Spin Psycho

I love getting tips from other moms about how organization makes life so much easier for them.  The addition of Pinterest to my life has expanded my realization of failures and shortcomings exponentially.  I thought I'd share my best kept laundry-sorting secret with you now, those of you who have long made the mistake of running your amateur two piles of darks vs. lights through the boring cycles of your washer.  It's the one area I don't see addressed by all these so-called "laundry room" designer/organizer extraordinaires.

This secret has not only saved me time from slaving away unnecessary hours in the laundry room, but also has made the absolute most efficient use of compartmentalizing resources.

I sort by what category item "we're out of".

For example:

"MOM!  There's no clean underwear!" = One exclusive load of children's underwear.  They're not intermixed with other items, they're put away by themselves, and they're washed when needed.

I hope you can grasp this concept wordically, because visually, it's just near impossible to "pin" a photo of 23 pairs of dirty Spiderman/Sponge Bob/Monster truck underwear on my Pinterest board without getting a call from CPS or an email from ChrisHansen@msnbc.com pretending to be a 14 year old boy inviting me to come over to hot tub but insisting that I bring condoms and Mike's Hard Lemonade.

"What?? I was just coming over to make crafts
with a middle-aged stay-at-home mom....see?"

Again: WHO is making $$ off this $#it? Oh, yeah:

(http://www.etsy.com/listing/80516014/bottle-cap-necklace-mikes-hard-lemonade)

Obviously my laundry-mom skills are blowing your mind, so read the next part cautiously.

I am getting pretty sick and GD tired of hearing about these artsy-fartsy I-can-do-anything-I-set-my-mind-to do gooders making their own laundry soap.  So yeah, I did it.  I don't want to get into the particulars because that's not the basis for my blog and to be honest all you have to do is Google homemade laundry soap to find a bazillion recipes so knock yourself out.  What I did realize was:

• The recipe I followed called for lavender oil and castile soap. I found castile soap with lavender oil in it. I considered this lucky until I remembered something in my nostrils HATES lavender.
• I honestly, before this endeavor do not remember the last time I used my food processor (which was recommended to grate the soap), but every time I drag it out I'm convinced it's an essential appliance.
• I spent wasted far too much time looking for a decorative container to put this concoction in.  Like my laundry room looks like Martha Stewart's.  It does not.

I ended up using an old laundry detergent bucket that had lost its lid that we have since used for miscellaneous garage projects and a garbage bag as a liner.  We now have my Mom's liquid laundry soap (lavender scent), our Gain liquid (normal people laundry soap) that Hubs is still using in his laundry and my self-made bucket of powder (lavender scent) lined up like misfits on our shelf, each screaming "pick me!" when we stuff our front-loader with our messy frocks.  Of course, I pick the one I made, if for no other reason than to blast through it and get back to good old fashioned, commercialized, mass-produced laundry soap off the shelf.

I threw the box to the food processor away and put the accessories in a gallon zippy bag.  No sense in taking up extra cupboard space for the box when the appliance itself is so small.  Baby steps...baby steps.

I now hate the smell of my laundry room.  They say lavender is supposed to be calming, relaxing....

It's really just making me tired.