Riddle-ie Riddle-ie Ree

Here's a riddle for you:






What is both clean and  dirty, dark and  light and doesn't care if it's night or  day?

Laundry!

Between sickies and potties we have washed several loads of sheets and towels this week but not many loads of clothes.  I see a BIG laundry day coming up quick.  (Oh and for the record, there is another full hamper and a couple baskets full of dirty clothes not pictured.)  I think there is only one basket of clean clothes not put away.


Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Closet organization

I have been at my wits end dealing with the clutter and unorganized state of our closet. Basically I did the big clothing change over in the Fall and then it didn't really stay cold. The kids ended up dragging out a bunch of short sleeve items and everything got all mixed in together in the closet.

Winter also adds more of a challenge in that clothing is bulkier and there are more layers in general. Things just need stored differently. We also have some up and coming kiddos that need drawer space. ;-)

So we did a revamp of the closet!

I didn't think to take before pictures. I will try to paint a word picture for you. Let's see.......


complete and utter chaos. Yep. That describes it pretty well.


I moved in one set of drawers that I picked up at Goodwill Outlet for cheap. The rest of the drawers were already in there. 

The top rack is for Evelyn and Sadie. I only have some of Evelyn's there right now. I need to get Sadie's put up. The small drawer set on the left is for undies/socks for the three youngest girlies. Silas gets that single drawer for his pajamas. His jeans are folded on top. One stack for play and one for nice jeans. The pans on the shelf are nicer church pants. I just decided to put all empty hangers above the jeans for now.

Notice the lovely sharpie art on the wall here. This is the prime example of why we don't have a lot of markers or other various art items in the house.

This is directly to the right of Silas' jeans. My clothes are hanging. These drawers weren't finished at the time of the picture. They now hold Some items for Avrie and Evelyn and the bottom drawer is for Silas' undies and socks.

The hanging clothes here are Ellie's, Silas' shirts and Avrie's. Two of the pink drawers are Ellie's since she is needing more space now that she is bigger. The bottom pink drawer is for leggings for all the girls. The three larger white drawers are for Avrie, Evelyn and Sadie's pajamas.  Tights are going in a tote on the top shelf. They don't use tights much and Evelyn has been getting 2 or 3 pairs of tights out every day trying them on. Up high they go!

 Ellie made labels for each drawer. She assigned each child a picture and put that next to their name. She came up with that idea herself saying it would help all the non-readers find their drawer. Such a sweetie.You can see a couple of them here on the white drawers.

 Oh and see those clothes sitting on top of the drawers?  That is not supposed to happen. It's been a couple days now and so far things are staying organized. I've just got to stay on top of things.


Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Solar power!

It has been HOT! Thankfully we have central air conditioning and lots of things to do inside. But this week it seemed I was destined to be outside more than I had originally planned.



Below is a picture of my clothes dryer.

Yes this is the inside. Do the clothes go in that dirty ole thing?  

Well, not exactly.  There's a large piece missing.

 

 

That big thing on top is where the clothes go. Yes I could still put the clothes in it but it obviously won't dry them.  Well, maybe if I had the kids push it really fast down the hill a few times.....while holding a hair dryer.....with a really long extension cord......nah.

Can you see on the top of the dryer where the paint is coming off? Our washer and dryer used to be very nice looking. Okay, as nice looking as a basic washer and dryer can look. For some reason one of the children decided to squirt our laundry soap all over the place and failed to mention it to us and IT ATE THE PAINT OFF!  Lovely isn't it?  I wasn't pleased with the paint coming off but honestly, if it still works I'm not too worried about cosmetics. Really. It's a dryer.

But....the soap that ate the paint also ran down inside and IT ATE THROUGH THE BELT! Yes, the belt. You know, the thing that makes that big tub turn round and round so the clothes get all nice and fluffy and wrinkle free? Yes, that  belt. 

Of course Sears wanted to sell us the replacement belt for a chunk of change - I think it was around $19.00. That's before shipping. We found it on Amazon for $3.99. No kidding. I love Amazon!  Another part also needed replaced, I can't remember the name of it, but it helped guide the belt.

So this past week we have been using our solar powered dryer. 

 

 

Did I mention it's been hot? Our temps have been in the high 90's with a heat index around 110+. It is very humid and not much of a breeze. It was probably good there was no breeze since we didn't have clothespins. We would have had to search for our delicates in the neighbor's yard. I did cheat once and took a large load of undies and socks to my in-law's house and used their dryer. (THANKS!) That many small items would not work on the fence. 

 

I am thankful it didn't rain. I can't imagine hanging clothes inside the house. We learned quickly to place the clothes in the sunniest spots. Since there wasn't a breeze the sun had to bake the clothes dry. They sort of took the form of the fence and were a little crunchy, but they were dry and they smelled heavenly!  I really think I would like a clothesline someday. Not for everything, but it is nice to smell line-dried (er ummm fence dried) sheets. 

 

Todd got the parts and fixed the dryer!  It has a new sound now, but it seems to be working great. Maybe I'll get to start my new laundry system next week.

So maybe the "system" will be.....

.....there is no system! LOL


So far I have  not stuck to it at all. Laundry has gotten done, so that's good.

I'll try it again next week I guess.

Unplanned Laundry Day

Honestly we have laundry about every day. My plan was to try a system I had heard about. Basically doing all the laundry on Monday. Skip Tuesday. All the laundry on Wednesday. Skip Thursday. By Friday there shouldn't be much to do, but do it all anyway. Then begin again on Monday. This would of course change if ...... say.......we had ...... wet sheets for instance.

Today being Monday and all it was to be the first day of the great plan!  What did I wake up to? Out of 6 sets of sheets .....4 needed washed. To protect the innocent I will not name names here. At least they told me. There have been times we were getting ready for bed and we found out there were wet sheets from the night before. We have made progress.

Between all the mattress protectors, fitted sheets,cover sheets and any soiled clothes....no other laundry was done today. So now I am officially behind on my brand new system. Lovely.

But most of the sheets are clean and lots of people got to practice making beds today!

I do plan to continue this new system and take tomorrow off.  Okay, maybe not. ;-)