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Laundry, Linens, and Love

    It's clean sheet night. I love clean sheet night. My friend Denise reminded me not too long ago that I have had a thing for bedding since I was a little girl. When I first began to babysit, I made 50 cents an hour. Denise and I had quite a little business going there in Navy housing in Charleston, S.C. I saved my quarters until I could buy a $28 dollar quilt from the Sears catalog. I still remember that quilt. It was the beginning of a lifelong romance with linens. I love a well-made bed. There's something about the feel of cool cottons in the summer and warm flannels in the winter. There's something about the way a change of sheets can change a sickbed into a bed of recovery. And oh, the way a quilt can lend personality to a room! I do love beds. I love towels, too. Big, fluffy, super-absorbent towels that wrap the delicious dimples of damp babies after baths. Linens are truly lovely.
    Laundry hampers full of dirty clothes? Not so much. The reality is that I spend far more time in my life tending to the latter than the former.  Sheets get washed once a week. Towels, twice a week. The rest of the laundry is a never-ending hymn sung from that narrow room off the kitchen. Maryan asked about laundry and I'll share a bit here, but really, I know that my laundry system won't be her laundry system. Laundry is one of those tasks every woman must think through for herself. The biggest key, however, is simple and universal (and much like refrigerator cleaning): just do it.

Laundry is a big deal. This is evidenced by the fact the Cheryl Mendelson devotes 200 pages to the topic in Home Comforts--far more than any of us really need to know. What we must know first is that care of clothing and linens must be woven into the day. Let's begin with the end. A dirty boy at the end of a day of play wearing mud-stained clothes is ready to disrobe and take a bath. Where will he put his clothes? In my husband's childhood home, he'd drop them on the floor just outside the bath and they'd magically appear in a drawer, clean and folded before he awakened the next morning. I still can't quite figure out that magic. In our house, it makes sense to have a hampers in the bathrooms. There is one for lights, for darks, for towels, and for Daddy. I like to keep Mike's clothing separate from the mix because he's frequently packing and unpacking and it just works better not to have his clothes tangled up with everyone else's.

Everyone but Karoline knows how to sort into the right hampers. I know there are folks who can't be bothered by sorting. But I likes my whites to look white, my pinks to be pink on purpose, and my colors to stay colorful. By setting up the hampers this way, we bring a little order to the laundry before the process is really begun.

When I launder is very much affected by the reality that our hot water heater is too small for the needs of our family. So, I have to wash at times when no one will need a bath or shower and no dishes will need to be washed. But I can't fold at those times because I'm either busy with the school day or I'm out of the house. [See I told you my system makes sense for me, but is unlikely to be used as is by someone else.]  I wash and dry when water is available. I fold without fail every single morning, before everyone is awake and often again in the evening. I need to wash, dry , and put away at least two loads of laundry a day to stay afloat, sometimes three. This includes cloth diapers, linens and a never-ending number of sports uniforms. Rebecca suggested to me that it would be a good idea to have all the sports uniforms in their own box in the laundry room. I'd wash them, dry them, and return them there. They'd never get into circulation with the rest of the clothes. This idea appeals to me and I'm working on a way to implement it. In a smaller family, it is inefficient to do laundry every day. I do laundry every day because I have the full loads to make it efficient. If you don't have full loads, it's more efficient to wait until you do.

It is possible to do small amounts of laundry several times a week or every day. This system actually tends to work best in large, highly organized households, particularly those in which someone stays home to keep house. But it tends to be adopted, as a kind of default system, in more disorganized households where no one stays home. Frequent laundering geared to need of the day makes it hard to get properly sorted and balanced loads. Besides, this method never gives one a sense of repose, freedom from an accomplished chore. (Home Comforts)

If you live in a large family, you might feel as if this job is never finished. But if you have a system for it, you can reach the end of the day knowing that you have fulfilled the duties necessary to the day. Until the day everyone goes naked all day, this is as close as you're going to come to finishing the laundry. If you are facing Mount Never-rest and it looms formidably in front of you, begin with the jeans. Pull them all out of piles and wash them all at once. These are big and bulky and will give you a jumpstart. Then move to towels-- again they take up a lot of space in the hamper but they are so easy to wash, dry and put away!

When I fold, I take out of circulation anything I think is past its usefulness or state of good repair. I keep a giveaway bag in the laundry room for this purpose. I match socks as I can and toss the inevitable unmatched socks into the sock basket for matching later. My husband is great about pairing his socks and turning them down at the top to keep them together before putting them in the watch. Most of my children are not so good at this. I put ironing into a basket of its own to be done on Thursdays. I fold everything else into baskets according to bedroom. The big kid in the bedroom is in charge of putting them away. I put away my clothes, my husband's clothes,  and the baby's clothes.

Before January, the only time I'd used my ironing board was when I inverted it against my bed and laid on it ninth moths pregnant to try to get a breech baby to turn (didn't work, by the way). This was not good for the ironing board. It was also five and a half years ago. From that time on, I ironed on occasion if necessary on my bed or wherever. My husband has a vast collection of very nice shirts. When my uncle died six years ago, Mike inherited all three of his wardrobes. My uncle had amazing style-sense and these were all wonderful clothes which fit Mike perfectly. Wonderful, very high maintenance clothes. I used to take all his shirts to the cleaners. In January, Mary Beth's dance teacher asked her to add another class. In an effort to find some discretionary income and not impact the budget, I eliminated the cleaners and added ironing to my regular routine. And I found that I pretty much like it. Ironing on a regular basis is different from the kind of ironing I used to do. Taking the time to smooth the wrinkles is really rather satisfying. Trying to iron while someone stands in front of me in his underwear, shifting from one foot to another while glancing nervously at the clock is not at all satisfying. It's really rather maddening and not a little guilt-inducing. Better to do it on a regular basis. Ironing is great thinking time. My hands are engaged but my mind is free to roam. I find myself thinking about the people who wear the clothes I iron and I often am inspired to pray for them during that time.  Margaret Peterson writes that ironing "requires attention but not thought and so leaves the heart free to meditate on whatever comes to mind, all the while hands go through the familiar steps involved in turning wrinkly things into smooth things" (Keeping Home). I have also found that when I iron on a new ironing board and I use scented ironing spray (or linen water), I get the unexpected benefit of scenting our whole room for several hours. The hot iron makes a sweet-smelling steam and I'm all about aromatherapy!

When I first broke free from my habit of taking clothes out to the cleaners, I was encouraged and somewhat emboldened by Cheryl Mendelson's assertion that "commercial laundries do not do nearly as good a job as you can at home, cause much faster wearing and fading of clothes and linens, and will rarely give the individual attention to cherished garments or expensive linens that you will" (Home Comforts). And all this time I thought "the cleaners" were so much superior to what I could do!

Putting clothes away was a major chore before the mighty purge. We simply did not have room for the clothing and linens we had. The linen closet was so jammed full that a child would throw himself against it to get it to close and the hinge was broken from the force. No more. 42 bags later, we have no more clothes or linens than we have room to store  neatly. There are  very few sheets in the linen closet now. I have one set of summer sheets for each bed and one extra per mattress size. I recently had a chance to test whether this would work during an illness and I'm happy to report we all did just fine. In the autumn, I will add a set of flannel sheets per bed. On sheet changing day each week, I wash and dry the sheets and put them back on the bed. Towels are stored in the linen closet or hung on hooks in the bathroom. Colleen passed along a tip she'd read on the message board: put all the sheets sets inside a pillowcase. You can tell at a glance which sheets are which, the sets are all together and there are no messy edges from the fitted sheets. I truly love this tip and I loved it even more in the middle of the night when I needed to change sickbed sheets!

Laundry is critical to the smooth running of my home. I can't tell you the tears I've shed because someone was packing and I didn't know where the "whatever" was. I remember being reprimanded by a referee when my child wore the wrong color socks with his uniform. The color matters. It's no fun being a bad soccer mom. And I've noticed that as the laundry goes, so goes the rest of my house. I'm not sure whether it's the chicken or the egg, but it does bear itself out time after time. If I let the laundry slide, everything else is sliding, too. Better, instead, to do it well.

No School Today!

At least, not for Mary Beth. The long awaited sequel to The Penderwicks arrived in the mail yesterday. She pre-ordered it in September and has been counting the days until its arrival. Mary Beth is a huge Penderwicks fan. I'm tickled to see her love a book so much, though I'm a bit sad not to share her passion. She devoured The Penderwicks and wanted me to read it after she did. I admit I could not get past the mother named Elizabeth who died of cancer. It's been eighteen years since cancer for me, but I still am no fan of fictional mothers who die. Sigh. Mary Beth read it aloud to Katie and together they've been waiting impatiently for more. I have long thought that one of the greatest beauties of home education is the ability to grant days off to binge read. The Penderwicks on Gardham Street has arrived. So, let the binge begin!

About those lists...

As I check my email with your questions on lists, I thought I'd offer another thought or two. When you begin to assign jobs to your children, make sure that you assign yourself to be present in the room if they've never done the job before. You need to work alongside them and you absolutely need to inspect each and everything they do. Otherwise, you've just given poor work habits a free pass. And I offer you permission to tell them "You'll thank me for this someday." My mother wrote to me after the last post. Anybody notice that I thanked her--Monday was someday:-)
     While it's really important to stick to the list for the first few weeks in order to reap the benefits of a habit, the list is your tool, not your master. You stick to the list to be sure that it's a good list and to know how to change the list to make it better. We're not talking about household perfection here. And we're not talking about anybody else's house as a standard. The other house in the "Why Bother?" post is significant only in the conversation it began between my husband and me regarding our own home. Sometimes--often--when something seems wrong in someone else's world, that's the very thing that's troubling you, only you were so close to it you couldn't see. By the same token, if you know someone with a family similar to yours who has  knack for running a household, do ask her how she does it. Gather ideas, learn from each other, be open and honest and willing to learn.
    Several people wrote to say that after they read Why Bother?, they thought long and hard and then they went to their husbands and asked them if the state of the house affected them the way it had affected my husband. Those are brave women! Their husbands replied affirmatively and said they'd not known how to tell the wives their feelings were hurt. That's powerful stuff in the conversation of a marriage. It happened because these women were undefensive and humble. They were genuine in their desire to understand better what "home" meant to the men they love. So they approached them with an attitude that invited openness. Now, with understanding, a family can work towards a home that honors them all.
    My house is far from perfect, but it is serving us better than it used to. My list needs adjusting at least every season. As the sports season changes, so does my availability on any given day. I had to laugh at a comment someone pointed out to me. The commenter feared I was advocating so much house perfection that there would be no time to watch a child's  soccer game because I'd be too busy cleaning. I am fairly confident in assuming that my average week of games and practices (ten this week, I believe) more than puts that myth to rest. We're watching a fair amount of soccer here, but we're longer crying before the games because we can't find shinguards or water bottles with working tops. Truly, the greatest lesson I've learned along the way as I've dug into my own unit on keeping house is that this is all about priorities. For me, backing away from the computer opened up time I could spend in the midst of my children showing them how the good work of homemaking blesses us all. I am intentional now about how I spend my days. When we sit at the computer, we are absorbed in a world outside our homes and we are unavailable to some degree to the people who are actually in the house with us. I try to limit my "sit-down" computer time to the hours when my family is asleep. Any other checking I do standing up, so as to remind myself that I"ll only be here a moment. What I've discovered is that, as I tend to my home--cook meals, fold laundry, wash floors--I am in the midst of my children and we are connecting all day long.I'm available to watch a puppet show or listen to a disputed play. My hands might be busy but my head does not have to be drawn away from the screen. Intentional housekeeping has afforded me more time with my children, not less. But there are priorities still to be set and every day brings with it moments of judgment regarding how I spend my time.

Another trap to avoid is that of inflexible standards and unrealistic expectations. You need different goals for ordinary times and times of illness, stress, company, new babies, long working hours, or other interruptions of your home routine. People with large houses, many children or guests, active households, or invalid parents will have to spread themselves more thinly and should not expect to be able to keep house like the Joneses.  Also, the fewer your resources of all kinds--money, help, appliances, skills, time--the more modest will be the level of housekeeping you can realistically hope for.
When you cannot have everything, establish priorities. Health, safety, and comfort matter more than appearances, clutter, organization, and entertainment. A jumbled closet may distract you, but it is much less urgent than clean sheets, laundry, or meals. Excessive dustiness can be unhealthy as well as uncomfortable; smeary mirrors (usually) aren't. Clean the rooms you spend the most time in and those where cleanliness is urgent (bedroom, kitchen, bathroom); let everything else go. Polishing gems and organizing your photographs can be put off indefinitely.
When you fall below your ordinary stands of housekeeping, a backup plan can help prevent the fall from turning into a free fall. Planning how you will engage in a housekeeping retraction at such times and return to ordinary standards when the crisis is past keeps you in control. The goal during these hard times is to adhere, more or less, to some workable minimal routine. If you can still cook simple meals and food preparation areas are safe and sanitary, if everyone has clean clothes, if the bedrooms are dusted, vacuumed, and aired and the bedding is fresh, you are doing well. Home Comforts

On Being Intentional

    When our keeping house becomes intentional, it becomes something different to us altogether. Several people wrote passionately about their desire for a rhythm in their households. And others wrote frankly admitting that sloth stood between them and smooth running household. I think that intentional housekeeping is how we establish and maintain rhythm and conquer the deadly sin of sloth. Begin your intentional homemaking today. Claim a quiet moment and think about what you want for your home. Imagine the way you want it to look not just today, but every day when your husband walks through the door; not just tomorrow morning, but every time you awaken in it to greet another day. Imagine Sunday mornings and the scramble to get to church. How can that look different? Imagine meal times. Imagine holidays. Imagine the ways in which your house will support your vision for family life. As you engage your imagination, jot down those things which come to mind. It's all fair game right now. Don't let the things that pop into your head be distractions; all of them to shape the picture.
    Now, what stands in the way? Do you have some major de-cluttering to do? Do you lack a routine for keeping things clean? Is laundry never finished and never ready when you need it? Today, begin to build a routine, a habit of orderliness.  We are a rhythmic people. Our God is a God of order. Housekeeping routines echo the routines of the liturgical life of the church. There is a rhythm of overlapping cycles within the day, within the week, within the year.

Some days and seasons will be busier than others, even as sacred liturgies vary in their length and complexity according to the time of the day and week and year. But if we have some sense of what need to be done daily and what can be done less frequently, it is much more likely that we will be able to accomplish the day's or the week's work in a way that is centered and focused rather than pervaded with an anxious or guilty sense that we really should be doing something more or other than what we are in fact doing.--Keeping House.

    So, set about making a list. Don't let yourself get caught up in a fussy system of notebooks or card files or anything else. Just grab the back of an envelope and make a list. What needs to be done in your house every day? What is necessary in a day to make life pleasant and peaceable?  Take the daily list and order it. Think about meal times and put each task before or after a meal. Break it all down. Remember, engage your imagination. When should that toddler have his bath? Before breakfast or after dinner? What makes sense? How do all the pieces fit? Do you have quiet time in the morning before children awaken to wash the floor and let it dry or must that be done last thing in the evening? List every single task of the day and give it a place--not a time slot, necessarily, but a place within the rhythm of the normal activities of waking and sleeping, eating and leaving. The list needs to make sense within the context of your family. No one can make the list for you. This is intentional housekeeping. Think through each day, each task for yourself. Then commit it to paper. We are going to turn the thought into a routine so you won't have to think about it anew each time it must be done.
    Now it's time for a real piece of paper (actually, this is far simpler at the computer where you can cut and paste and  move things around--just don't get distracted by fancy fonts and colors). Divide the paper in half lengthwise and transfer your daily list to the lefthand side of the paper.  On the righthand side, make a list of tasks which need to be accomplished weekly. Note everything you can call to mind, from paying bills, to cleaning out the van, to dusting to grocery shopping.  Think about your weekly schedule. Which days are you home all day? Which ones call you out into the world? Which days precede days with special needs? For instance,  in order to pull off a full day of soccer and basketball, I need to take some time the day before to be certain uniforms are ready, I have a stash of provisions for little siblings, I know what will go in the crockpot before we leave in the morning. It's all intentional. Think it through. Write as you go. That righthand column will have seven days listed and then each days activities under the heading for that day.
    Now think about your children. Who is capable of helping with which tasks? Who is home at certain times? How can you share the load? One lady wrote to me and told me that she'd rather spend time with her children making memories than cleaning grout. Why are the two mutually exclusive? Why can we not work together and make connections as we go--and grow? I was kind of amazed by the number of people who confided that sloth is what stands between them and a home they love. I recognized for the first time what a gift it was to grow up in household where idleness was frowned upon and laziness was simply not allowed. It is a great gift to teach our children to overcome sloth when they are young, a gift these women wish their parents had given them. Sloth is a deadly sin, so called because it is a sin which gives rise to other sins. The Church teaches that diligence is the virtue which overcomes sloth. When we work alongside our children, we teach them diligence and we inoculate them against sloth. If sloth is our particular vice, what greater motivation to overcome it than to help our children grow in virtue?

It is all too easy even for spouses or for parents and children to see things like dishwashing as distractions from relationship or from leisure and to put them off or rush through them in order to get on to seemingly more important things. But dishes, along with other kinds of domestic work, can be opportunities to share together in the work of making a peaceable and pleasant home, and in the process to enjoy the kind of shared time and conversation that turn out to build relationships and nourish the soul.-Keeping House.

    Your list will now reflect the daily and weekly needs of your household. You will have assigned certain tasks to certain children. It's not a perfect list. PRINT IT OUT. Hang it on your refrigerator. Live it for a week. Make notes on it. Tweak it. Think, think, think about it. But do it. Do those tasks as you have listed them for a whole week. At the end of the week, look at your notes and adjust.Then do it again. Give yourself three weeks before you really will have nailed your routine.At first, this will seem to take monumental effort, but over time, you will notice that habitual conduct actually takes the least effort. You won't think about those chores any more; you will simply do them. You won't procrastinate because you have intentionally assigned a a day and time to a job and you know that your life will be happier if you do it on its assigned day and time. You won't argue with your children about chores because they will grow to expect that certain things will be done on certain days. Finally, your house will bless your efforts. It will become a place of peace, a place where you are not mocked by messy closets and unmade beds. When you sit with a book or a craft, you will truly be relaxed because you know that the work of the day is finished or it will be in its time. No more guilt.
    Finally, don't write and tell me your husband doesn't care about the mess. I've never met a man who would prefer to live in a cluttered, dirty house over an orderly, clean one. No one wants a sterile environment, but it's nice to know your wife appreciates the work it takes to provide shelter and that she shelters you in turn by making a house a home.