Conquering Mount Laundry

My Mountain of Laundry is very large at times and most of the time when I have to do laundry I get very depressed and angery because I get so behind and to tell you the truth i get down right selfish. I'm always trying to come up with new ways that might help me control my laundry mountain; like doing one load a day, doing all the laundry on one day, washing a load and letting my husband put it up to dry and I fold it and put it away.... Believe me I've tried everything, nothing ever really works. I am so thankful for my husband because he came up with the most wonderful method of doing our laundry and I just had to share it with you all.

As you know I have four children under five and I really can't completely give anyone of them the task of doing their own laundry yet, so this is what we do.

• At night time everyone (including me and my husband) puts their PJ's, that they wore the night before, and the day clothes, that they wore that day, and puts them in the washing machine. I also put any towels that were soiled and the washcloth and towel that I used in the kitchen that day in the washing machine as well. This is one load for us.
• When I go to bed I set the timer on the washer to start at 7:00am the next morning.
• After breakfast, chores, and prayer time are done at our home in the morning (this is usually 9:00am) EVERYONE helps take down and put the laundry away from the day before and helps hang up the laundry that was just washed that morning.

I've been using this idea for about 2 weeks now and it has been awesome to see my children willing to help me out with something I struggle with.

A note on starting this: I first had to get caught up with the mountain of laundry before I could really put this idea into action. If you have a dryer handy it will be a total breeze to get caught up. But if you don't have a dryer keep trudging along because the end result will be wonderful and you wont be standing and hanging up laundry for what seems to be days on end :)

I also have moved all of the children's dressers into the hallway that leads to the laundry room. This solved the problem, for me, of letting clean clothes sit in piles on the sofa for years. Now when the clothes are dry I take them off the line, fold them, and put them away in one step. (if you fold the shirts and pants in half when you put them on the line to dry, you'll be practically done when you have to put them away)