LAUNDRY OR LETTING GO OF CONTROL

When we are at home, I do the laundry for the household - maybe 2-3 loads per week. For me, that's 2-3 loads per week too many. In other words, I really don't like doing laundry. On the road we carry a lot less clothes so therefore there should be less laundry right? Not necessarily. You just have to wash the small amount of clothes that you have more frequently. Also, European washing machines are much smaller so you have to do 2 loads of laundry to equal what in the US was one load of laundry.

All through Europe, when we had apartments, we also had washing machines and were able to do laundry in our own apartments. But once we left Europe, washing machines were no longer available to us. I don't just mean that we didn't have a washing machine on the premises, I mean that we had no access to a washing machine at all. In Tanzania, India and now here in Thailand, you are in the lands where someone else does your laundry. Finally, I don't have to do laundry!

It sounds like heaven,no? It does until you have to face the fact - that your laundry is no longer in your control!!!! Will someone else wash your delicates as delicately as you do? What about that grease stain - will someone else take care to pretreat the clothes in order to get the stain out? Will my reds run all over my whites? And will they know what to wash inside out? And finally, will I get everything back that I turn in? As sick and tired as we may be of our several sets of clothes, they are the only clothes that we have!

Good news is, so far everything that we have turned in has come back. It's always nicely ironed, even the clothes that shouldn't be ironed (like our decaled One World One Trip T-shirts) and neatly packaged. Some stains come out, others are now part of our wardrobe. And I've discovered that as much as I don't like doing laundry, having someone else do it isn't perfect either.