It Works For Us

Last summer was My Summer of Washing Towels 2005. It was bad. Beach/pool towels on top of the normal towel usage of a family of 7. Imagine it without any order or organization. I cracked the whip on the situation in the middle of the summer. By then, if a child left a beach towel wadded up outside or in their room that was precisely the one they would use the next time they went swimming. If they forgot to take their towel out to the pool....oh well, you'll dry quickly, it's 150 degrees out there. They learned to hang their pool towel on the fence (it will dry in 5 minutes here) and then it could be folded and put back in to The Container for Pool Towels.

My next project was the girl's bathroom. It was a problem area also. Towels were found under the bed, in the closet, in the bathroom, on the couch...I think you get the picture. Enter JC Penney Catalog! Big, beautiful, colorful, monogrammed bath towels and on sale!!. This is going to work, I just know it! The hardest decision was who was going to get what color and then to pick the monogram color, they didn't have much to choose from. The towels arrived via UPS, our favorite, crazy lady driver, we washed them and they were hung in descending order by age. We love the way the look and feel. We had to tackle one more obstacle. The towels didn't seem to make it back to their assigned spot. Hubby and I decided to enforce a form of discipline that seems to work well with older children. Hit em in the ole pocket book. After a period of grace and reminders, a warning was given and POW, if your towel is found on the floor, it's time to pay up!! I am glad to say I am not getting rich off of my children's failure to hang towels back where they belong. So far, so good.