So Many Socks!

I won't lie; my efforts have been inconsistent at best. I have had one major success, however. I tackled and cleared up my laundry room. Even with only 4 people in my household, we produce A LOT of laundry. I suppose it's because we are all very active. In one day, I might go through an outfit for working out, another for riding horses, and yet another for being presentable at my job or at my kids' school. Add in towels and sheets and jackets (oh my!), and you've got a 3-ring-circus of a laundry room that ends up looking like this:

All those baskets are full of misplaced laundry...single socks, random scarves, pieces of outfits I just never got around to properly sorting. And the little organizer hanging on the right? That could be a totally useful space, but instead I've stuffed it with mismatched socks, clothing I need to store or give away, and other miscellaneous problem articles. It's like when my mom used to ask me to clean up my room and to do so, I would sweep everything into the closet and close the door. No, my mom wasn't a sucker. She figured it out. But I'm the mom now, and I don't have anyone telling me to get things into their proper places. I do have my limits, however. And I believe the research that shows that clutter can cause stress and negatively affect your psyche.

I finally decided I'd had enough and that it was time to tackle the laundry room. I won't go into the details of the long, tedious process that ensued, but I will leave you with these statistics.

LAUNDRY ROOM CLEAN UP IN NUMBERS:

Number of partially filled laundry-baskets: 5
Number of hours spent on project: almost 3
Bags of clothing donated to Goodwill: 1
Socks found under my oldest daughter's bed: 11
Percentage of surface area of washer and dryer covered before clean up: ~90%
Percentage of floor space visible before clean up: ~50%
Number of single socks left after all the baskets were sorted: 42!!!

Yep, you read that right...42 unmatched socks for a family of four. And this doesn't even take into consideration the fact that I paired up different colored socks of the same size and style--luckily my kids are still young enough to think that having 2 different colored socks is funny and not unfashionable.  But still...what do you do with 42 single socks? The thrifty side of me tried to justify keeping them for crafts or as dust rags. I also considered stashing them in case their mates showed up in the next cycle of laundry. But then I reminded myself that that mentality is how the whole mess got started in the first place.

So guess what I did? I threw them all away! All 42 of them! And then I put some other trash on top to minimize the likelihood that I would go back in and rescue them. See:

That's my trashcan with all the socks on top. Let me tell you: It was one of the MOST satisfying actions I have taken in a long time.

And now, every time I pass the clean, white, cleared-off laundry room, I find a bit more motivation to tackle the other problem areas in my house. Now if only I could find the time...