Loving Laundry

A few days ago, Wendy asked my what my favorite job around the house was.  I told her it was probably doing the laundry.  She asked why and I told her I always loved doing the laundry, even when I was a kid still living at home.

Doing laundry at my granny's house was always a real treat.  She had the old fashioned wringer washing machines.  I LOVED standing on the button and making the wash go flat as it went through the wringer.  They also didn't have lids so it was neat to wash the laundry swish around.  Sad though, it finally went kaput and for awhile my Gramps had to take Granny to the laundromat.  I loved going to that laundry mat too.  It had a T.V. and always had the soap operas on!  Eventually my Granny did get a regular old washing machine, but I will forever remember and love that wringer washer.  I also remember a few times when I was camping with Granny and Gramps we had to wash a few things out on the wash board at the camp grounds and we would then hang them out to dry.  I especially liked scrubbing the socks.  (I don't know why).  I remember thinking I can't believe people used to wash all of their clothes this way. I have a wash board hanging in my laundry room, just in case it ever needs to be used.  When I would go camping with Granny and Gramps at Rend Lake, every once in awhile we would drive into Sesser to do the laundry at the laundromat.  This was one of the only times I didn't want to help with the laundry.  Sesser's library was right next door to the laundromat and I would go over there and sit and read books while Granny did the laundry.  Priorities.

When I was still living at home, there was a time we didn't have a washer and a dryer that worked and we didn't have the money to fix them or buy new ones.  We went to the laundromat in town almost every weekend.  I loved it!  Usually dad and I would load up the station wagon with baskets and baskets of laundry (there were six of us in the family).  Mom would already have them sorted out into loads so all we had to do was throw them in the washers and the dryers.  I loved wheeling the cart around taking the clothes from the washer to the dryer.  Then from the dryer to the table to fold the clothes.  I always got a treat out of the vending machines they had there too.  It was the same thing every time...an orange soda and a bag of crunchy cheese curls.

When we finally got a new washer and dryer at home, I still enjoyed doing the laundry.  Especially during the summer when I could hang the clothes outside on the line to dry.  We had really long, multiple clothes lines on the side of our house that my mom and brother built. I used to be too short to reach the lines so I had to jump up and grab the line and pull it down so I could pin the clothes to it.  That clothes line is still there on the side of the house.

When I first got married we lived in an apartment building that had only one washer and one dryer in basement.  It was always a fight to use it.  Sometimes it worked out where I did the laundry there but most of the time my hubby and I would spend a weekend night at the laundromat.  We had two we really liked.  If one was too crowded we would go the other.  I had the same feelings then as I did when I was little, I loved going to the laundromat.  Except this time instead of getting a snack out of the vending machine, we usually stopped at a fast food place and grabbed dinner to eat there.  Only bad thing during this season of laundry, was having to walk up three flights of stairs from the parking lot to our Apartment E with loads of laundry.

I'm pretty sure I bought my house, not for the amount of bedrooms, nor the 3 newly remodeled bathrooms, nor for the wonderful front porch, but for the fact that it had a laundry room!  With a sink, and a closet, and cabinets!! About a month ago, our dryer went out and I needed some clothes dried.  I told my hubby to take the girls with him to the laundromat so they could see what one was.  They all thought is was neat, but not as neat as I used to think they were.  Oh, well!  Kids these days!

 To this day, I still love to do the laundry. I love the smell of the laundry detergent and fabric softener sheets.  I love the sound of the dryer being on. Weird, I know. Don't judge me.  Our family has grown from 2 to 5 so the laundry pile has also grown.  And I'm sure it will get much bigger once these girls hit their teenage years. When I do the laundry, I am thankful that I have a family to do laundry for.  I am thankful that I have money to buy that laundry for my family.  And now I am thankful that the girls are all old enough to help me put it away. (Which is my least favorite part of the laundry).

Who would of thought something as simple as laundry would be such a big thing to me.  Crazy.  Now if I could just get one of those tables in my laundry room to fold things on....