one less step for mankind: laundry.

Really?

One less step?

Is that possible?

1. The bringing the laundry down  2. sorting  3. washing  4. switching to dryer  5. folding  6. stacking in baskets  7. bringing to the correct rooms  8. putting away

The hardest part for me is rounding that corner from the folding and stacking in baskets to the part of putting it all away so that I can actually find the clothes in a reasonable amount of time since I do not typically give myself a reasonable amount of time as I assume it takes 10 minutes to get out the door so for the love of any and all good things if I did all the cumulative work of steps 1-7 I really would like to be able to clothe my body so I can get onto the next part of my day without feeling irritated and seriously how about not late again.

This laundry process has come up in my therapy sessions – yes in one way or another. This is all very concerning, and I realize that. It has been symbolic of where I am at emotionally. How behind I feel, and how motivated I am to tackle this whole process once again.

Let’s just focus on the being irritated part for a moment. I don’t like that feeling. The less feeling irritated the better. It adds up. Like moments in a day, a week, a month, add it up and basically I could spend a whole years worth of time annoyed about this. I can will myself, avoid, snap, make chore charts on every wall and still find that this laundry process has me beat.

I have tried to skip number 5 through 8 by taking clothes out of dryer and tossing them wildly into 6 piles on the basement floor: towels, Mr. K, the teen, dboy, Mr. C and myself.  How does that turn out? Unless everyone is home and ready to take that pile, fold and put away, before you know it the piles aren’t really piles anymore. More like a multi-colored-lumpy floor covering. And then if you need to find a shirt? You bend over and start the digging – picking up item after item from your lumpy-area-rug-section as items get tossed and end up off your pile – into and onto other piles — then there is a complete breakdown of all the boundary lines, you force yourself back to standing feeling the ache in your lower back left sweaty and shirtless.

And more frustrated.

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So how about this? Call me a bit crate-crazy but go with me here:

I load these crates in my cart a few minutes before closing time. A cube. It stacks. Hmm….

I fold and stack the clean clothes into each family members bin, including one for towels. So far so good. I notice some potential here.

I can fold the clothes and stack the bins. I can see all the items in the crate – and I can even tip the crate to face forward and it mimics a shelf. These things I cannot do with the standard laundry basket. Hmm….

Lookie here, I can stack and carry.

I hand deliver setting each crate in the appropriate room.

I go into my room and set my crate on a shelf in my closet.

I look at it.

I then walk away.

I do not put away.

I do not put away.

< — This typical style laundry basket? Left in my room there is not hope in finding my baggy Levi's or brown shirt without disheveling the whole pile.

— > The art of the cube? I can see my all the clothes – all the layers. Pink shirt? Or the brown? I officially skip step number 8. (!!!!!!!) It can be done. I did it. The next day and the next day I was happy to just pull out and select an item from this tidy stack. It didn’t bother me a bit that the shirts were never married with the official shirt pile of my closet. No. And I like the boundary lines of this cube, how it keeps things from tipping over.

I really really like this. Love love.

One less time of having to man-handle each and every item.

Praise the Lord.

And praise be to Target.

I will be back for about 5 more of these. (See, if I leave one in the closet, I need an empty one for the next round of clean clothes. At $3.99 a bin, this I am not considering a problem.)

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