Where Do Your Clothes Live?

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Where Do Your Clothes Live?

Well, it’s been a few months of this whole “full-time job” gig, and I have finally found a routine.

This involved a lot of trial and error, and my husband has had to step up and really take on new roles like prepping breakfast and getting the children presentable in the morning. Honestly, though, he’s a better wife than I am. He even packs me breakfast and makes sure to say something uplifting before I leave at the ungodly hour of 7 a.m. every day (thank you good old SoCal commute).

Most of the household tasks have been evenly split between the two of us, and thanks to modern technology like Instacart and meal delivery services, we are able to get most things done in the very few free hours we have each week. And our precious evenings can be devoted to spending time with our babies.

But one thing that still eludes me is what to do about the darn laundry.

I don’t know how your household operates, but laundry occurs maybe every other day, or every-third-day if we stretch it out.

Both my husband and I are really good about putting dirty clothes into the wash and transferring them to the dryer. This ensures that we are at least wearing items that are clean each day.

But what happens after that is a near constant battle.

First of all, no one wants to sort the clothes. It takes like 30 minutes to pair off socks and identify whose pajamas are whose. And we only have exactly three hours each evening to accomplish everything that needs to be done before bed. This means that, inevitably, clothes will be shoved in a complex pile to the end of the bed, and they will reside in the two laundry baskets that have contained clean clothes for maybe the past year.

When I can take no more of the random assortment of clothes in a tower at the foot of the bed, I muster up the energy to sort items into categories. Those that can go in drawers make it to their respective homes. Those that need to be hung up never make it.

The result is that the clothes that I wear every day to work sit in a neatly sorted pile in a laundry basket for all eternity.

And my kids’ clothes sit in their own neatly sorted laundry basket next to it. And there they reside until someone needs something. Then we will root through the pile to find the desired item. This pattern means that I basically wear the same set of outfits every week, and my kids are in the same predicament.

About once a month, I can’t take it anymore and I put everything in their place inside the respective closets. Because we avoid this for a whole month, this process takes over an hour to complete with both my husband and I on deck. It is exhausting and about the last thing that I want to do on the weekend. But this monthly activity ensures that I get some variation in my outfits because I can start over with my selection.

I tell myself each time that I will totally hang up clothes regularly so as to avoid the perpetual mountain at the end of my bed. I maybe make it through one round of laundry and it’s all over.

I can’t understand why this is so darn hard.

Maybe it’s because everyone has that one chore that they hate and they never want to do, but for both my husband and I, it’s putting away clothes? I feel bad that I have such a lovely closet that is filled with empty hangers. And not being able to visualize my clothing collection has caused me to purchase things I don’t need in the past that I totally forgot I already had.

This whole laundry-gate is basically my nemesis.

Please tell me I’m not alone and that other people have the revolving laundry basket scenario too. At this point, I would literally pay someone to come and empty my baskets once a week.

Anyone need a job?

 

Where Do Your Clothes Live?

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Megan Phillips
Megan Phillips is a licensed clinical psychologist who owns a private practice that specializes in helping women and moms in Orange County (www.cottonwoodpsychologycenter.com). She is from the Pacific Northwest, but she and her husband decided to escape the rain and move to warm, sunny Southern California in 2012. Since then, she became a mom to a smart and funny little boy and an adorable baby girl. Megan enjoys cooking and taking in the local sights, and she is always up for a fun mommy’s night out.