On Laundry and Being Prepared

It's Monday, and around here that means laundry day.

We've had a weekend of swimming and eating and mowing. Lots of icky, stinky clothes and lots of wet towels.

This morning, I went in the laundry room to conquer the beast. First, I separated the clothes into 3 piles: colored clothes, whites, towels.

Growing up, my kids used different colored towels in their bathrooms. Always. Just kept things easy when they were little. Joshua had red, Holly had yellow (or pink or purple), Logan had green, Clark had blue.

We also used "their" colors for lots of other things: t-shirts, back-packs, sippy cups, folders for school, etc. Everyone knew what belonged to who.

Well, in this house, Joshua is the only one who uses the upstairs bathroom. His towels are the old, ratty red ones from years gone by...and the newer orange/black/yellow striped towels that go with his bathroom.

This morning, with the exception of the beach towels we used in the pool, ALL but 2 of the bath towels in the laundry room were Joshua's.

WHAT? How can one travel-sized person use SO MANY TOWELS?

I don't know...and I don't even really care. Of all of our kids, Joshua has been the ONLY one who consistently brings his dirty laundry to the laundry room. Morning and night...he brings his stuff down. And he is also the ONLY one that I've NEVER had to ask to take his clean laundry up to his room and put away. He does it all on his own.

I only have one other boy at home now, besides Joshua...but when Logan was here, too? He and Clark would walk by their pile of clean clothes on the stairs for DAYS...even pulling out clean items to wear so they didn't have to walk all the way up to their room.

Because it's SO FAR up there. BOYS.  (Pbbbbbbth)

They are also the ones who will bring two weeks of laundry downstairs in a panic...because there's something specific they need washed...like, NOW.

It's times like these that I pull out the mantra I learned from my friend, Christa Finney:

"Lack of preparedness on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine."

Feel free to use this.

You can thank me later.

This philosophy works on lots of things: forgotten lunches or homework or cleats or permission slips or library books or certain colors of t-shirts they HAVE TO HAVE for that day or yearbook/picture order forms or cookies they signed you up to bring TODAY or field trips they forgot to tell you about.

Now, I have run all of those things AND OTHERS up to the school or the field or the gym or the church or wherever...when I could.

But it's not my emergency, child-of-mine. Be prepared. 

"The Lord has prepared everything for His purpose..." Proverbs 16:4