My inner June Cleaver

BZZZZZZZZZZT. The dryer buzzer just went off.

I have a love-hate relationship with the laundry. Right now I am avoiding rising from this chair and walking across the room to the freshly dried clothing that awaits my ministrations. Sometimes it is Simply Too Much at the end of a long working day.

In general, though, I love doing laundry. There is a thrill inherent in taking soiled fabric and making it clean and bright. I savor the smell and feel of the warm shirts and towels on my hands as I remove them from the dryer and arrange them in separate orderly stacks for each person in the household.

Here is the proper way to stack the laundry: jeans and khakis on the bottom, sweatshirts and heavy pullovers next, skirts, shirts/blouses, tees, pajamas, undershirts or camis, boxers or bikinis, bras (always air-dried, never put in the dryer), and socks. Clean laundry is so much easier to put away in the proper drawers when organized this way! (And anything that makes the kids more likely to put the damn laundry away is a good thing.)

Bringing order to this part of our family life is pleasing - soothing, even. As a chronically anxious and panicky person, I seem to gravitate to this humble ritual involving pleasant odors, textures, and warmth.

What everyday tasks do you adore - or dread? Why?