Airing out the Laundry

So today is laundry day. 

I don't really have a schedule, I just do it when someone says "I am out of socks."  Usually that is about every week and a half. 

When I was a kid, my mom did laundry on a serious schedule.  It was every Tuesday and Thursday, and you would bring your laundry basket down, or suffer the consequences.  But oh.  Oh.  OH.  I miss those days.  So much.  I would go to school, and when I came home,  there, in my basket, would be a pile of folded sweet smelling clothes ready to take up and put away.  Also, there would be a few hangers with my clean stuff on it ready to be hung up.  It never smelled like mildew.  It never was wrinkled.  It was always done that day. 

My mom had a washer that was portable.  Our house was like 100 years old, so we didn't have a 'laundry room,' 'dishwasher', 'mudroom', or any of the fancy stuff I have now.  My mom would pull out the washer, which was kept in the kitchen, after she took off the stuff that we would keep on top of it, and wheel it over to the sink.  There was a contraption that you pushed up onto the faucet and it clicked on, and then you would turn on both the hot and cold water dials (we did NOT have the one handle, we had two,) then plug it in the wall.  It was small, so you would have to do like 80 loads before you were done.  We did have a permanent dryer in the back room (which apparently used to be an all seasons kind of room, but they boarded over the windows and used it as the dryer/freezer/office room), so she would then cart each load out there, to dry it.  It is always  one of two temperatures in the room the dryer is kept.  Boiling hot in the summer, and Freezing cold in the winter.  In the winter for holidays we don't even have to use the extra fridge my mom keeps upstairs, it is so cold in there.  We just set it out there and close the door.  (That room is also a sweet haven in the winter time. My parents keep their house at like 90 degrees.  Mom swears 'the thermostat is set at 70', but mom, it is not really 70 when you put the humidifier under it, and it is blowing cold humid air on it day and night.  Can't really get an accurate read.)  So when it is hells kitchen hot in there, the dryer room feels amazing.

Even when I would come home from college, mom would do my laundry.  It was so nice.  I would dump it out of my bag, and she would have it done, and I would put it back in my bag.  Yay!  Clean clothes! It was so nice. 

Now I am the mom.  I am the one doing everyone's laundry.  I am the first to admit, I am no where near as good as my mom.  I am lucky if I get the laundry out of the washer and into the dryer the same day.  I use fabric softener, if I remember.  If not, oops.  Too bad.  I mostly fold it all.  I mostly get all of the socks together.  I have a giant bag in my room full of single socks.  This gets bigger every time I do laundry.  Once in a blue moon I will get a wild hair and go through the bag looking for matches (mostly this happens when the Admiral says 'I don't have any clean socks' and I am trying to delay the inevitable laundry that I will have to do.)  Most of the laundry that I get done that does get folded, sits in the basket until it is worn again.  I don't know why I bothered to get the kids dressers, I should have just gotten them a bunch of laundry baskets and hung them on the wall.  (Hmmm, note to self, this is a waaaay better idea than dressers, and less work for me.....must implament this ASAP.)

I do not get to walk in and have my laundry magically done anymore.  I do not get to have clean sheets magically appear on my bed anymore.  I do not get to have warm-fresh-out-of-the-dryer clothes dumped on me when I am laying on the couch anymore (oh, that used to feel so good!  I miss that mom!).  I am the one in charge.  I fear when my kids get older, they are not going to have fond memories of mom doing all of their laundry while they are at school.  They are going to have memories of yelling to me from upstairs, as they are running late for school "Mom!  This shirt smells like mildew, and I am still out of socks!  Can you please do laundry??"  or "Mom, is the dryer empty?  These shirt and pants are all wrinkled from being in the basket too long!"  to which I will reply "No, you will have to empty it first!  There are clothes in there that I did three days ago!"