Laundry Lowdown

Once upon a time a discontented queen used to do laundry for two princesses, a tiny prince, and the king of the castle all in one long and tiring day. Her back would ache from the countless hours she spent sitting on the floor folding each article of clothing. Then she would wearily lug all the baskets of garments up the two flights of stairs to be lovingly placed in the drawers and hung in the closets of each member of the royal family. Laundry day was the day of the week she dreaded the most.

One night, while resting in her bed chamber, the lovely queen thought to herself, "There must be a better way to get the laundry done in a more manageable way." That night the queen had a dream. A dream in which she lived in a magical land where laundry duty was divided into one load a day, stretching across the entire week. The people in the land were very happy because they now had a queen who wasn't exhausted and grumpy after laundry day. When the queen awoke, she knew what she had to do. Here is her system:

• Buy inexpensive laundry organizers. Mine are made of PVC piping and mesh bags.
• Divide your loads into one for each day, Mon-Fri.
• Make signs to place above each hamper to reduce confusion. I wrote the day of the week in the top right corner and whose laundry it is very big in the center.
• Each sign should be a different color so if you have kids who don't read yet, they'll still know where to put clothes.
• Start one load each morning and while that is washing, fold and put away the previous day's load, thus having the laundry done before morning nap!

Since creating this system, the queen has realized that most loads don't need to be done weekly and she has in turn reduced her laundry stress greatly. She has taken the day that used to be reserved for washing royal clothing and turned it into Mommy Project Day. There is happiness throughout the land.