Do You Suffer from LLM ?

Parent Cafe
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<p>When I was a newlywed, my husband complained that I had folded his underwear and socks “wrong.” </p>

<p>I haven’t done a load of his laundry since. I do my own, and the kids, but DH has his own hamper and has been doing his laundry for 23 years now. He actually has done it most of his life. When he turned 8 years old, his parents divorced and his mom went back to work. He and his brother had to begin doing their own laundry, and apparently in the process he developed strong preferences with regard to how it should be done. More power to him, I say.</p>

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<p>My h does all his own laundry, I can tell by how close he is getting to the end of his clean clothes by what kind of underwear he has on, so then I know that I have to go take my stuff out of the dryer!</p>

<p>I hang up most of my clothes, I forget about things if I can’t see them, so it is easier.</p>

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<p>LOL! I clicked on this muttering to myself, “Why do people insist on using acronyms that I don’t know?” Well, now I know why. Very creative!</p>

<p>I find little motivation for most repetitious chores, especially when I am tired. When I retired this past June, I was amazed at how much I could accomplish first thing in the morning when I had my energy spurt. That energy spurt lasts at least 45 minutes ;-)! So for me, what I have found that works is to make a list, albeit short, of chores I want to accomplish during that short window of energy. I had learned several years ago, via the website Flylady (check it out), that it’s important to establish routines so that they become habits.</p>

<p>Laundry can be overwhelming to me. So it’s better for me to wash a smaller load, than to wait until there are enough garments to fill those god awful large washing machines they sell these days. So my routine was, Monday towels, Tuesday lights, Wednesday darks, Thursday towels, and Friday bedding. I washed a load whether it was a full load or not. Flylady says you should bring the laundry downstairs with you the first time you come down those steps in the morning, load the machine, and then do your other chores while it washes. (Those other chores might be: unload the dishwasher, shine the sink, empty the trash, sweep the kitchen floor, eat breakfast, read the newspaper, etc.)</p>

<p>Of course, as soon as the laundry is washed, you need to put it in the dryer, otherwise you fall into the trap of procrastinating. Now Flylady advises you do a declutter, or some other detail cleaning chore for the day. When finished, take the clothes out and fold immediately. I have to admit I am motivated to fold them because otherwise they get wrinkled and I might have to <em>gasp</em> iron. That is my motivator for folding.</p>

<p>However, I don’t fold underwear or socks. Someone told me 35 years ago that she didn’t fold those items, and she worried about people who did. That was all I needed for permission not to fold those garments. Funny how underwear and socks still look fine if you just throw them in the drawer. I also keep hangers by the dryer to hang garments as soon as they come out of the dryer. That’s a real time saver for me. In fact, now that I think about it, most of our clothing goes on hangers, so the only thing left to fold is the towels. Sheets? I refuse to fold those, so I wait until they are dry and then remake the bed, rather than folding them to use the next week. I HATE to fold sheets.</p>

<p>Divide the laundry chores into smaller, manageable chunks. Establish a routine. Eliminate as much of the folding as you can. Hangers are your friend.</p>

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<p>I love folding laundry. I do so much mental work that doing something fairly mindless like folding laundry is actually relaxing.</p>

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<p>I hate to fold, hang laundry or putting it away. It is the worst task for me. I don’t mind sorting the dirty stuff and even washing and drying. It is the rest that bothers me. I the same with washing dishes. All is fine until it is time to put them away.</p>

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<p>No one here folds socks. The trick to that…you buy ONE kind of sock. DH has black dress socks…all the same kind. He just picks two out of the drawer. No need to fold. Ditto white sport socks…all the same kind…just take two.</p>

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<p>Thumper – H followed that approach too – but when we just switched his clothes into a new dresser, we learned that he’d been following an LIFO inventory scheme with the socks, and there was a mighty big color difference between those on the top and those on the bottom!</p>

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<p>It’s interesting what some people hate and some people don’t mind.</p>

<p>I do all the laundry in our house, I find it the easiest chore there is - no heavy lifting, no hard labor. I have two rules though - 1) I don’t iron; and 2) if you put it in the hamper inside-out, you get it back inside-out.</p>

<p>We have a cleaning lady who comes in every two weeks, so we don’t have to worry about that. I would disagree with Kajon that it is stressful to prepare for the cleaning lady - it’s mostly just cleaning up the clutter from the week. It takes very little time. And if we leave stuff lying around, the cleaning ladies just make piles. Really, nothing beats having your bathrooms and kitchen cleaned by someone else.</p>

<p>What I am having trouble with right now is yardwork - I just cannot motivate to get out there and do the spring clean-up. Bleh.</p>

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<p>I love Flylady. Thanks to her my kitchen is always tidy at night after I “shine my sink”. </p>

<p>Does anyone else have this problem - you hand over a pile of folded clothing assuming the recipient will put them away - only to find said pile knocked over on the floor or even worse…you find folded clothes back in the laundry hamper!</p>

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<p>Here are a few wonderful quotes I uncovered in this thread:

Faux, my solution: move your washer/dryer upstairs. We had everything in our basement when we moved it and oh! How dreadful it was to go down there. I must have redone loads of laundry because I often left the clean, washed clothes in the washing machine until they were good and moldy. I still hate the chore, but at least we don’t have the mold problem. </p>

<p>My second solution is even better: our cleaning lady spends most of her time folding laundry. She’s much better than I am. </p>

<p>Finally, if that doesn’t work because of timing, at least I know I’m much better than my DH. He’ll fold, but does a terrible job. As a result, that has changed me from having LLM to LLM-until-my-DH-volunteers.</p>

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<p>Bceagle, you would * think* I would find mindless stuff relaxing, I am always thinking about at least three or four things at a time, but I can’t even get a little tiny part of my brain to pay attention to the mindless stuff. </p>

<p>If I really have to get something like that done, I set the timer for 15 min.</p>

<p>Not rich enough, I will come and do your yard work for you, if you will send your cleaning help over after. People are always praising my yard, but they haven’t seen the inside of my house!</p>

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Too bad we’re 3000 miles apart. :cool:</p>

<p>The $70 we pay every two weeks is the best money we spend hands down. I’d give up the internet before I’d give up the cleaning lady.</p>

<p>… Ok, maybe not, but I’d have to think about it.</p>

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<p>You mean the op edited to FIX that spacing? Really?</p>

<p>The easiest solution to laundry is to have each person in the family do their own.</p>

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<p>I believe she took the spaces after the commas and moved them in front of the periods and exclamation points. I’m totally confused.</p>

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<p>Must make for really tight corners on the towels.</p>

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<p>I never learned to type till a couple of years ago . WHY does this matter ? I am not a conventional person -hence I don’t use the US Standard Punctuation Rules . I think there should be a space AFTER a period, right ? I never typed in college , I paid people to type when it was important . I am 58 , I never worked in an office . I am a creative type .</p>

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It doesn’t, really, unless you are a Grammar Nazi.</p>

<p>But it does make your posts easier for others to read when you follow the standard punctuation conventions.</p>

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<p>There should be a space AFTER a period, just not before. Same with a comma, space after but not before. </p>

<p>But whatever…</p>

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<p>Back to laundry:</p>

<p>I just finished folding and putting away a load of towels.</p>

<p>And I realized, of the 15 or 20 towels in the closet, exactly <em>two</em> matched each other - dark green ones for the master bath.</p>

<p>The rest were a variety of sizes colors, and prints. The gold one, the pink-and-white striped one, one white, one black, two Star Wars towels (different characters so not really a match), some sort of odd flowery pattern, a towel I got for entering an NCAA tournament pool, etc.</p>

<p>Does this represent some sort of domestic failing on our part? As (alleged) grownups, are we supposed to have matched and coordinated linens?</p>

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<p>I’ve gone the opposite direction. Instead of living out of a “dirty hamper” and a “clean hamper”, I now fold, hang, and iron my clothes the same day they come out of the dryer. It really helps to have a lot of polyester “tech” shirts and fleeces – stuff that doesn’t need ironing. Those go on hangers as they come out of the dryer. I don’t mind a little ironing. Just put on a good podcast or two and do a few shirts or pants.</p>

<p>I think a lot of it has to do with actually liking the clothes I fit into. And, since every single piece of clothing I fit now has been purchased over the past year, it’s fun to hang it up nicely.</p>