Laundry: one of my most dreaded chores, and the one I do most often. It was the center of my day Monday.
It used to be that I did laundry slowly throughout the week; bringing down all the dirty clothes, leaving them in a pile in the kitchen, and slowly transforming them into a pile of clean clothes in a basket that would eventually be again transformed into a pile of dirty clothes, rarely hung or folded until my frustration would spill over to my ever loving and considerate husband and he would help me put it all away. However, with our house being on the market, that is no longer an option. Now the clothes must all be neatly away where they belong. Ugh!
The washing and drying isn't so bad, really. You stick a bunch of stuff in the washer, wait for it to finish, stick it in the dryer, and wait for that to finish. Big deal. It's the after part that I don't like. All the separating, folding, matching, hanging. I don't mind the folding that much. It's mostly Chad's t-shirts and a few other things. It used to be that hanging was the worst part. Somewhere along the way, however, I came to realize it is the socks.
My socks are first. In the winter I have thick, warm socks that I wear to bed, and these are unique. Each pair is different so they are very easy to match. The rest of my socks are white. They have different cuffs so they match very easily, too. Or maybe it is just that I wear them, so I recognize them.
Chad's socks are next. For some inexplicable reason his socks look different inside out than they do when flipped the right way. This means he inevitably ends up with many unmatched socks left over in the basket. As if this weren't bad enough, he has socks that look almost exactly the same, but not quite. The pattern might be just a little off, or there might be a little difference in color, as if one sock got washed a few extra times. Depending on my mood, I will sometimes look around to make sure no one is watching, then shrug, and put those together. What the heck? It's not like he'll notice.
On to the kids' socks. My son's socks are the first of those. His are by far the easiest. They have their own texture, and are either boy colors or have some kind of boy theme, like trucks, or sports, or cars, or trains. For some reason he has the same "slightly off color" issue my husband has. It must be a guy thing.
Now the nightmare begins. It is time for the girls' socks. Here we have a multitude of sizes, colors, patterns, and themes. Seven years worth of socks have accumulated in this pile. The only sizes I have been able to weed out are the infant ones. There are patterns and colors that are so similar it will make your head spin to look at them. I try to start with the really obvious ones, like the Hello Kitty Pony themes, or the colors that by the Grace of God we only have one pair of, and work my way to the harder ones.
After a considerable amount of time, suffering, sweat, and frustration, I am finally finished and collapsed next to this tower of socks. I think about my oldest daughter sitting blissfully in her classroom. She likes to match socks. Maybe next time I will save them for her. I could add it to the daily schedule: homework, guitar lesson, match socks. I'll have to consider that.
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