Dear Friends,

Do you have issues with your laundry? With a large family, my laundry routine has to be established. I have to follow through on it when I start a load. But I was not always great at doing laundry. When I was first married, I really did not like doing laundry at all. There are probably a few of you reading this who feel the same way.

Back then, I did laundry on the weekends since we both worked during the week. I had grown up with a family who did laundry daily. I did not do my own laundry very often before I was married. I was not a big fan of taking up my Saturday doing laundry.

As I started having children, the amount of laundry increased exponentially. Somehow adding a small baby also meant that laundry seemed to double or triple. For years, I struggled along with doing my laundry as a part of my daily routine. I tended to put it off as long as possible.

The laundry did get folded as I did a load, but I did not put clothes away often. We lived out of laundry baskets. If I put laundry away, it was typically on Saturday, and it took a while.

After I had my third child, the internet was growing in popularity, and I found The FlyLady in a Yahoo Group. I started readhing her emails and was slowly FlyWashed. I adopted routines, and I was doing at least a load of laundry a day.

As my family grew, I needed to do more than a load a day to keep up with the amount of clothing we went through in a day. Small children are inquisitive and messy, aren’t they? (smile)

My next step was to do two loads of laundry per day. I added this into my morning and evening routine. I taught the children to sort their clothes into a white basket and a dark basket. I had another plastic bin for towels.

With doing laundry this way, I was able to keep up with the clothing and towels. But I still had a lot of bedding to wash weekly. We had six beds for the children plu our bed. With seven beds in the house, I decided that it would be better to wash the bedding for one to two beds per day instead of trying to do all of them on Monday.

This lead to my deciding to do a load of laundry during each part of the day – morning, afternoon, and evening.

Now, we only have four beds in the house to take care of each week, and I have assigned the boys to a laundry day each week. That is the day they do their bedding and clothing. I will help the youngest one, and I will combine loads if they are small loads.

Over the years, my laundry routine has changed. It is as efficient as I can make it. Each of us puts laundry away daily, and we do not live out of laundry baskets.

Your Home Blessing for today is to dust and vacuum.

Your Zone Mission for today is to declutter items from under the bathroom cabinet.

My menu plan for Tuesday is grilled chicken thighs and salad.

Have a blessed day!