The secret to making the worst chore ever a bit more manageable
Those of us who live where the seasons change have to change out our clothing. We just do.
If you live somewhere with a climate that varies only a bit or remains the same year-round, this post is not for you. You can go on outside in your flip-flops and contemplate the ways you are missing out on opportunities to build character!
You’re going to be tempted to leave a comment saying something like, “I don’t get it, just put on a sweater if you’re chilly” — and that works for where you live, but not for where we live. See this post to understand why, when the sun starts slanting low or gets high up in the sky, when daylight is just a few short hours or most of the time, you need different wardrobes. It won’t work to wear t-shirts all year round, nor is it practical to keep the heavy corduroys and flannels out in summer. For one thing, there isn’t even enough room in our closets and dressers for all the things we need in a year!
But the changeover is a monumental task, as the rest of you well know. Even for the two of us here, the Chief and I, it takes so much effort. When you have kids, it’s a nightmare! I remember! But it has to be done, especially when you have kids.
Adults might be able to reach past summer things for what they need. It’s a drain on energy, but we would do it. Kids won’t.
You don’t want to have arguments about what to wear — it’s bad enough to navigate styles and event-appropriateness without also having to handle “too-warm” or “too-cold.” (It’s Fall so I’m going to talk about getting out the warmer clothing; just work backwards in the Spring.)
Your three-year-old who is positively addicted to shorts and a t-shirt is not going to give up if they are right there in the drawer, even if they are manifestly too small, let alone not warm enough! You have to put them (the clothes, not the children) in a bin and stow them in the attic, or donate, or throw them away. They have to be gone.
I go into this issue more in the “dressing warmly” posts. But trust me, it’s better to do the work now than spend all winter arguing.
I’m going to give you the secret to making this task doable. It will still be awful.
It’s hard for me to account for every situation — some have no closets at all, some are blessed with a large room they can fit a bunch of dressers in. So take all this as organizing principles and adapt to your circumstances.
Let’s make a list of thoughts — the secret is in there, in Number 2:
1. Don’t imagine you will do the switchover all at once.
Give up on that idea. I wish someone had told me this long ago when it really mattered! It’s too much to pull everyone’s clothes out and get all the bins down and figure out where everything is going and to whom, in one blow.
Accept that it will take at least a week, probably longer, with some prep going on before (keep reading for how to make the laundry routine work for the switch) and for that time, things will be in flux.
Your priority, as you meander through my observations here, is to get the new season’s clothes in place. The pulling out of the previous season’s clothing/storing them bit is secondary. It helps to remember this. But in the meantime, there will be a bit of a bottleneck. Accept it!
2. Plan for the item that will make it all doable, and the secret I am referring to in the title of this post: the extra laundry basket.
The secret: extra basket(s)!
This may be plural, depending on your numbers. My laundry system relies on having as few baskets as possible, because laundry problems start with too many clothes, but I have come to see that a few extras help in this seasonal changing out process. You will see why as we discuss it.
Let me mention here, though, that overall, during this time of turbulent upheaval, it will help to stay on top of the regular laundry. There are so many other things going on now with new school and activities schedules, but push yourself to keep the regular (sheets, towels, normal loads) laundry going.
3. Use your laundry system to re-route the most obviously seasonally inappropriate items.
(Don’t have a laundry system? Go here for all the ways and means, and there is also a whole section in my book on this topic.)
Yes, the weather will still warm up, we may still have an Indian Summer (though we didn’t really have actual summer this year and all it does is rain, but I digress). But as you wash the shorts, sleeveless shirts, linen capris, and little swingy skirts, take them out of the process. Your people can make do with the lighter cold weather items.
Do not put a summer item back into the drawer or closet if it’s gone through the wash. I cannot emphasize this enough!
Certainly remove swimwear.*
This is where the extra basket comes in.
You see, the real pain and suffering of the seasonal switch is the perceived necessity to take all the summer things out and put all the winter things in immediately. However, if you think about it — and as it finally dawned on me — this isn’t actually possible!
You can’t simultaneously get things out of bins and into drawers and vice versa!
You need a third place.
If you don’t have extra baskets, that place will likely be… your or their bed. Which sounds all very well until those children — or you –need to be tucked in and the task isn’t over (which it will not be), and then what? The floor… piles in the hall… a laundry room blocked with mountains of clothes…
This situation comes about because these articles have to be sorted. In the case of kids, there are the sizes to deal with, and for everyone, there are questions! Too old? Too worn? Not worth saving? Worth passing on? Needing to be donated?**
No one can handle this all at once. Just begin by funneling the items currently in use but needing to be retired into a basket as they come out of the laundry. For one thing, you then know they are clean before you put or give them away.
4. As you do this slow removal, which can take two weeks, actually, though I should have told you this two weeks ago, you also pull the cold-weather things out of storage.
Eventually, as you make this method your own, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that they are clean, and they can go right into the drawers/closet. If not, they can go into your laundry system and come out in due time.***
5. As I said, getting the new season’s clothing out and in place is the priority, even as you have the extraction in mind as the new season approaches, while you do the laundry.
Laundry is happening anyway, and in the meantime, you can get those bins out of wherever you store them and begin doling out the items needed to their people. As you put the items in the drawers or hang them up, use that time as well to remove things you can see won’t be needed. If those things are not perfectly clean, throw them in the appropriate hamper. If they are clean, chuck them in that extra laundry basket.
The extra laundry basket helps you avoid overwhelm; piles of clothes on the bed, the opposite: so much overwhelm.
And the storage bins will then be empty, which they need to be for the next step: when you are ready, sort the previous season’s clothing into them.***
6. These extra laundry baskets you are using for this purpose can go behind a chair, at the foot of the bed, in the corner, or in the hallway. You can stack them.
This is the part you just have to resign yourself to unless you happen to have a vast laundry room: there will be these extra baskets out and about for a few days to a week. Keep them in your own room if you suspect a mischievous child of rummaging for his beloved, superannuated shorts. However, if things warm up, just go ahead and let the kids get ONE outfit back out. Then it gets cycled back into that laundry basket after the wash.
Even for myself, where I have a big enough bedroom to accommodate a whole extra dresser for storing our out-of-season clothes (in addition to space in one of my small closets, where I have hooks and a bin), that basket sits there for a good long time.
I think of it as the saver of my sanity, and so I give it some grace.
7. Since it won’t get totally cold all at once, this process does take some time, and you will likely go through it a couple of (hopefully dwindling) rounds before you are done. Vice-versa in the Spring as it warms up, but not completely.
I regard this overlapping period, necessarily involving clothes not quite put away, as preferable to pulling everything out, putting everything away, making a giant committed overall switch — as then those supposedly done-and-done bins have to be pulled out of the far reaches of their storage yet again because it really did turn out to be an unseasonably warm weekend requiring t-shirts or what have you. Letting this happen wreaks havoc on your organizational system for sizes for future handing-down.
It will be an in-between time for a while, so just let it — with the idea that the little urchins can make-do without the extreme versions. Your daughter actually won’t need sundresses in October.
8. When you have the new season’s clothes in place and the past season has definitely turned, dedicate a day to going through the contents of the extra baskets — last season’s items.
Sort sizes into their respective bins, after triage involving donation bags and discard piles.
Recognizing the monumentalness of all this is the way to keep from feeling that it’s all too much. It just does take a lot of time!
Not to mention that now you have a shopping list of needed items…
I find that the biggest obstacle to housekeeping is the attitude of thinking these things should not take time, and resenting the time they take! Change that attitude and you will find it’s not so bad at all. I mean, it’s terrible, but it’s all in the name of clothing the needy!
Now you are ready to put those bins away, to retire your extra basket(s), and to pat yourself on the back for another dreaded Switcheroo entered into the books!
*If your kids still have sports that require swimwear and lighter clothing like t-shirts and shorts, put those in a separate drawer or in a crate next to their dresser. If you have lots of uniform-requiring activities, consider a dedicated dresser, maybe out in the hall or in the laundry room, with a drawer for each child’s needed items.
**This need to inspect/make decisions is why I am Team Folding Laundry. I know that all the advice out there is to skip folding. I don’t know… As you fold, you notice stains, holes, too-smallness, etc. It’s quality control. Think of folding as a time to rest, to catch up on your favorite show, to talk to your offspring or a friend on the phone… and think of how throwing some things away lightens your literal load! You will avoid the dreaded “I have no underwear that fits!” announcement; you will be prepared.
***The storage bins need to be labeled. Cross out whatever label was on there if it’s no longer current. Label things by sex and size and season. Try to put jeans in one bin, tops in another, dresses in another, and so on. If you have the capacity, a rod to hold boys’ blue blazers, arranged by size, will be super helpful. (This implies the key to keeping your boys looking smart: khaki pants, white dress shirts, blue blazers.)
NB: When it comes to putting way Winter clothes, next Spring, use this slower way I’m describing to examine your woolens, wash them (only dry clean if absolutely necessary, as in suits — almost all sweaters can be hand washed or put on the delicate cycle and carefully laid out to air dry), and put them away when they are perfectly dry in a chest or bin with mothballs.
I have a highlight on my Instagram page about all this!
bits & piecesI’ve mentioned Slightly Foxed here before. Their newsletter informs me of an upcoming radio broadcast of one of my very favorite books, Lark Rise to Candleford (which they offer for sale in their pleasing volumes). I did watch the BBC miniseries, and enjoyed it to a great extent, though later episodes seemed to go off the rails a bit. I have no idea how the radio show will be, but maybe we can listen together! By the way, I see this information on the newsletter, regarding their quarterly literary magazine: “We’re delighted to offer a 10% discount on all subscriptions to givers and recipients aged 30 and under.”
Cluny Media Is Rescuing Lost and Neglected Catholic Books of the Not-So-Distant Past
I like games that can be played with simple objects, like graph paper, colored pencils, and dice. Are your students learning multiplication and calculating area (the two go hand-in-hand; sometimes we forget that when we are teaching multiplication)? Try this game. Graph paper is stimulating — I have always bought pads of it when I’m getting paper supplies. Let your kids play around with it! Here are some ideas to use with a Hundreds Chart, but start by having them make their Hundreds Chart! (You can skip the math workbook pages on the days they get interested in these things!)
from the archives
{getting frustrated with my old blog and its capricious “organization”? Buy the book! In paperback too! Comes with an index in every one of the three volumes, and a ribbon for keeping your place!}
Kids can definitely help with the laundry, at a very young age.
Competence is better than perfectionism.
Five-year-old boys are hard.
liturgical living
St. Jerome — He’s a real favorite of mine! Irascible and holy! “The Scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for theologians to swim in without ever reaching the bottom.”
“The Thunderer”
God’s angry man,
His crotchety scholar
Was Saint Jerome,
The great name-caller
Who cared not a dime
For the laws of Libel
And in his spare time
Translated the Bible.
Quick to disparage
All joys but learning
Jerome thought marriage
Better than burning;
But didn’t like woman’s
Painted cheeks;
Didn’t like Romans,
Didn’t like Greeks,
Hated Pagans
For their Pagan ways,
Yet doted on Cicero all of his days.
A born reformer,
cross and gifted,
He scolded mankind
Sterner than Swift did;
Worked to save
The world from the heathen;
Fled to a cave
For peace to breathe in,
Promptly wherewith
For miles around
He filled the air with
Fury and sound.
In a mighty prose
For Almighty ends,
He thrust at his foes,
Quarreled with his friends,
And served his Master,
Though with complaint.
He wasn’t a plaster sort of a saint.
But he swelled men’s minds
With a Christian leaven.
It takes all kinds
To make a heaven.
From “Times Three” by Phyllis McGinley
(I found this poem on Scott Hahn’s Facebook page.)
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