Laundry (in)sanity

Ah laundry. The bane of my existence. I get so jealous when I run across a blog post where someone says “We came home from our trip and I had an entire load to wash”. HA! Yes, I ha’d you 1 load people. I’m not bragging or trying to play the martyr here but with 7 1/2 people and a smelly dog in our family I have at least 12 loads a week of just clothes and towels. Add sheets and blankets and dog stuff and our house is basically a 24 hour laundromat.

Since I’m elbow deep in clothes all the time I thought I’d give my $.02 on laundry and how I make it a little more bearable.

I can almost hear the gasps coming- I only buy white towels, kitchen and bath. I know you probably think I’m crazy but I swear by it. My kids are hard on towels and don’t always get them into the laundry when they should so they end up smelling gross or stained. I used to have dark green towels and I would have to wash them several times to get them to smell okay and sometimes they would still have a stain or two on them that no amount of stain treating or soaking would get out.

Not with white towels. I throw my towels in the wash with bleach and let it soak for a while. Being able to bleach them is key. My towels are several years old and look great. It works for restaurants, hospitals, and hotels and by golly it works for big families to. I do buy colored beach towels just so the kids know which towels they can take to the pool or outside. No white towels leave the house.

Here’s my other dirty (clean?) secret. I don’t fold or match socks. We have a sock basket and everyone is on their own for finding socks. As I’m folding I put all the socks I find in the load in a separate pile and if there happens to be a match screaming at me I’ll fold it, the rest go in the basket. Moral of this story, make sure both your socks are together in the dirty laundry or you get to play find and seek. This isn’t so much for convenience as it is that I just hate socks.

Each child over 6 also folds his/her own laundry. I’ll happily wash and throw their clothes in their baskets but it’s their responsibility to see that they get folded. Let me tell you, it sure cuts down on the amount of clean clothes they “accidently” put in the dirty clothes bins because eventually they do have to fold them again.

Long post but it’s been on my mind, and covering my coffee table at the moment. Any tips that save your laundry day?

The lowdown on the duds

I was asked quite a while ago how my shirts hold up in the wash. Well I didn’t want to report until I did sufficient testing and I’m happy to say that they look just about the exact same as they did when I made them.

I’ve washed these shirts no less than half a dozen times and so far so good, even the glued on “S” looks just fine. I turn them inside out and wash them on a regular cycle with my regular wash loads. I don’t waste my time hanging them to dry either. Into the dryer they go (inside out) and so far so good.

Since the great computer crash my photoshop isn’t working right, can’t get it to stay open. Sorry for the cruddy pictures while I figure it out.

There are a few loose strands of fabric where I left the edges raw on the background squares but I knew that would happen. The only thing that isn’t holding up as well as the others would be the green twill tape “E”, but I saw that one coming. I thought the black ric rac would bleed since I didn’t pre wash anything but nope.

The candy jar shirts look same, no threads or anything. I would show you Kaci’s shirt but she stuck a sticker to the plastic part. It needs a good goo gone session. These have to be dried inside out, unless you want plastic candy jar stuck to your dryer. Another handy tip: if you want your jar to look like a jar and not a crumpled piece of plastic (like mine right now) you have to take it out of the dryer while the plastic is still warm and smooth it out. I’ve tried ironing it out (from the inside) to straighten it when I forgot to get it from the dryer right away and it didn’t work. It left button imprints on the plastic and that’s not good, but one wash later it went back to normal.

I crossed my fingers for the black ric rac, but everything else I knew would wash okay because of this little secret and I zig zagged the crud out of my seams on the socks so they wouldn’t unravel.

To make this post the longest one I’ve ever written I thought I should add, I’m leaving town this weekend by myself! It’s going to be so fun but I’m more excited about the next weekend. Cody is surprising me for our Anniversary (Feb. 5th) with a weekend away. 2 weekends kid free! He won’t tell me where we are going or what we’ll be doing but it’s the first time we’ll both be away from the kids at the same time -together- ever. I KNOW! I hate to admit this but I’ve never hired a babysitter that wasn’t family. Ever. Jeremy is 10 and has no idea what a real baby sitter is. I know they’ll be in great hands this time but I’m still kind of freaking out. I’m also a really bad sport when it comes to surprises so I’m really preoccupied right now.

So here’s what I’m trying to say I guess, I’m not meshing with the apron top pattern remake at the moment. I think it’s just because my brain is fuzzy and thinking about everything but sewing right now. I think it’s best to put the pattern on hold until I come back. I don’t want it to come out all wonky because I was trying to force it. I’m going to let it come to me when it comes. I do have another fun tutorial that’s already done and I did while my computer was down so I’ll share that in the mean time. No thinking involved ;). Think boy.

Have a fantastic Tuesday!

The random rundown

The last few days have been a complete blur, a fun blur but still a blur non the less so my post today is going to be really really random. Yesterday I spent 2 1/2 hours at the pediatricians and 4 hours (count them- 4 hrs!) at the store waiting for Cody to join us to pick out a bike for Jeremy with all 4 kiddos. Jeremy's been working for the last few months to save enough money to buy a new bike. We told him we'd split the cost if he earned it and he did so yesterday I promised him we'd go pick it up. He's was so excited I didn't have to heart to leave the store without it so we waited. *Shock and amazement* -but I've been a home body lately and I don't feel like shopping at all. If I could have visited the pediatrician online I would have so I'm just exhausted.

So because I have done absolutely nothing interesting the last few days here are some random pictures and things from after Christmas with a tip or two-

• It snowed last night and I've been meaning to take a picture of our house all snowy. Cody took some pictures for me so I could scrapbook them someday.

• While wondering around the store last night I must have been extremely hungry because I picked up the yummiest smelling lotion, and now that I'm not so hungry anymore the lotion's not really my favorite feeling lotion ever. I realized when I got home that the Watkins lemon cream reminds me of those mothers lemon frosted lemon cookies. They should tide me over until I get to go to Bath and Body works, but now I want a cookie and my hands are kind of slimy. If you're hungry and need a cookie but don't want the calories I highly recommend sniffing the Watkins lotion.

• I retro fitted a pair of preemie p.j.'s for Ashlyn's new baby alive Becky. She only came with a t-shirt and hat and Ashlyn told me she was cold so I had to do something :0). Secretly I wish I still played with dolls, it was so fun to dress it with micro-mini clothes. We even bought her pampers preemie diapers, oh what fun to be a girl. Can I tell you how happy I am that Ashlyn finally decided to play with a doll!

• Jeremy and I did his ship in a bottle kit the other day. He had so much fun and made me swear not to tell how it got in there. He did a pretty good job but each piece was so stinking little it was more for 12 and up. It was well above his and my patience level and will be the last ship in a bottle we will make.

• While wondering around last night I also found a $4 knitting kit and some old yarn laying around and decided to start knitting. I'm so terrible at it Cody had to show me how to cast on and he's never knitted before in his life. I need him to come home to show me how to purl. My goal is to knit a chocolate brown cable knit baby blanket. Maybe I should make it Cody's goal cause I stink at it ;0) ! Who wants a neon pink unevenly stitched hot pad- anyone???

• And last but not least, my favorite laundry spray of all time. This stuff is magic! It's awesome on any body type or food type stain imaginable. It doesn't work for dirt or grass stains but I did manage to get out a 3 year old thousand times washed and dried chocolate stain with this stuff. This is how I keep my kids clothes looking normal. I buy the industrial spray bottle in the cleaning isle of Wal-mart for $1 that has measurements on the side. You pour in one part (the 1-1 measurement on the bottle) normal cleaning ammonia, one part liquid - you can not dilute dried powder it DOES NOT work- laundry detergent (my favorite for kid type stains is dreft but here I used tide), and fill the neck of the bottle with water and shake. Viola`. One bottle of ammonia is $1 and lasts me over 4 refills and the detergent was $6 and will make at least 4 more refills as well which makes it a ton cheaper than any other spot remover and it works so much better. Just spray on the stain and let it sit overnight and wash as normal. If you have a really tough stain don't dry your item of clothing and try it again until the stain is gone. It is totally color safe. I use it on all my gymboree.

Well that ended up being really long, I'm so sorry! I have some other good laundry tips that I'll share another time. Don't want to get carpel tunnel. Have a great week!