"Collect the laundry, and get on with your duties."

That's a line from "Cinderella", another movie we watched recently. The stepmother greets Cinderella with this in the morning when the movie opens. It gave me a new, much needed perspective on how to manage my laundry. If you know me, and you picture my laundry room, you know what I'm talking about. For many years I have been very behind in my washing, and have always struggled with feeling resentful towards the collecting, sorting, washing, drying, folding, putaway of it all. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

So I've made the effort to catch up on my laundry, and now I'm attempting to maintain the situation, and I'm learning a lot about what's required and how best to manage, etc. And for a week or so I was really struggling and thinking about how to smooth out the process. I cleaned up the room, organized the supplies more thoughtfully, and trained Henry to be my load switcher, and had been dealing with the collecting/sorting aspect of things. first I had three baskets up in our bedroom where the family was supposed to put their dirty clothes. but moving them down to the laundry room was a hassle.

So surfing the internet the other day, studying commercial laundry processes while watching cinderella with maggie, I heard the evil stepmother's less than warm greeting: "Collect the laundry, and get on with your duties, Cinderella." and it came to me. Every morning there will be yesterdays clothes to collect, and if I simply incorporate collecting those clothes from the bedrooms into a single laundry basket before heading downstairs, if I "collect the laundry and get on with my duties", I will have solved the problem most elegantly! When I get down to the laundry room, I can sort yesterdays laundry into my darks/whites/brights laundry baskets and then start the load that most needs doing. I can decide then if I need to power through a couple more loads or whatever, or I can call on my loadswitcher to work his magic and be done with it!

I'm sure more than a couple of you are chuckling to yourself, as I describe this fantastical new work flow concept that I seem so sure is the world's last original thought. But it's quite a revelation to me. and an example of how important personal revelations can be. you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, in other words.

and walt disney movies.