Conquering the Laundry Monster

It was different before.

Actually, let’s go way back to when it was Katie, a party of one. Laundry really wasn’t an issue, if you don’t count how many times I didn’t fold my laundry, instead of rummaging through a hamper of clean clothes to find outfits for the day. But washing clothes wasn’t a huge burden. Sometimes it would take two weeks before I finally lugged it all to the laundry room. But not a pressing issue in life.

Then I was married.

We both married later for the Louisiana standard (at the ripe ‘ole age of 28/29!) I wasn’t willing to take on my husband’s laundry at that point. After all, he was a grown man who had been washing and folding his own clothes for years. (Turns out, he is more high maintenance with his laundry care than I.) We mutually agreed that we could continue our own practice of cleaning and maintaining our own laundry. No issues arose and we laundered as we preferred.

Then came sweet baby Charlotte Rose.

And sweet she was, but messy was she too. In the beginning, I was unprepared for the daily outfits she ruined, whether it was from spitting up milk or having diaper blowouts. But I was on maternity leave, and it was pretty easy to just throw those things in the laundry. When I returned back to work, my husband and I had a come-to Jesus. No longer was it working for me to wash my clothes and the baby’s, and him to wash his own. The chores around the home seemed to double in size from just adding one small human to the household, and our chore divvying up just wasn’t cutting it. We discussed and agreed that among other things, the kitchen and laundry room were drowning us. My husband, the brilliant cook between the both of us, agreed to take on kitchen duties, and I would manhandle the laundry situation.

Or so I thought.

I could never seem to keep up and our dirty clothes seemed to multiply each month. Each weekend saw me running load after load of clothes. This usually resulted in having huge mountains of clothes that needed to be folded that I could never fully fold in time. Before I knew it, I would need to make another load again. Those fresh clothes would just get added to an overflowing basket of clothes to be folded. It felt like the process never ended and I could never catch up for long.

My laundry room started to look like a war zone. Something needed to change.

I was desperate and out of ideas. I need to crowd surf this problem. The number of times I kept visiting Hampr, the laundry service, was increasing in frequency and I knew I needed to figure something out fast.

And just as expected, mothers delivered. There were a lot of unique ideas, such as washing a different color each day, ending with bedsheets. But something stood against the rest. A small load, every single day? These moms shrugged. It worked for them and they had absolutely zero laundry issues. I put my water bill worries aside and decided that I had reached the end of my rope. And I started doing a load of laundry every single day.

And like magic, it worked.

It’s simple enough. I collect all the dirty clothes and pop them in the washer after my daughter goes to sleep. I’ll either set them to dry before I go to bed or first thing in the morning. My laundry room is clear again, clothes are folded and put away in record time, and I don’t have to spend hours of each weekend trying to tackle this chore.

If you’re trying to find relief from the laundry monster, try washing clothes every day. Make it more of your routine and you’ll finally stop feeling like you are drowning by clothes.

Or you can go ahead and just contact Hampr or another laundry service. There is no judgment on my end.

Katie Templet
A kid at heart, Katie loves all things writing, Harry Potter and musicals. At any moment, she is down for either a cup of coffee or margarita. Her passions are building and improving her community of Lafayette, where she was born and raised, and teaching her one daughter to have a British accent. (Not so successful at that last part yet). She spends her day as a nonprofit ambassador, helping nonprofits amplify their mission and creating more social good.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here