Let’s talk about laundry. Now really, laundry is just a fancy do-dah name for dirty clothes gotten clean, but laundry sounds nicer and isn’t as long as the previous phrase, so we’ll use it.

In our house, we do a great job of creating laundry. Especially the girls. They are excellent examples of profoundly dirty children. Always grubbing in the dirt, wallowing in mud and splashing in puddles, so no problems there. And we have an excellent washing machine and dryer, so issues with that, but now, once the laundry has been washed and dried, we get to the folding part and that combined with putting it away is where a smidgen of trouble begins brewing.

The girls earn their allowance by folding our laundry and then, because they live in this house and must be responsible members of the household, they put away their own clothes. They are good at this, but only if they do it. And therein lies my role of the NAG. I’m good at my job, too, but I try not to do it either (there’s a bit of a trend there, isn’t there? BUT we’re not here to talk about trends, we’re talking about laundry!). So sometimes we have a cranky mom nagging and sometimes we have cranky kids folding laundry, but really, nothing too disturbing.

But my complaint (and it is very valid and very disturbing, so brace yourself) is about our socks. We have an entire laundry basket full of sock singlets. The girls can’t seem to match socks if their life depended on it! And a new phenomenon has been discovered. Socks are missing, because they are stuffed in odd places, gathering dust, never to be seen again, unless the mom of the house (that’s me) gets on her hands and knees and peers into places where moms should not have to peer. You can imagine how upset I was when I found a rather substantial pile of dirty kids’ socks stuffed under my treadmill this morning!

I admit that once every couple of weeks, when we’re all desperate to have some socks in our drawers, I tuck into the laundry basket and match as many as I can. I usually come up with about 30 pairs, but still I’m left with a basket half full. And now I must regularly peer into dark and scary places to search out contraband socks? What is the world coming to?

BUT the point I wanted to make this morning is that my girls need to find a new way to earn their allowance. Their laundry days are over until winter. It’s warm enough to use the laundry line now and I’ve rediscovered the joy of hanging clothes on the line. It’s a perfect opportunity to have a little bit of “me” time…outside, listening to the birds, feeling the breeze on my skin and most importantly, no one whining because one of her sisters had one more gummy bear than she did.

Bliss, I tell you, pure bliss and something I never thought I’d say about the laundry.