Well instead of doing our usual Blogger of the Week and Featured Random Blogger, we decided to surprise two of our commenters from this week with our prizes!

Harriette, with her great laundry tips and sense of humor, is the winner of The Fallacy Detective from Trivium Pursuit. 

When I left home to go away to college, I knew absolutely nothing about how to do my laundry. Nunya. It was a blessing in disguise that the "school colors" for the college I attended was red, red and red. Because after being away for the first three weeks and washing clothes for the very first time, everything I owned was from then on: red, red and red. Laundry has been an adult lifelong nemesis and I have been committed to "beat it at its own game".

Rule No. One: Laundry is Never Done.
Once I recognized this fact, I began to feel better about myself and understood that laundry is "managed" but never done. When I was researching homeschooling, I was amazed at the information about home management that seemed to parallel with homeschooling; the greater information came from larger families. I was amazed to read that all the children were a part of the team of managing the home as well as the laundry - they had ownership in their family as well as their home. Ultimately, more things accomplished with more hands.

It was a lightbulb moment...so I sat out to teach our sons how to do their own laundry......this is not to say that we run a tight ship and are never behind - LIFE dishes out what it chooses and I can be a bit of a "schedule air head", but having the boys enabled to do this minimizes what it takes to get things back on track when we do get off schedule.

We each have a "day" that is our laundry day and that really helps with the confusion of what or "who's" laundry to get done on a given day. I have the boys put their towels, when ready for laundering, in with their dirty clothes instead of a hamper in their bathroom. Everyone has their own basket and it is kept in their closet. Also, when beds are stripped, place the fitted sheet and top sheet inside the pillow case - reduces clumsy laundry. (Likewise, teach your children how to fold their sheets and put inside the pillow case; much easier to store and the sheet set won't fall apart.) Doing these couple of extra things, the number of loads are reduced and I"m not spending all day on Saturday washing towels and sheets. Everyone - uses towels and sheets, everyone helps with washing them. Note: Teach your children how to "rotate" clothing, linens, when putting them away to reduce the wear - especially on underwear and towels.

When the boys were "little" (preschool age), I wanted to help them "dress themselves" and at least help with putting their clean clothes away. To help them know which drawers held what clothing: I drew pictures with colorful markers and printed the general clothing term (i.e. underwear, t-shirts, shorts, etc.), laminated and taped to each drawer front - this also helped with learning new words.

Moms: Keep a bottle of Woolite or whatever laundry soap you use for fine washables under your bathroom sink; as soon as you are home from Church, or other errands that require you to wear hose or other special undergarments, remove and put in to soak while you change clothes. Rinse and hang in your tub/shower immediately and they'll be ready and clean when you need them again and not accumulated.

The MUD WARS: This is such a HUGE battle because we live on a major creek and now have a pond. Warm weather brings mounds and mounds of wet and muddy clothes. We were very blessed to be able to build our house - in doing so, I wanted our washer and dryer in the basement right next to the doors coming in from the back yard. Just outside the basement doors is a hose for hosing off, hosing down - and the guys are "supposed" to come in through the basement and strip.......(..when we remember....). I also have several large plastic tubs to hold wet clothes. I keep one outside for the extreme mud and the others are inside for "general wet"......I may or may not do a separate load for these - it just depends. I will have the guys inspect the tubs when they are doing their laundry on their designated days to see if they have clothing accumulated in the basement and they have to work it in with their laundry. If we could not have our washer and dryer in the basement......I would have it in the garage before I would park cars there........we have an enormous amount of sand and grit (we live in a varied geological region of both red clay and sand.........???). This sand and grit travel everywhere and I have to really stay on top of "take your shoes off", "come in through the basement"...

We began our "laundry journey" when the boys were, I'm guessing 7 & 8 yrs. old....we did it "together" for a long time - but they were solely responsible for putting away their clean laundry and gathering for washing, etc. Just like everything else, you have determine what child is ready to do laundry solo based on that individual child. I have one of each - completely independent and the other requires a little more supervision - but we're gettin' there....

It really comes down to self discipline to keep laundry at bay. And I am the FIRST to admit, I have weeks that the laundry takes on a life of its own. But I have learned from my own trial and error what does and what does not work. I hope some of the tips are helpful to one or two Mom's...

Have a Great Week!
Harriette Jacobs
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Harriette
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jacobsacademy
http://www.homesteadblogger.com/southofthegnatline

Janne is the winner of Bless the Lord from Johannah Bluedorn of Trivium Pursuit as well. She shared a precious story about her little girl for Thursday's Thoughts.

This isn't as much school-related as it is character-related: My 7 year old daughter received $10 from her grandmother for Christmas. I asked her what she was going to spend it on and she said since there are ten other people in her family, she would spend $1 on each. I said, "But the money was meant for you to buy something for yourself, why do you want to spend it on everyone else instead?"

She replied, "Because that's what Jesus would do."

Wow! To me this was much more special than any academic achievement.