The Bane of My Existence

I know what you're thinking, really I do. You looked at the title and then at the picture of the clothes above and you're thinking "The bane of her existence is a pile of clothes on her floor? She must not have a very hard existence!"

Bear with me and let me explain myself.

The seasonal clothing change is enough to undo me. Every year, twice a year.

Because twice every year I have to go through every child's clothes, take out those which are too small or no longer seasonally appropriate, and make sure there are enough clothes for the coming season. This might not be such a problem if I had only 1 child. Or if my children's clothes were always sitting neatly folded in their drawers. But no. I have 6 children. (Although I am happy to report that 3 of them are completely or mostly on their own as far as clothes go. This is real progress!) And for some reason most of the clothes in our house live in the dirty clothes baskets.

All of this means that the whole process ends up taking days and days and days. Days of huge piles of clothes living in the hallway or laundry room or (horror of all horrors) somewhere in my bedroom.

So this year I resolved that it would be different. I would attack the task with more vigor. I would be less distracted, more organized. Any piles would be neatly folded instead of piled in messy heaps. And I would finish in just one day.

I guess 3 out of 4 isn't too bad...


P.S. My other complaint about the seasonal clothing change: When I put my winter clothes away for the long summers' sleep, I wash everything carefully, fold it, and put it in a rubbermaid bin that I'm sure was made for the purpose of housing winter pj's during the summer.

For good measure I also take a dryer sheet (the yummy smelling dryer sheet that I use only for my laundry, not the cheap not-quite-as-good Costco dryer sheet used for everyone else's laundry) and put it in with my clothes. My fantasy is that in the fall when I start to be chilled at night and pull out the warm pajamas, they will smell faintly of lavender and vanilla.

Hah.

Instead, every year I pull them out and sniff and they smell horrid. The dryer sheet still smells nice, but the clothes themselves must be taken straight to the laundry room.

Doesn't it seem ridiculous that I wash them when I'm done wearing them and then I have to wash them before I can wear them again?


P.P.S. In case you are beginning to suspect that I have some laundry issues, yes, I do. My front loading washer sours laundry about 9000 times faster than my good old top loader did. (I guess it's a tradeoff between conserving water and having sour smelling laundry.) I usually catch the sour loads and run them again with lots of vinegar to get rid of the smell, but from time to time Jason will switch a load from the washer to the drier, and he doesn't smell it first. I have been known to return all of my folded & put away underclothes to the washer to be rewashed to get rid of the sour smell. I just can't bear to have anything that smells that bad near my face.

P.P.P.S. In case you're wondering, I have no similar need to make sure my kids clothes don't smell bad. They're pretty much on their own there. One neurotic nose is all I can deal with...