One of my neighbors used to say - I love to do laundry because I feel I've accomplished something in my day...Yet it's sooo easy! I just throw the clothes into the washing machine - then hang them out to dry. The machine does it all!
I've always taken her words at face value: Yes, doing laundry is easy - in that I can do something else while the washer or dryer are running - but today, as I try to juggle dusting, gardening, and writing a blog post while keeping an eye on the washer... and then the dryer... so that I can take the clothes out and hang them up before they get wrinkled, I find it keeps me running...
Yes, it is easier than my grandmother had it in her early years, when she took a winter's bedding down to the river to wash the clothes on the rocks, then hang over bushes to dry.
That's why young girls needed to weave a lot of sheets and towels before they could get married - for a "hope chest," she told me. A married woman needed enough for the whole family - for the whole winter.
(I imagine that clothing was hand washed and hung around the kitchen to dry - or, on sunny days, dried outdoors.)
In her early years, my mother had to pump pails of water and then carry them upstairs (where we lived in an apartment above my father's garage)... She heated the water on the wood stove in large metal containers - then had to assemble two tubs (one with hot and the other with cold rinse water) beside the wringer washer, that was a modern convenience in her time. She also had to starch shirt collars and cotton dresses...
I'm thankful I don't have to do all that (or iron sheets either)! But today, as I run from one task to another - even the laundry isn't all that easy!
(Maybe it's the multi-tasking - rather than the work - that makes it seem so hard today!) A machine can be a hard taskmaster to keep up with!
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