Laundry Year
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Homemaking on Monday, November 03, 2008 6:47 AM
I have frustrated-perfectionist tendencies, and it’s only in the past couple years that I’ve figured out that setting long-term goals works way better for me than trying to reform myself all in one week.
In 2007 my goal was to get strategies in place for weekly menu planning and grocery shopping, and by the end of the year I had those things conquered. Lots of setbacks, but since I knew I had a whole year to figure it out, I didn’t get frustrated and give up like I do when I set too-ambitious goals.
For 2008 my goal is laundry.
My husband laughed when I told him about it back in January. “A whole YEAR? Just to… get the laundry done?”
Before this year I just barely maintained on the laundry, meaning that my husband would let me know that he’d run out of undershirts and I would wash a load. Then I would get distracted and forget about all the rest of the dirty clothes until the next wardrobe crisis.
It was a sad state of affairs.
I was starting to make strides by June, and then I got pregnant. First-trimester sickness and exhaustion set me back big time, but they did pass eventually. Finally, within the past month or so, through dogged perseverance, I’d finally gotten to the point where I wanted to be. Every week I was washing, folding, and putting away all the dirty laundry in the house.
For several hours every week - until it was bedtime or the toddler spilled something, both of which occurrences are inevitable parts of every day - all the clothes in the house were either clean or on our bodies. I was so proud!
Then our dryer broke.
Dear husband: THIS is why I needed a year.
Fortunately the problem was simple and the dryer was fixed by the repairman who was able to come, amazingly, less than a week after the dryer-breaking occurred. This means the laundry backlog is small and I’m confident in my ability to overcome it by the end of this week.
When I do, I’m going to declare my laundry goal officially reached - eight full weeks ahead of schedule! Our dirty clothes, which used to have the run of the place, now live in fear because they know I will not hesitate to put them through the wringer, tumble them dry, and cruelly fold or even - gasp! - hang them. It only took me ten months to bully them into submission.
It’s not crazy to be proud of that, right?
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