Folding laundry.
While folding one of my many t-shirts today, I found myself muttering in my head about how much I hate folding clothes. The phrase that came to mind was: Folding clothes is the bane of my existence. I have heard the phrase used numerous times, but have personally never found it part of my regular vocabulary. However, for some reason that phrase implanted itself into my mind. I decided to research it.
According to word-detective.com, the someone or something that is "the bane of my existence" is a constant irritant or source of misery. Folding laundry certainly fits that description. Especially the constant part. A few months ago, I noticed a pattern in my laundry rituals. Since I hated laundry, I would let it pile up for an entire week and then find myself devoting an entire day to washing, drying, folding, and ironing laundry. This means basically that I would have six happy days a week where I could blissfully pretend that I didn't have such an awful chore as laundry. But, then that one dreaded day came, and I HAD to do the laundry. You can picture the situation: baskets overflowing, drawers and closets bare. It was one of those- I really have to wash clothes or else I'll have to wear dirty socks kinda situations. And since I am not a fan of wearing dirty socks, I would force myself to get busy. Well, as I mentioned, I began to notice this pattern, and decided to make a change. I resolved to wash and fold one load of laundry each day. This really does make sense. It works pretty well. Usually, I end up skipping a day and have to double up, but even two loads is not too bad. The problem I have now is the constant annoyance of laundry. It is always there, waiting to be done.
According to word-detective.com, The word "bane" has a very serious history. It comes from the Old English word "bana" which literally means "slayer." (a.k.a killer or murderer.) The word was also used to describe the cause of death. By the 14th century, it was used to define poisons such as poisonous plants like wolfbane or henbane. Somewhere around the 16th century, the meaning of the word transformed into something much closer to the meaning that I use, "something that makes life unpleasant."
So folding laundry sometimes does make my life unpleasant at times. I don't have a problem with chores in general, but I do not claim to be a neat freak in any way whatsoever. I have a couple friends who love to clean. They clean when they are happy. They clean when they are sad. They clean when they are bored. This is not me. I am not a huge fan of most chores, but I do like to have a clean home. I don't like the frazzled and rushed feeling I get when I find out that I will be having company and I have about 2.5 minutes to clean the entire house! It also makes me feel much less stressed to be tidy. And I mean tidy like "lived-in-but-clean tidy" not "Martha-Stewart-magazine tidy." When I'm cleaning, I like to pass the time by, listening to sermons online, klove, or talking on the phone. Some chores I can claim to enjoy somewhat. I like to vacuum. It makes me feel accomplished to look over the carpet in my living room and see all the neat little rows of vacuum marks. And cooking dinner for my family is always fun. But folding clothes. Not so much. (Except Caleb's clothes. For some reason, it feels much less like a chore to carefully smooth out and fold little baby jeans and onsies.) What about you, blog readers? What chores are "the bane of your existence?"
Well, I better wrap up this post now. The dryer buzzer just went off. Back to work!
I actually like folding clothes. It's relaxing for me, but for some reason it usually takes me at least 5 days to take them out of the dryer to fold them.
ReplyDeleteAnd I couldn't say any chore is really the "slayer of my existence." But I suppose I don't do chores often enough to have much of an opinion on them :)