Talkin’ About Thursdays: A sure way to make laundry (seem) easier…

Welcome to Talkin’ About Thursdays! Today we’re talking about laundry


I wish my laundry looked like that picture–all stacked neatly in a pretty little basket. But, actually, it looks like this after it’s folded…


…many piles taking up an entire corner of the hallway outside the laundry room upstairs.

No matter how hard we try to do a load every day, inevitably, we go in spurts depending on our schedule–no laundry for a few days, then five or six loads to catch up.

Even the sink in the laundry room, which I love having so I can spot-treat clothes, ends up being a catch-all storage bin for dirty towels and washcloths as the days go by.


But even if I can’t offer ingenious advice about staying on top of your laundry or making it seem less constant, I can hopefully encourage you.

Because I think after you read the list below, it won’t seem so bad.

Laundry might even start to look easy.

Almost fun.

I shared this list a while ago, after Mike and I had gone away without the kids for the weekend. One of the stops on our trip was a museum at an old winery in California.

In the museum, there was a washtub with a note next to it. It was a re-typed list from a mother to a daughter written sometime around the turn of the twentieth century, describing how to do the family laundry.

All in 10 simple steps.

Read on…

Wash on Monday:

1. Build a fire in the backyard to heat kettle of rainwater.

2. Set tub so smoke will not blow in your eyes if wind is present.

3. Shave a whole cake of lye soap in the boiling water.

4. Sort clothes in three piles—one of white clothes, one of colored, and one of rags and britches.

5. Stir flour in cold water until smooth, then thin down with boiling water to make starch.

6. Rub dirty spots on the board, then boil them. Rub colored clothes, but do not boil. Take white things out of kettle with broom handle, then rinse, blue, and starch.

7. Hang clothes on line except tea towels, which should be spread on the grass. Hang old rags on the fence.

8. Pour rinse water in flower beds.

9. Scrub privy seat and floor with soapy water.

10. Turn tubs upside down. Put on a clean dress, comb hair. Make a cup of tea to drink while you sit and rest a spell, and count your blessings.

* list used with permission from the Sobon Estate

I don’t know about you, but after reading that, I’m counting my blessings for sure!

Want to join in the conversation? Write your own laundry post, link back here (you can copy my button below if you want), then come back and enter the URL of your post in the link list. Feel free to chime in by commenting too, and don’t forget to read and comment on each other’s posts. :)

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I look forward to reading what all of you are Talkin’ About! :)

Comments

  1. Those simple steps don't seem so simple! It makes me thankful for my washer and dryer for sure. Even if I don't have one of those fancy front loaders that I want.

  2. We really are blessed to just throw our laundry into a washer, move it to the dryer and then fold it. I am so glad I live now and not then. I am with Jamie, I will take my old washer over doing that ANY day. Thanks, this was fun!

  3. Ali

    Can you even imagine? God knew what He was doing when He created me for the 21st century.

  4. Simple? Simple? Imagine what was considered difficult?I'm enjoying your blog. Thanks for visiting me on mine, too. Hope you stop by often.Peace.

  5. I needed that kick in tush. We've been dealing with massive laundry overload but I'm grateful for the basic convenience of a washer & dryer.

  6. Genny, my laundry looks much like yours…except my piles get knocked over when the poodle decides to play in the piles. Truly, we have it easy…but it is still too hard! Some days I think it is that we have too many things!

  7. Wow, I never thought about things like making your own starch. That must have taken her all day.My favorite parts though are that the water got reused and then the mom told her to take some time for herself at the end.

  8. i had to do a quick load last night before the inlaws came over – i just have my own to take care of (the hubs does his own) but since i exercise every day (sometimes twice a day) the laundry still piles up.

  9. Oh my, this makes me feel especially lazy for complaining about our stacks (and stacks and stacks) of unwashed clothes! I guess that means I should sign off the computer and go get to work!

  10. Any chance you could skip steps 1-9 and go right to 10? I need to make sure I get a step 10 when (if) I actually get all the laundry put away on the same day it's washed. Love your blog!

  11. I keep waving my wand for the laundry fairy to come over but she won't! Guess she's to busy doing everyone elses dirty clothes.

  12. CC

    Wow. As much as I hate laundry, that would really, really stink!

  13. Oh my goodness, Genny! OK, I won't complain (for at least a week) about doing laundry – even though there are four piles of unfolded laundry on the bedroom floor!My mom found a note, in the handwriting of my grandmother (who was born in 1898!) with some laundry stuff after my grandma passed away:"If skirts get any shorter, and winds misbehave, there'll be two more cheeks to powder and one more spot to shave!"Not sure if she wrote that or just copied it down from somewhere else, but at least I know she was having a chuckle on laundry day.

  14. My, your own laundry still look neat to me. Ours is like a mountain already and I've hidden it beside our arm chair in our bedroom. (LOL) I hope we'll be able to clean it ALL this weekend. :)Glad we don't have to boil our clothes now. When I was young, my mom used to do it the hard way; but not boil. Our clothes were all handwashed.I wish you a great weekend! :)

  15. This is wonderful reminder. I dread laundry more than scrubbing the toilets, and it seems like a never ending task. Our piles look much like yours.

  16. Oh yes! Laundry does not seem so bad now! Thanks for the encouragement!

  17. Can you imagine every doing the wash that way? Or how about going down to the river, in all kinds of weather, to pound the clothes on a rock. I'll be up to my eyeballs in clothes tomorrow…thank goodness Mr. Fairway deigns to fold!

  18. Thank you for leaving me a comment on the featured reader post at Dolce Vita! I'm so glad you did because your blog is amazing! I'm a new follower and excited to have found you. <3Love the look and colors of your blog…very pleasing. And, Wow. This was a reality check for me. I constantly complain about laundry and this list was so GOOD for me to read. I want to print it out and hang it up! :)

  19. That is just crazy -I'm so grateful for the invention of the washer! Now if we could just invent something to prevent clothes from getting dirty in the first place…

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