What I'm Up To Lately

It may be HOT outside, but summer is almost over! School planning is underway!

Here is my planning list as I get ready for this school year:

• finish organizing the school room/supplies
• make a family schedule
• decide on the curriculum for my co-op Spanish class
• make a syllabus for my co-op class
• purchase our Sonlight curriculum 

Hmmm....probably more needs to be on this list...busy, busy, busy over here (inside the house since it's just TOO hot to be outside!) 

Look for future blog posts on some of these projects! 

Disclaimer: If you click on the links in this post and make a purchase with Sonlight as a new customer, you will receive a $5 discount on your purchase of $50 or more. I will receive points toward a discount on my own Sonlight purchase. If you choose to make a purchase after clicking my links, I sincerely thank you!! :)

Taming the Laundry Monster

A family of nine can generate some major laundry!  It took me a while to get into my "groove" with laundry, but I'm almost there in taming that laundry monster!  Here are some of my own "monster-taming" tips:


~First of all, my husband bought me the biggest machine in the store.  Now, I'm not advocating purchasing a new machine unnecessarily.  My machine had washed its last load and we were shopping for a new one.  His one question to the salesman was "Where is the one with the largest washing capacity?"  (He's super sweet like that....thinking more of saving me time and helping me out than the cost of said machine!!)  And that's the one he bought.  So if you are looking for a new machine for your large family, find a super-sized capacity washer.  Mine happens to be a front-loader, but there are some really big top-loaders as well.


~Each bedroom (with the exception of ours) has a laundry hamper in it.  My son has his own room (great benefit of being the only son in a houseful of sisters!!)  so he has his own hamper.  There are two rooms of girls and each room has a shared hamper.


~Once a week (preferably on Monday) each hamper is supposed to make its way down to the laundry room.  Once there I wash each hamper of clothing separately from the others.  Joshua's clothes usually take me two washer loads. The girls' hampers usually take two or three. I don't separate by colors and I have not had a problem with this. (Except for hubby's white undershirts, which I wash separately and bleach.) I try really hard to remember and separate out any new red or dark-colored items that may bleed, but since we rarely purchase clothing brand-new, this is rarely an issue. I can usually finish all this in one day. 


~Loads are removed from the dryer (or brought in from the clothesline) and placed, unfolded, into the same hamper.  Then each room's occupant(s) are required to return it to the room and fold/hang/put away all the clean clothing. 


~I either fold/hang/put away all of my own and my husband's and the little ones' laundry, or I enlist the help of an older child to do it for me.  Quite honestly, this is the one area of laundry I haven't quite "tamed" yet.  Sometimes clean laundry hangs around in baskets a bit too long in our house.  <blush>


~All other laundry (towels, sheets, blankets, coats, etc) are washed on the days I'm not doing the hamper laundry.  I run a load of laundry (or several!) almost every day.  


~Occasionally, such as after an out-of-town trip, I will have a literal mountain of laundry.  And it is not all sorted out by room in those hampers.  During those times I just make a big pile of the dirty laundry in my laundry room floor and go to work.  It may take me several days to get through it, but we just work hard on it until it is finished.  Since it is all mixed up, I separate each load into one of my many laundry baskets.  I separate it just like when I have hampers, by room occupancy.  And at the end of the day, each room is required to put away their own stuff.  Because my laundry room is in the middle of my house, we have to navigate this mountain until it is finished.  This helps keep me motivated to get it done!  :)  


So. These are my tips for taming my laundry monster.  Like I said at the beginning, I'm still not quite where I'd like to be in the taming process, but that monster sure is more manageable than he used to be!  :)