Laundry is my kryptonite.

The Hubster and I had an understanding long ago back when we were both working. I would take care of the inside of the house and he in turn would take care of the outside of the house.

It didn't take long for James to hire a yard guy. Oh, and just in case you were wondering he did not hire the yard guy to free up his time to do other chores around the house. I just want to clarify that. He just got out of doing the yard.

I didn't mind too much because back then it actually gave me an excuse to be a less than perfect housekeeper. Ok, I will be honest... I was a slob. But hey, we both worked and if he couldn't do the outside I wasn't going to stress about the inside.

Fast forward to my pregnancy with D and the beginning of my "nesting phase" and the start of all sorts of OCD tics and I become Super Cleaner! I do the floors multiple times daily, dust everything, hell I even scrub the baseboard weekly. And the germaphobic state of mind has continued and I continue to clean compulsively even now, over 2 years after D arrived. But I don't mind. I stay home and I look at it as part of my job as a housewife now.

I really do it all and I do it well. All except for the laundry.

This is a photo of just my dirty clothes and we have a family of 5 so you can imagine!!!

All things considered I'm a pretty good little housewife but laundry is my kryptonite. I try do it it but it's so hard. I know how to wash clothes of course but there are just so many steps involved (really there should be 4 wash, dry, fold, out away) but when you have ADD it adds steps and it becomes a recipe for disaster.

Here is how it generally goes.

1. Separate clothes.

2. Forget that you separated them and throw more clothes on top or have to search through the pile for one specific item mixing them all up.

3. Separate clothes again.

4. Put load in washer and wash

5. Forget load is in washer and let it sit for at least a day.

6. Remember load in washer and smell it. Yuck.

7. Start load in washer again. Add extra fabric softener and a little more bleach to get ride of sour mildew smell.

8. If I remember after the 2nd run through the wash then move load in wash into the dryer.

9. Forget to start the dryer leaving wet clothes to sit in it and once again start stinking.

10. Put clothes back into the washer again. Add even more fabric softener and a a lot more bleach to get ride of sour mildew smell.

11. Forget load is in washer.

12. . Remember load in washer and smell it again. Yuck.
13. Start load in washer again for the 4th time. Add a hell of a lot more fabric softener and a the rest of the bleach to get ride of sour mildew smell.
14. Move load to dryer making sure to start it this time.
15. Forget to put the dryer on the right setting and have to turn it on again.
16. Forget to clear lint trap. That's why it's not drying. Clear lint and dry again.
17. Forget to get clothes out of dryer so they wrinkle.
18. Start dryer again to fluff out wrinkles.
19. Forget to get clothes out of dryer once again.
20. Start dryer yet again.
21. Forget to get clothes out of dryer but give up on fluffing so put them in a basket.
22. Forget to fold basket of clothes but put it in closet to get it out of the way.
23. Dog finds basket of unfolded laundry and lays in it or I forget if basket is supposed to be clean or dirty.
24. Have to rewash load. See step one.

Yes this is honestly how some loads go. Thing is even if I do remember to wash, dry, fold and put away the other loads I do this one "bad load" as I call it, the one that has to be washed and dried repeatedly throws the rest of my progress out of whack and it makes it so I never actually put a dent into the pile.

So I had a great idea yesterday. My grandmother doesn't work and could use a little extra money plus she actually enjoys doing laundry (I am sure this is proof of a history of mental illness in the family). So I thought I would have her do some of my laundry for like $5 per load or something. I asked her and she agreed. 

But when I presented the idea to James he didn't go for it! I guess I wasn't actually asking permission. I was more or less letting him know what I planned on doing so I will do it if I want but still I was shocked at his response. I thought he may actually be proud I thought it up! He said if she really needed the money it was fine but as a way for me to not have to do the wash it wasn't. Again, I wasn't looking for approval but if he really was against it for a good reason I wouldn't do it. SInce to me he has no good reason Grandma's the new family laundress.

My actual issue is this... How is it fair that he pays for a lawn guy if I can't pay for the laundry to get clean? It's not like we have grass in the yard! But we do have a heap of dirty clothes.

So no, it's not fair and since laundry sucks the life and patience out of me I will probably drop my first load off to dear old granny next week and I can't wait for James to say something about it. Oh, by the way... The yard guy is coming on Friday.