The Five-Day Laundry Fiasco
Hello from Day 5 of the SAME LOAD OF LAUNDRY. Three loads to be exact. I’m just going to tell you up front: The Ladds are not awesome at managing laundry on a clothes line. One of these days we will own a dryer, but, for now, we are clothes line people. It’s winter and rainy season in Cape Town, and the drought has officially ended. This completely changes our (already weak) laundry game.
Here’s what we’re working with over here:
Friday afternoon: Chris decided to wash a quick load his jeans and towels but forgot to take it off the line that evening.
Saturday: We woke up to a torrential downpour. By the time we looked outside, the clothes line was almost touching the ground with the weight of the sopping wet towels and jeans. Nobody wanted to brave the storm, so we sat inside by a fire all day and left the clothes to the rain shower. The power went out at 6pm.
Sunday: Still no power! 24 hours without electricity - but beautiful weather! We just let the clothes hang because we couldn’t re-wash. The power came on before we went to bed on Sunday.
Monday: Electricity and a sunshine forecast! I re-washed Chris’ laundry while it was still dark and had 2 more loads on the line before 9am. AND THEN IT STARTED RAINING. Benjamin was on my back while I was cleaning the house, so Chris paused his work and darted outside to throw all the clothes in a laundry basket. We don’ have insulation or climate control, so when it rains, the house stays cold and damp all day. Benjamin’s room is the warmest, so we made a game out of laundry in the nursery. He threw it across the room. I fetched it and hung it on the rack. Benjamin does what we like to call “reverse chores”. By the end of the day, his room smelled like a muggy, musty, dryer sheet. Chris moved the drying rack to our room when we put him to bed.
Tuesday: The day started damp, so we kept the clothes in our room. Chris re-hung them ALL on the line around 1pm when the sun was out. Remember, this is THREE loads of laundry. No small feat. At 1:15pm, the garden service showed up unexpectedly... which meant we had to pull all the clothes off the line!
Guess what guys... Chris’ jeans are still wet. All of our jeans are still wet. And they smell much worse than they did before we washed them!
I’m about to go re-hang the clothes on the line. While I do that, I’m going to do one of these two things:
Thank God that we are all wearing pants right now and STILL have 3 loads of laundry to worry about. Celebrate that we are able to steward our home and possessions well, have regular access to electricity, AND there’s no more drought in Cape Town! Praise God that wet laundry is my biggest problem toady when so many people are dealing with so much more.
Listen to Apple Music ‘00s Pop Hits playlist.
Either way, I’m winning! Love you all! Have a great Tuesday.