safety pins for pairing

Socks look kind of chaotic

One of my least favorite things to do is laundry.  Not because it’s hard, but it is pretty tedious for me.  BK (before kid) I always was on top of it and did our laundry and put it away right away!  Yay!  Now I often find myself dumping the laundry on our guest bed and sort them into piles for Nathan, Norah and myself and leave them there until I need something from one of the stacks…

That’s my confession of the day.  I definitely try to keep up with household chores and vacuuming since Blitz (our dog) sheds like a maniac.  I would prefer to hang out with my family instead of keeping the house super clean.  It’s generally clean since we have people over all the time.  If they stay downstairs they won’t see my giant pile of laundry sitting on the bed or know it’s there.

My laundry tips are pretty simple and perhaps I should not even be giving any tips since I obviously don’t always put it all away and “doing laundry” includes sorting it, throwing it into the machine as well as well as folding it and putting it away.  That second part is the part that is difficult for me.  L

So, here is my best advice for laundry:

Presort your colors vs. whites/towels (those hampers with separators are helpful for this!).

If you have a stain on something, put a clothespin on the item prior to putting it in the basket to help you remember to treat it when you are actually doing laundry (thanks to my co-worker for this tip).  Otherwise, treat it right away.  (Even though my husband tells me he got a spot on this or that shirt, the clothespin is way more helpful when you have a million things going on in your brain as we all do!)

Yay, Look at my cute matching socks!

Safety pins are glorious things.  I have never bought a safety pin, but if you run any sort of race that requires you to wear a bib they give you at least 4 safety pins!  I have hundreds and I use them all now to pin baby socks together.  That is probably the best tip I can give you.  I keep the socks pinned together when putting them into a drawer also.  For me, I find it helpful to be able to see how big and what color/design is on the socks when choosing socks for Norah to wear.  (I’m a dork and I like her to match!)  So the safety pins work well for that (keeping them in pairs & being able to see them) vs. rolling them into small balls.  I like to pin socks together when I throw them into the hamper or shortly after that to save time when actually doing the laundry.  You can use them for adult socks too if you'd like especially if you have a ton of socks and don't like spending time pairing them.

Safety pins to save the day!

I am not a fan of ironing so I like to layout shirts or hang up shirts and clothes that wrinkle easily so I don’t have to.  :)

Now that I have written this, I need to go put my laundry away!

-run for life