Laundry

This morning in bed I was contemplating the enormous task looming over my head for today...laundry! It's not like I have not done plenty of laundry this week, it's a constant battle. I broke done the process into these 10 simple steps:

1. Gather laundry (includes gym clothes, work clothes, play clothes, pajamas, underwear, socks, towels, wash clothes, etc...from 5 people) from all three bedrooms.
2. Sort on my bathroom floor.
3. Lug one basket at a time down the stairs (praises to home builders who went the extra mile to put the laundry upstairs...ours apparently didn't think of this!).
4. Start the washer, add soap and dirty laundry.
5. 45 minutes later, take the clothes out of the washer and put in the dryer.
6. Another 45 minutes later take the clothes out of the dryer and take to the couch to fold.
7. Fold all clothes, towels, sort socks (carefully deciding which ones belong to whom), set aside clothes to hang in all three different closets.
8. Place clean clothes back in the laundry basket and lug back up the stairs (why oh why is our washer and dryer not upstairs?).
9. Sort and put away everything in all three bedrooms.
10. Hang all hanging clothes in appropriate closets.
*Repeat above 10 steps about 10 times per week.

When you looking at laundry as the daunting task that it really is, you can appreciate why most women have precious little free time to do anything else, like cooking, cleaning bathrooms, dressing, undressing, feeding, bathing and hopefully occasionally loving their children!

This is why we need to take a step back and focus on the specific task at hand. Life should be lived taking baby steps. Right now I am just thinking about going upstairs and collecting one load of dark clothes. If I thought about the 9 other steps involved in that job I would probably just give up right now! Just don't forget to make time for the really important steps, like snuggling your kids on your lap and reading them a book. This step often gets lost in the constant footrace of life! Take each step in your race carefully and with love.