What God has been teaching me

I came to Gleanings last week wanting to serve in the work going on here in some way, as well as caring for my five youngest children who cannot help in the work going on here. I knew I would be covering the “home front”, cooking meals, keeping the house and laundry clean, and homeschooling. Since it is peach season, I had hoped to work somehow in the peach processing work. Yet, when I had a chance to do some cup-up in the field one afternoon, the thought that came to mind was how easy ,mentally, the work was. Yes, it was a bit hard physically to do several hours of cup-up(oy, my thighs after all that squatting!), but mentally it was very peaceful. I could think and pray over the peaches. (The children were at the playground playing, mind you) It was so peaceful.

God then said to me, “Yes, this work, that you were thinking was SO important, so much so that you were feeling bad, useless and unhelpful if you were NOT actively participating in some way, is EASIER; the work I have you doing at home, raising, training, disciplining and homeschooling your children, is indeed much HARDER work. BUT, it is work just as important as the work going on here, at Gleanings!”

In this light it would be “easier” for me to put aside the work God has given me at home with my children to “feel better” by serving in this ministry, or any other (Sunday School, VBS, Women’s Bible Study, you name it!). The enemy wants me to feel inadequate, unproductive, ineffective, discouraged and DISCONTENT over what God has given me as my mission field during this season of my life.

I fall for this trap so easily! It hits me where I am weak. It seems to be a reoccurring attack, even years apart, just with a new “face” each time. Still, it is the same basic issue: In what “field” is it that I am to serve God? Where is it that I can truly be most effective for Him and for the Gospel? It has little to nothing to do with my gifts and nothing to do with my own (selfish) desires. God will supply all I need to complete any task He sets before me! It has nothing to do with my perceptions or circumstances: the father of lies works continually to disguise the Truth.

Press on Mothers. You are exactly where God wants you to be. Don't look for greener grass elsewhere or think in your heart that there is any other ministry or service you could be doing for your Lord that is more important than what you are already doing.

My new laundry helper....

Here she is, my newest laundry helper! At 11 months old, she isn't too young to start getting aquainted with the dryer and being by her mama's side while mama does laundry.

Laundry in the summertime

Summertime brings on a few new challenges to the laundry system, so I thought I would pop in here and add a few more lines on that subject.

First of all, summertime in the Northwest is a bit tricky. The kids have more clothes than they do in winter, because the weather is unpredictable. Until at least August, the boys might need long sleeves and jeans, or shorts and short sleeve t-shirts and the girls have both short and long sleeve dresses in their closet. It isn't fun. As fewer and fewer cool days happen, pulling out most of the clothes for cold weather can start to happen. Those of you in warmer climates probably would laugh at us on the 4th of July all bundled up in sweaters and blankets to do fireworks! But, alas, it was so.

So, come August I will be going through all the kids clothes again, pulling out the items that have gotten too small and too warm (for a few months), thus reducing the amount of clothes in the drawers and closets. Hopefully!

A new reader of my blog (hi Shelia!) asked me this week how often do I go through the kids clothes and pull out the items too stained (or too many holes!) to keep? I have been thinking about this question the last few days. I believe it comes down to two things:
1.Keeping clothes from getting stained (holes are a bit harder to stop).
and
2.Pulling out the items that the children cannot be allowed to be seen in anymore (no matter how much of a favorite it might be!).

The business of laundering clothing is huge. There are many opinions, seeming zillions of products and still we have stains. I had read a while back on someone's blog (sorry, can't remember - that is what I get for reading blogs while I nurse the baby...brain cells are being sucked away as I read! It's a miracle I remember anything!LOL!) about Charilie's Soap and finally went to the website recently to check them out. Of course, all the info sounds great, almost too good to be true. I decided to do a trial of their products and bought the Combo Powder (80 Wash loads) & All Purpouse Pre-Spray for $19.00. (all prices include shipping) That is less than $0.15 a load for washing clothes AND the package takes up about an eighth of the space the Tide With Bleach box I usually buy from Costco. (less clutter!)

Side note: One thing I had noticed with the Tide w/Bleach is that the clothes were fading. Not terribly noticeable, but I could tell. Plus, bad stains still stayed in. Spray 'n Wash, and other products would have to be used and the item run through the wash numerous times and wouldn't always result in the stain being gone. So, why pay the big bucks for Tide w/bleach if it really wasn't helping? With having children doing their own laundry, even though I remind them to look for stains, some clothes get through. In a perfect world, I would like to have whatever I use in my washing machine to attack and remove any and all types of stains. Period. No having to check everything as it goes into the washer and then again as it goes into the dryer. Ah, a perfect world.

Back in the real world, and about 30 loads into the Charlie's Soap, I have to say I'm liking it! And, I really, really like the All Purpose Cleaner as a pre-spotter! It does work great! Baby poop stains and all! So far, so good! If you decide after reading all the info on Charlie's website that you are going to give them a try, would you please put my name in the "Comments/Referrals" Box on the order form when you place your order? They will send me out a FREE Gift Box of Laundry Powder. That is cool! And, if you decide you like their products you can let your friends know to put your name in as a referral and you'll get some free laundry powder too!

Also, if someone knows the cost of the Costco Tide w/bleach per load and/ or the Costco brand laundry powder, would you please post it in the comments or email it to me? Would like to compare with the cost of Charlie's.

Recap - Work at keeping clothes from getting so stained you can't use them. Then, if they are too stained, grab them during your laundry routine and don't let them get back into the kids drawers/closet. If you are keeping the kids down to 8 sets of clothing, go get into your stored clothes (or go to a thrift store) and pull out replacements for what you tossed (or make into rags, etc.). Summer leads to more dirt and stains and holes, so even though you don't keep lots of clothes in the kids closets, you should still keep an eye out for inexpensive replacements to have in a box where you can get to them if you need them.

And the Winner Is.....

I said I would pick a winner today for the funniest/most unusual place you ever found a sock contest. Easier said than done! They are all such great stories! Many thanks to all of you who were brave enough to share your funny stories!

I have decided to award a tie for first place. Why, because I couldn't choose between these two! The winners are:
Kim C. and the sock in the frig
and
Anonymous and the sneaky "shoulder pad" sock

Honorable Mention goes to:
MamaK's story of her "friend" who put her own mismatched sock pile into MamaK's without her knowing! Too funny!

You will all have to read through the comments section below the sock story contest to read all the entries. Really, they are all great!

By the way, the picture above is mine. It was staged, really. I just put it in for fun.

Laundry Is FUN!

Here is a great pic of two of my nephews. They were visiting at my parents home and were totally captivated by the front loading washer. Everytime the washer was going these two little guys were right there to watch the laundry go round and round!



See guys, laundry is FUN!

Sock Funnies

It is time to have some fun with this all so serious topic of laundry! Just this morning I found a sock in a snow boot that had been hiding out in our snow boot box in the garage since Jan. 2nd! (note the duct tape around the boot - this was DH solution to worn out velcro closures! Mighty effective, till you want to take them off! LOL!)

Socks are such sneaky creatures, I thought it would be fun to hear your stories of the funniest/most unusual place you ever found a sock. Post them in the comment box below. Get them posted soon and on March 17th I will pick my favorite one and post it on the blog.

Laundry - Part Three

There has been quite a few good questions,( SOCKS!!), come up in the COMMENTS sections at the end of each of the Laundry posts. Be sure to look at the comments section for more laundry information. (Also, thanks to all who have put in suggestions for future topics!)

Couple of things about Laundry that I didn't explain fully:
1. When the little girls are doing their laundry I am with them the whole time helping to keep them on track and I also fold the 2 y.o.'s clothes.
2. Dish cloths, bibs and rags get taken to the washer as soon as they are dirty (this is usually several times a day). Whoever uses the washer next just includes them with their load and brings them to the kitchen after they are done drying.


For those of you who are despairing of ever catching up on your laundry I recommend two things:
1. Set up a new laundry routine that you think will work for your family. Use some of the ideas I have shared and try them out. Put it in writing. Try it for a month and then re-evaluate and fine tune it to suit your needs.
2. Set aside one day, the whole day, and work on the laundry until it is all caught up. Yes, even if you homeschool you can do this! This is your Home Economics class for the week/month/year. Set aside all the usual school subjects. Use this day to teach the children how to sort clothes, load the washer, set the washer settings, add the detergent/fabric softener, clean out the dryer lint catcher, start the dryer, fold clothes and put them all away. You might be thinking to yourself that there will be too much time while loads are running with nothing to do. Ha! Get out all those unmatched socks and have a game of "match the socks". The person who comes up with the most matches wins! If you still have excess time, have the kids go through their drawers and see if there are more unmatched socks hiding and also have them reorganize their drawers. Really ambitious? Have the kids go UNDER THEIR BEDS and pull out everything: toys, books, rubberbands, school books (so THAT is where that book went!), SOCKS, pencils, and don't forget the dust bunnies. You should also use this time to TEACH the children the NEW laundry routine/schedule. Fill the day with fun and prizes! Be creative! Give prizes for best attitude, fastest worker, tidiest drawers, best folder, etc. Don't forget that your GOOD attitude will go a long way in teaching the children that doing laundry and your new routine will be a benefit to the whole family.

Laundry - Part Two

Laundry day begins.
I take the dirty laundry bags and empty hangers from my bedroom downstairs. I only wash the laundry from my room (hubby, baby and I).









8 y.o. daughter gets her rooms (she shares a room with her three younger sisters) first load out of the dryer. She had one load in the washer and one in the dryer by the time she went to bed the night before. As her loads shift from washer to dryer and dryer to basket, I can start my two loads.







2 y.o. daughter loves to help mommy do the wash! Here she is putting the whites into the washer. With my help she adds the detergent and pushes the start button too!
















When the girls laundry (second load here) is done drying, 2 y.o. loves to put it into the basket and then push it to the folding area (the family room).
















With the girls two loads washed and dried it is time to sort the clothes. 5 y.o. and 4 y.o. daughters make a pile of clothes for each of the 4 girls.










Each of the girls puts their dresses on hangers, folds their clothes and puts them in piles to be taken upstairs when they are all done. Here is the 4 y.o. putting a dress on a hanger.









During the cold months my girls wear tights with their dresses a lot. The best way I have found to help them store their tights is to match up the tights with a dress and put them with the dress on the hanger. This also takes the guess work out of finding the right tights for each dress in the mornings.

During the warmer months the tights get put away and socks (or mostly bare feet as they like to wear sandles) are worn more.










When the girls are all done folding and hanging this is how it looks: a pile of dresses on hangers for each girl and below her dresses are her pile of folded clothes (underpants, socks, pj's, shorts, etc.)









Now it is time to take the folded clothes upstairs. Even 2 y.o. can do this!

(Did you notice our double handrail? We had this put in so little ones have a rail their hands can reach. After all, they are the ones who need a rail to hang onto the most, to get up and down the stairs safely.)












Meanwhile, back in the laundry room.... my two loads have been washing and drying. I try to fold mine right out of the dryer, to avoid wrinkles (I don't have time for ironing). I have work shirts for hubby that are virutally wrinkle free. If something has a kink in it I will use water in a spray bottle and mist the item as I hang it up.

Notice the shower curtain rod I have to hang my clothes up on? There is no room to hang clothes on the wire racking that came stock with our house. A shower curtain rod put across the narrow part of the laundry room works perfectly. It is high enough that the tall people in the house can walk under it. After laundry day there is nothing hanging on it usually. It is also available to "line dry" any items that can't go into the dryer.

After my loads are hung up and folded (on the top of the washer) I can take them up to my room.

One last thing and that is to fold the socks from my room. I had a total of 24 pairs of socks to match; mine, hubby's and baby's. It took me 3 minutes. No sweat! Because there are only the socks belonging to the person doing laundry (or their bedroom buddies) in a load it is easy to match them up and get them back into the right persons drawer.







After I give the children baths before bed this night, I will do a load of towels. I usually get them washed and into the dryer before I go to bed. Sometimes I will get them folded before I go to bed. If not, one of the children will fold them the next day to earn computer time.

Laundry - Part One

Roberta asked me to share how I do laundry for my family since I have 12 children. So, this post is about my laundry strategies. What works for you and your family may be different. This post is NOT about how you should wash your clothes, how to fight stains or what the best detergent is, etc.

**Warning! This is going to be LONG, some might even say loquacious!**


My best kept laundry SECRET is:
I DON'T DO THE LAUNDRY FOR ALL 14 OF US!

I am a firm believer of working smarter not harder. I would never have time to blog if I had to do ALL the laundry! (ha!). I also do not pay someone to do our laundry, in case you were wondering. I didn’t start off using this system, back when I had only one child either. That would not have been possible, as you will see. I hope to show you, gentle readers, how having a vision for the future and training your children all along is a investment that pays off well!

BASIC STRATEGY’S

Strategy #1: Clothing Choices
~Girls~
My girls wear mostly dresses with either tights or shorts underneath. For a while I was finding lots of jumper style dresses that needed shirts worn under them when thrift store shopping. These certainly look really cute and a basic jean jumper can be used with several shirts for different looks. The problem is that the amount of shirts and jumpers really adds up per child. Also, more time is needed to match up shirts to go with the jumpers. (I’ll write more about this in Part Two). Because I have five girls (age 8 and under) I have found that one piece dresses are best. My girls really only need approx. 8 regular dresses and maybe 1-2 fancier dresses for special occasions/church. Whether they have fancy dresses really depends on what I find at the thrift store—I don’t buy anything like that new. Because I can’t always find the amount of dresses I need for my girls in the LENGTH that they need (below the knee) at thrift stores I also look at Ebay and will buy dresses when they are on sale or end of season clearance at Land’s End. Five or six pairs of shorts, tights and pj’s , nine pairs of undies, socks and a slip or two complete their wardrobe needs.

~Boys~
Boys are much less complicated in the clothing department! We usually have 2 pairs of jeans and 3 pairs of shorts for the older/teen boys. The younger boys have a combination of jeans and cords (mostly hand-me-downs as this age group does not wear out the knees!) and several pairs of shorts. They all have approx. 8 short sleeve shirts, a few long sleeve shirts and a sweatshirt or hoodie that can be worn over a short sleeve shirt in cold weather. Underwear, socks and 5 sets of pj’s and the boys are set.


~Babies~
All I’m going to say is that I have more baby clothes than I can ever use. I regularly go through my clothes boxes and weed out clothes that have gotten so old the elastic is shot, is too stained, or is just so out of style (my oldest is 20 and some of his baby clothes are still around!) that I wouldn’t use that piece of clothing again. People have been so generous to bless us with hand-me-downs, plus being blessed with new baby clothes when a new baby is born! I don’t pull all we own out for each size as a baby grows. Just enough to get by with. When I can’t close a clothing storage box (we store them by gender and size) because it is over full, it is time to go through and bless someone else with some of our bounty.



Strategy #2: When Do Clothes Go Into The Dirty Clothes Hamper?
OR– “Don’t put your pj’s in the hamper yet, you only wore them one night!”
Yes, it is true. I have come to believe that clothes that are not soiled and do not smell can actually be worn more than once. Teenagers do not qualify for this strategy at all! (They will say it doesn’t have spots or smell, but they are WRONG most of the time) For the pre-adolescent crowd, clothes that meets the no smell, no stain criteria go back in the drawer or closet. This mostly applies to pj’s, shorts and pants. I also have to remember that clothes get dirty faster in the summer than the winter (we don’t go outside much in the winter, living in the northwest).

Strategy #3: A Dirty-Clothes Hamper In Every Bedroom
We use two types of hampers. Bedrooms with younger children use a basic Rubbermaid hamper. Older children and hubby and I use the sack type that attach to a plastic tube frame. The older boys get a sack each for their clothes, and I use two sacks to separate whites and darks for mine, hubby and the baby’s clothes. The beauty of having a hamper in each room is that at folding time things like socks are easy to match up because only one bedroom worth of socks is in one load at a time. I will go into this more in Part Two.


Strategy #4: Laundry Day
I set aside one day each week to do laundry. My day is Saturday, because it isn’t a school day and it is a day my husband works every week, so I’m not taking up one of the days he is home working on laundry. Each of the older children who does his own laundry also has their own laundry day. That way we are not fighting over the washer and dryer the same day.

The day I do laundry is flexible. If I know I am going to be doing something on Saturday, I will do laundry on Friday instead. I always move laundry day back a day, not push it farther out if I have to make a change. Also, when life is a bit on the busy side, like now with a newborn, I will start the laundry on Friday night. I will have one load in the washer and one in the dryer when I go to bed Friday night. That gives me a faster start on Saturday and allows for more interruptions to nurse a baby throughout the day. I do two loads of clothes for my hubby, baby and I, and the girls room laundry which is another two loads, plus a load of towels after baths Saturday evening.

Strategy #5: Who Does Laundry?
Remember my secret above, that I don’t do all the laundry? Starting at about age 8-9 I teach the children to do their own laundry, or the laundry for his/her room if he/she shares a room with younger siblings. The child will have watched me do laundry and helped me or an older sibling do it for several years by this point so doing it on their own is no big deal.

On Saturday I wash, dry, fold and put away the clothes for myself, hubby, baby and one load of towels. Also on Saturday my 8 year old daughter washes and dries the clothes for her room (herself and three younger sisters) and I help them fold the clothes. They put their clothes away. My 14 and 11 year old sons (who share a room) take turns every other week washing and drying the laundry for their room and for their younger brothers. Then each person folds his own laundry, except that the 14 year old helps out the 5 year old with folding and is training him to fold on his own. My 17, 18 and 20 year olds are responsible for their own laundry and have been for years.

Strategy #6 - Laundry Is Fun!
I am a firm believer in using the unique window of opportunity that is present in every child from about 1 year of age to 4 years old. Give or take six months depending on the child. They WANT TO HELP MAMA! And daddy too, but we are talking about helping momma right now. When my two year old wants to help put the dirty clothes into the washer (a front loader) I let her. You can be sure she will be right beside me when it is time to transfer them into the dryer and again to put them into the basket. She loves to push the clothes basket to the living room for folding. She will hand me clothes to fold, bring me hangers and can carry her dresses that are on hangers up the stairs for older sister to put in the closet. My four year old also helps in these same ways. She especially likes to pour the detergent in and push the start buttons on the washer and dryer. Can you see how easy it will be for her to do this all on her own in a few more years?

We use this strategy with all household chores by training the young ones while they think it is fun. Then, when they are a little older it is perfectly natural for them to do it on their own. We are careful to start out 3-4 year olds on the family daily chore chart with chores suited to their capabilities.

(Please let me know if you are interested in reading about chores for little people. I could write on that topic next if there is enough interest. You can post a comment below or use the link on the right side of the page to email me directly)

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This is the end of part one. Stay tuned as I will do a step by step photo essay of a typical Saturday laundry day for Part Two.