As a mom, have you ever looked at your role as one who is trying to work herself out of a job? Well, I do. As soon as I feel my children are ready and able to handle a job, I teach them how.

Laundry falls into this category beautifully!

When I first heard about homeschooling at Christmas time in 1988 from a friend I had known for several years, I remember my first thought was, “How does Debbie ever find time to do the laundry?” The following school year, we started homeschooling. We were a family of five back then and every week I had 11 loads of laundry to do and I remember thinking, “How will I ever find time to do all the laundry?”

No problem. Teach my children how to do their own laundry! This was quite revolutionary for me and I’ve never looked back. For the last 20 years now, I’ve only had 4 loads a week.

At the time, my children were 6, 8, and 11–first grade, third grade, and seventh grade. Laundry day consisted of them sorting their clothes, washing each load, folding them as they came out of the dryer, then putting them all away in drawers and the closet and returning the laundry basket to the laundry room by bedtime that evening.

Each was assigned a particular day of the week to wash their dirty clothes. If you were not able to accomplish this on your specific day, and it had to be for a very good reason, you would have to either wait until next week when your day came around, or you could do it on another person’s day, after they were done with their laundry.

I’ve taught them how to treat stains. I’ve even given each of them a laundry stick to keep in their bedroom so they can treat any stain before it goes into their hamper.

Consider buying each of them their own laundry basket. I did this for the two youngest and they even decorated them with stickers and magic markers. Seven years later, they still have some of the markings from back then. This helps to give them a feeling of ownership and responsibility for their own stuff.

Because the youngest of the three oldest children started doing his own laundry at the age of 6, we had the oldest of our two youngest kids start then, too. (We fondly identify our children as the “first batch” and “second batch” of children. There’s a story here I will save for later.)

It was about six month later when the youngest requested she be allowed to start doing her own laundry like big brother. After warnings such as, “Once you start, there’s no turning back,” I proceeded to teach her as well. While I would have to come help get her clothes out of the bottom of the washing machine, she learned quite quickly. Hurrah! I made it through childhood laundry! It only took me 23 years!

Now, let me warn you. There will be times when you will have to look at wrinkled clothing on your children or there’s stains here and there. You just have to decide if you’re willing to pay the price.

Now, if you have children you believe would never do their laundry, then as a parent, it’s your job to inflict penalties. Don’t let them play outside or on the computer until they’re done. Do what it takes to make it happen. It’s worth it!

And you know, one of the best things about teaching my own children to do their own laundry has been that for the last 23 years, I never have to answer the question, “Mom, do you know if my __________ is clean!”

This freedom can be yours as well whenever you’re ready to take the plunge.

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Check This Out….

I am so excited about E-mealz that I’ve told every mommy friend I have about it! It is such a great time saver! I have seen my fair share of online menu planners, recipe sites, and shopping guides. But there were TWO main things that got me really excited about E-Mealz:

1. The recipes and menus are already put together for you on ONE page for the ENTIRE week! Only one page to keep track of and really good but simple recipes that don’t take forever to prepare.
2. The weekly menu and shopping list coordinate with the weekly store SALES! How cool is that? I don’t keep up with what’s on sale on my own so I don’t know to plan my menus accordingly. But E-Mealz does it for me! I love that!

They offer at least 16 different menu plans, including low-carb choices. You can take your shopping list to Kroger, Publix, Aldos, and even WalMart. Items on sale for the week are listed in the grocery shopping list you print out from their site. And at only $1.25 each week, it is definitely worth your time as a mom to check it out. They do so much of the work for you.

E-mealz’s menu plans:

…are written and created by REAL moms with REAL families
…are balanced and family friendly
…are as easy as possible, but delicious and kid tested!
…consist of favorite recipes collected from hundreds of moms
…come with an organized, aisle by aisle grocery list
…are for 4 to 6 people
…are based on the current week sales at your grocery
…are priced at approximately $75 per week
…Two person plans average $35 total per week

The ladies at E-mealz even offer special menus and recipes for holidays throughout the year! That is certainly more than I do around here.

They show you the items that are for sale each week that are included in your printout so you can begin to see your savings–before you ever leave home!

While there have been some menus we didn’t care for as a family, it wasn’t difficult at all to substitute one of our own favorites, or to put in a different menu from a previous E-mealz choice. And as you may have guessed, we often double or triple the recipes to feed our crew.

Do yourself a favor and check out E-mealz’s website to see the endorsements from people like Dave Ramsey and Southern Living, then view the choices they offer. It might be the best investigative work you’ve done in a long time that will pay you big dividends in time and money.

You may just find yourself sharing E-Mealz with all of YOUR mommy friends too.

I, too, am enjoying E-Mealz since you told me about them. I commented on this program in another post, which you can read by clicking here. I encourage every mom to give it a try. That’s the only way you’ll know if it works for you or not.

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Have you ever wanted to move a bookshelf full of books, but didn’t want to unload and then reload it? Or, have you ever been in the situation where you were excited about moving the living room around, but didn’t want to wait to move the sofa until your husband got home from work? Yeah, me too.

In 34 years of marriage and a husband who has worked many 12-hour shifts, there have been many occasions when I wanted to surprise him with a “new look” to the living room, or I was busy trying to organize the school room by moving desks and books around.

Somewhere along the way, cardboard became one of my best friends when it came to moving big and heavy things from one place to another.

My tip is simple: Take a flattened cardboard box or simply a big piece of cardboard and place it under the leg of the sofa or the end of the bookshelf. The cardboard will then give you a surface of little resistance when it comes to moving heavy objects around on carpeting and other flooring surfaces.

After placing the cardboard under one end or the legs of the object like the couch, carefully lift one end and push toward the end with the cardboard. The cardboard will “slide” along the floor and enable you to move the object with relative ease.

If you happen to have enough cardboard, place a piece at both ends of the couch and then push it to your new location.

If you desire to move a bookshelf, I like to use a medium-sized flattened box under the front edge of the shelving unit. I carefully lean the bookshelf backward just a tiny bit, use my foot to push the cardboard underneath the front of the unit, then move the bookshelf unit from side to side, working it onto the piece of cardboard until most of the unit isn’t touching the floor.

If necessary, I get down on my knees on one end of the bookshelf and then proceed to push the unit toward its new destination, walking on my knees and pushing with my arms. If going a long distance, I can usually move up into a low standing position as I continue to use my arms to push the unit across the room.

So, the next time you get ready to clean out and declutter, be sure to hang onto a cardboard box or two because, who knows? They may become that “extra set of hands” you need while your hubby is away.

I love this tip and have used it tons of time. It’s so rewarding when your husband comes home and is awed by your superwoman strength and ingenuity.

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Before we became a multi-generational family, I had been running our home for 36 years. During these years of raising five children, I’ve accumulated several sets of sheets–solid ones, floral ones, stripes, twin, double, queen and king.

With so many different sized beds and sheet sets in all different patterns, colors, and sizes, it can be tedious to find those tiny little tags sewn in the corners of the sheets in order to know which ones fit which beds. On occasion I have found myself dreading having to go to the linen closet to get sheets when it’s time to change the bed linens.

Since we have combined households, we now have eight beds and two for guests–like when our other married children visit. Here are a few tips we’ve learned along the way to organize this issue and some of which we have incorporated into our lifestyle. Maybe you’ll find something helpful you can use at your house.

Organizing Sheets

1. Make a decision now to purchase different patterns and colors for different sized beds in your home. Consider buying solid colors for your king-sized bed; floral patterns for the twin; stripes for the double, etc. This can be especially helpful when you move and have all your sheets thrown together in a big box. Ask me how I know!

2. When folding your sheets on laundry day, place a set inside one of the pillowcases included in the set. This will keep all the linens of the set together and allow them to sit neatly on the shelf. How’s that for easy?

3. What I do now is have two or three sets of sheets for each bed and keep them in the bedroom closet where a particular bed lives. Since everyone does their own laundry, it makes the linens easy to find, handy for making the bed, and convenient for washing the dirty ones. Once their laundry is done, the clean sheets go right back into their respective closets to wait for the next time.

This has drastically solved the problem of trying to figure out which sheets fit which beds.

4. Color-code the sheets for each bedroom. Our son has blue, our daughter has purple and lime green, etc. This is especially helpful if someone forgets to take their sheets to their room on laundry day.

How about you Faith? Any comments?

Ah Man! Here I was all excited to share the tip of putting the sheets inside the pillow case and you had it on the post already. Oh well.

I love this tip! It’s crazy how hard it can be to find the pillow cases that go with the sheets you want. This works out great to solve this problem!!

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