The Art of Sorting Laundry

Did you know that there is an art to sorting laundry. My fellow women scoff at this, I am sure, but laundry tends to be myself expression. I have come to realize that you can not just throw piles: darks, brights, and whites. My life has become far more elaborate, and I can't not do it.

I  now have jeans, whites (washed warm), brights, whites, and yellows (washed cold), blacks, blues, and grays (washed cold), and reds, browns, and dark yellows (washed cold).

My piles and piles of laundry washed every day. Sorted and put away, almost every day. Mountains of laundry baskets and hills of socks. This is my art. Amid all the monotony and the repetition and the messes, this is where I express myself.

I never thought I would be reduced to this. I imagined being the perfect wife and house keeper and mother, with plenty of time for writing, reading, painting, sewing, and scrap booking. Let me tell you how in shape and trim I imagined I would be. The body sacrificing is the other side of the coin. I have aged more than my counterparts. My body has been stretched out. It's been trampled down. The life has nearly been sucked out of it. All of this has been for those beings I call my children.

I am not going to lie. My day to day life is pretty boring, a little lazy, and incredibly frustrating. This is not what I signed up for. So this is what I am left with: the anti-climatic and definably mundane life of a stay at home mother, who doesn't have her ducks in a row but rather a circus in tow. How is it I am so thankful for this and even think that others should join me in this pursuit?

I'm stopping right there. I didn't sign up for this, but this is better than I'd hope it would be. To be honest the frustration is somewhat fulfilling? I'm still trying to understand the life lives I am building. I am somewhat haphazardly, very carefully building, supporting, and encouraging persons. These people, are growing persons who are constantly absorbing information, and I am the manager of this incredible enterprise. My body has nurtured a number of children, growing and cradling complexities that science has yet to define! Outside of the womb I am guiding and shepherding children, teaching them how to read, and how to use the potty instead of peeing right where they stand.

So When I die these children make me immortal on this earth. That's not why I had them, but it is the plain and simple truth. They will go out into the world and change it. Each life matters and their lives have already changed the course of human history. How many people have been affected by my children in some way? It's the butterfly effect. They have changed me. They have humbled me. They have taught me that I am not the center of the world.

What's crazy is the more kids I have, the more love I give! The more love is exchanged! The more abundant is my life. I have so much more than I had 12 years ago. It is so strange to think of myself without my six crazy loud incorrigible hooligans.

It seems as though my husband an I are always brought to the brink. We come to a point we think, we can't give any more. There is nothing left. Then another life appears inside our own and then we find so much extra. The extra seems to come from nothing as if it comes just  to nurture the new life.

This is motherhood. This adventure, which will never be regretted and which will live on to the end of the world and beyond.

You know your behind on Laundry

I have been behind with the laundry since Christmas. I have finally learned something. Laundry is bigger than me. It is tougher than me. It is stronger than me. But it's still my job to fight against it.

I now have 6 kids ages 11-1. If my kids wash their own laundry this is what will happen: they will spill the detergent all over my basement. They will hang on the detergent dispenser and break it off the washing machine. They will close the door with laundry sticking out. Something bad will happen that will cost me hundreds of dollars. They will not be doing their own in the near future.

The laundry at the Bliss Farm has different stages. The laundry shoot stage. The dirty sorted stage. The clean and wet stage. The clean and dry stage. The waiting to be sorted stage. And finally the waiting to be put away stage. Anytime I catch up on one of these stages I am already light ages behind on the rest. 

I was so proud of myself for sorting and putting away four baskets of laundry in one night. Then I gathered the clothes off the floor of the bathroom after all the baths and showers where complete. I tossed the laundry down the shoot and, plop! Those clothes were practically in arms reach. The laundry was so backed up, it went up the laundry shoot. Laundry backed up two floors. Have you ever had two floors worth of laundry?

Then I went to the basement. There was a load sitting in the washer, waiting to be dried from the morning before, when I thought I was going to get ahead on all this laundry business. A clean load in the dryer wrinkling and a clean load in a basket in front of the drier. What? this is too much? Oh there is more.

This morning, I notice I only have partially filled baskets upstairs waiting to be folded and put away. I get down to my basement. There are two full hampers unsorted, sorted dirty jeans, darks, darks, brights and whites. Honestly this makes me feel like I've got this. The dirty stuff isn't climbing up the laundry shoot. Then I see it. Oh yes. Four baskets of clean laundry sitting in baskets waiting for me to bring them up stairs.

There is something to be said for knowing when your beat. Do you realize there are people out there that get paid for this? I do it, not for money but because I love my kids and my husband. That's it. Seems like a lousy ending, but I can't think of any other way to end this.