
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I put the washing machine on at 3 am when I have breakfast. It’s a drier too so I know when I’ve finished the first batch of post and go through about 7.am it just needs a shake and folding up on the airer. The days of the iron are long gone so I try to be careful with the folding.
xxx Huge Hugs xxx
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I know the early bird gets the worm, but what does the early launderer get? Right. Clean clothes. I hope you don’t quit, because your process would fold.
xxx silly hugs xxx
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My husband works six days a week, so I do most of the laundry, but he loves to take wet clothes out and put them in the dryer. Don’t know why…he just seems to like that part of the routine. 🙂
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Maybe he doesn’t want anyone to call him a wet blanket. He’s a keeper though, if he likes routine.
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The puns here … are you sure John isn’t writing some of these responses? 😀
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The laundry is my domain. Though with only two of us it is pretty minimal. It usually gets done when I have enough for a load or if we run out of something like towels. When our kids are around the machine goes a lot more. I either dry them in the drier or on a line. In the summer I love putting the sheets and towels on the line outside. In the winter things go on a drying rack in front of the woodstove. (because it also adds a little humidity to our dry winter air :).
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That’s great that you can use laundry to raise the humidity. I remember helping my mom hang clothes outside. Things were more urgent when it began to rain, and we rushed out to grab the things on the line. There is nothing like climbing in bed and smelling sun-dried sheets. Beats sun-dried tomatoes every time! To tell the truth, I never went to bed with tomatoes, at least not intentionally.
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LOL Anne! on the tomatoes. There is something wonderful about sun-dried sheets. I also love the scratchy feeling of sun baked towels.
I remember my mom hanging jeans on the lines in winter and when she brought them back in after they freeze dried they were stiff as boards.
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Yes! I remember frozen jeans, too. Once in a while we’d pose them, standing them in the middle of the floor. We didn’t have a drier for ages, and even then Mom would hang clothes out on a pretty day.
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Laughed like crazy about you posing the frozen jeans! We did the same thing. My mom did not have a drier at that time either and she had a wringer washer. Dad did put lines up in the basement for her so she could hang things there to dry if the weather did not cooperate.
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I have no idea what my mom did in the winter. I suspect she waited for a day that wasn’t too cold or rainy and did the wash then. We didn’t have a basement. Ours was a wringer-washer, too. It’s good to remember those things and be thrilled with our modern appliances. I wouldn’t be surprised if my mom was thankful that she didn’t have to scrub clothes with a washboard in a tub!
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Doing the laundry is a week-end chore around our house.
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I’m glad you said laundry is a week-end chore, not a week-long one.
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Every individual in our house has done their own laundry for as long as I can remember. I remember lifting my little ones up to help them toss laundry into the machine when they were too short to climb up themselves (I think they started doing their own when they were 5 or 6–with a bit of help, of course). We used to have scheduled days for each of the boys so there wasn’t a pile-up. We are all responsible for our own towels and sheets, too, and if someone really needs something washed, we throw the item into our pile. We don’t separate whites and darks. Just wear a lot of black 🙂 As for ironing, I think we used the iron a while back to wax some skis….
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That’s the best use of an iron I ever heard of! Your parenting skills are top notch. I would never have thought to have my children wash their own clothes. Most excellent!
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I actually love to do laundry. I love to hear the water fill the tub and slosh away. I love to take the hot towels out of the drier and hold them tight. I love folding and putting away and I also enjoy ironing. It gives me a sense of a “job well done”.
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