making a plan

The Problem with Laundry

I want to talk to you about your laundry situation. I have heard wives and mothers in all different walks of life vocalize how overwhelming laundry is to them. Most of us have whole rooms in our homes dedicated to laundry, along with two moderately expensive appliances whose only job in life is to wash and dry laundry.  So with all that, why are we all so overwhelmed with this? I believe laundry is hard for a few different reasons. Let’s only go over the most practical one right now.

 

How we all physically do laundry.

 

From what I can tell, this is how most of us do laundry. First, you go all over the house collecting all the dirty laundry, bringing it to one central location, and then wash and dry it. Most people then take it to another location; to the living room, bedroom, or wherever to fold it. Then, once it is folded into neat little piles, we have to go the distance of the whole house to deliver it back to it originating locations.  

Ok, just for a second, pretend you are running a business, and your chosen “product” is making clean laundry. Now, picture yourself sitting in a conference room trying to explaining to investors your system for getting your product made. If you told them the above system, they may call your job into question.The system is inefficient at best and the CEO, you,  are doing all of the product movement.

 

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DIY Projects, Story Time

For Real, It’s Not Magic

 

A few years ago, I took a class from a woman at our church on how to make bread.   It was just a 15 or 20 of us sitting in the back corner of the gym on a Saturday morning, but it really was a turning point for me and my outlook on much of how I run my home.

Janette was in her late 60’s, her family had been member of our church since before anyone could remember.  Her and her husband raised 5 sons who were all happily married with children of their own and all living within 30 miles of home.   I first meet her early in my college career, she hosted a Sunday lunch after church that was open to anyone.   There were usually 3-4 of her son’s and their families, anywhere from 2-20 college kids and anyone else who looked lost and hungry after church.     Because of these lunches, which I should point out is one of the only ways I survived college, her cooking skills were known far and wide.    Especially her homemade rolls and homemade jelly that was served with every meal.

It. Was. Amazing.

So when I heard that she was teaching how to make those amazing rolls I had to go, even if I never got it right I had to at least try.  As we were getting set up a few of the woman were laughingly doubting their potential bread making skills. (I was one of them for sure) She stopped us and said that making bread really was easy, but that for some reason the skill had been elevated to almost celebrity status.   She added that lots of woman who know how to do it, want to keep it that way, like they have skill that makes them superior to the rest of us.  That they have a domestic magic.  It was after that day that I started to wonder if all the mothers around me, who’s lives looks so perfect and put together, were just faking it.  Maybe they did not all possess some magic that was out of my reach, maybe it really was just smoke and mirrors.

She is right it really is pretty easy to make your own bread or rolls, I’ll show you sometime.

Because for real, it’s not magic.