I'm A Washaholic

I'm a washaholic. Today I will freely admit that. I may or may not when tomorrow comes around, depends on my mood :-). The washing machine is one of my best buddies. Anything & everything in my home, that can be washed in my huge capacity front loading Whirlpool is. Washing machines started to have an appeal to me sometime around the age of 14. Maybe I started to care more about the appearance of my clothes but for whatever reasons, it was at that age that I took over doing the laundry at home. I am pretty sure my mom had no qualms about that :-). It started rather innocently. My socks kept getting washed with blue jeans, things that didn't belong in the dryer went & so on. In my ignorance, I started using fabric softener, being duped into thinking it smelled great & was good for my clothes but more on that in another post. When cross country started, I upped my washing obsession, washing not only my uniform after every meet (there were kids on the bus, whose things smelled so bad that I get a little ill when I recall the aroma) but also my warm ups & every so often, my shoes. When I went away to college, I was neat (don't know what happened) & my dorm room was talked about because of its appearance. My sheets, back pack & of course my towels & clothes were washed regularly & the pleasure I felt when pulling clean laundry out of the dryer became more & more pronounced. Back on the home front, I moved out on my own & for the first year & half, didn't have a washing machine in my unit so I hauled it elsewhere. When I met my husband, I was pleased to discover that he & his mom were also washing machine fanatics & they welcomed me with open arms when I hauled my piles & baskets of laundry to the place they were renting together. It didn't matter to his mom if the washing machine was started at 11 at night. I was in heaven! It was about that time that I discovered using oxiclean & other laundry boosters to enhance the cleaning power of my detergent & my obsession came to a new level. When I finally moved into a townhouse, that had a washer & dryer, I celebrated by putting them both to work. It wasn't until I had to start paying for my water heating use that I became a fan of cold water washes (except for bed linens & whites) & that tradition continues to this very day. Baby clothes & blankets started to find their way into my house a few months before Mara was born & it was at that time that I started learning about detergents & what is in the conventional ones & how the ingredients are a health & environmental hazard. Matthew & I started purchasing expensive natural detergent to wash Mara's things in while switching to unscented for our laundry. When Mara arrived, I was adamant that no baby of mine would use dirty blankets, wear spit up smelling bibs, 
or have soiled looking toys. Her car seat bumper, blankets & soft toys were all washed weekly, more if soiled & her car seat cover went through the machine monthly. By the time Gracen arrived, even pacifier holders went through the machine every week! So here it is January 2012 & my washing machine addiction hasn't abated. Back packs, stuffed animals, coats, sweaters, cosmetic bags, lunch bags, shoes, slippers, dog blankets, floor rugs......they all find their way into the machine.I use a high efficiency machine, mostly wash with cold & use unscented earth friendly detergent, laundry boosters & stain removers. I guess that justifies my washing machine obsession.....or does it?