I did it. I set myself free this morning from the annoying and time-consuming and frustrating folding of fitted bed sheets. I am suddenly made to wonder if I have for all my life been taking great pains with neatly folding fitted sheets because of the examples, the requirements, of my mother and grandmother. I believe the whispered voice inside is a blending of their voices: “Don’t you dare wad that sheet up and stuff it in the drawer. Take time to do it neatly.”
I’m realizing more than ever that choices need to be made with time and energy. Today I chose writing and set myself free from the tyranny of fitted sheet folding, standing tall on the inside and saying to the nagging voice, “Nope. Done. Wadded and I won’t even see it in the drawer.”
My mother and grandmother have been much with me of late, likely because of the surprise re-blooming of gardenias here in the middle of summer. The sweet, sultry scent of a gardenia transports me instantly back in time to my grandmother’s home of the 1950s and ’60s, to the small North Carolina town of my birth–my blood’s country–and all manner of memories that still make me smile. (I let go the stuff that doesn’t make me smile.) My grandmother’s neighborhood must have been filled with gardenia bushes, as that’s the first memory that comes when I smell the scent. I loved to walk that neighborhood of quaint cottage homes and neat sidewalks, straight out of 1940s movies. There was also blooming ligustrum shrubs in spring. And the scents of Zest soap and Camel cigarettes inside the home of my grandmother (who was never called granny or grandma.)
One memory is when I was a girl, and my mother and I went to spiff up my grandmother’s home while my grandmother was on vacation. My mother handed me a cloth and Pledge and told me to dust. I said, “But there isn’t any dust.” And Mama replied, “Dust anyway. Your grandmother will know.”
I grew into a young adult and visited my grandmother when she would have been about my age now. She was folding items out of a laundry basket. Let me explain that for most of her married life, my grandmother sent her laundry out to be done; it was returned neatly folded. Time marched on, and she was forced to a washer and dryer, and then to no household help. As I sat chatting with her, she asked me to fold the fitted sheet in the basket.
My memory blanks out at that point. I wonder if I told her that I couldn’t and have been trying to make up for it ever since. I guess today I gave that up.
Maybe this post will set free a whole bunch of you. Just wad the dang thing up and stuff it in the drawer. Spending the time writing and creating is much more to the advantage of the entire world.
I can’t wait to show it! This is not the final cover, will undergo tweaks and fine-tuning, but this is the basic cover for my new book.
I will soon have ARCs in ebook form. If you are a reviewer and would like one, please leave your name in the comments.
Grace and peace,
PS: Please feel free to share this newsletter with your friends, and maybe set them free from the tyranny of folding fitted sheets, too.
Curtiss Ann Matlock 
19 responses to “Setting Myself Free of Fitted Sheet Folding, and New Book Cover Reveal!”
This is so me!! 🌺. Love this, CA!
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I keep wondering why it took me so long to see that I was doing something from someone else’s rules. 😆
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Beautiful! Your new haircut, the scent of magnolias, your photo on the love seat, and not attempting to fold bottom sheets any more!
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Thank you, dear Carolyn, for all the years you have encouraged me and loved me.
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On my other comment, I wrote Carley Lee and meant Carley Love… sorry…
And yes, I now days wad up the fitted sheet and shove it in the drawer because I just don’t care and there’s so many more fun things to do! Like reading a book or painting a picture or encouraging someone. 🤗
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Amen, sister–so much better ways to produce fruit than taking 10 minutes to battle the fitted sheet. What took me so long to see this? 🙂 I had to write about it to see it.
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I’m not sure what I have to do to be a reviewer but I would absolutely love to read your new book According to Carley Lee and review it for you. I’m rereading the Valentine series now!
I pray that Jesus will bless you bunches!
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I’m putting you down, Julie. Thank you!
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I used to wad up those sheets pretty neatly until the day child labour came to life in our home. I was then astounded to see just how neatly my kids got the job done. They didn’t fold but took wadding up sheets to the next level – which was to roll up the sheets with the pillowcases inside it into a neat torpedo shape, with the sides all tucked in. Until today it’s something I cannot manage but it’s one of the many sweet and tender memories we have of the children growing up🙂
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How wonderfully clever and creative!!
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Great post, Curtiss Ann! Back in the day, my mother used only flat sheets. On laundry day the bottom sheet went into the laundry and the top sheet became the bottom sheet. Fitted sheets were introduced into our household probably when I was a teenager, so I have always been a wadder.
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Mary Ann, you have given me a name– ‘wadder’. Thank you! Writing about this showed me, as it always does, that I had such a silly view about the necessity of being so very correct in folding the fitted sheets. There are actually videos and webpages devoted to how to fold a fitted sheet! I guess now there is something written on why Not to fold one. Ha!
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Love this. Fitted sheets and I have never been friends, except for the ones that stay on the mattress 😴 😒 through the night. Fitted sheets are nowhere to be seen in most hospitals, so I am pretty at doing corners to make a bed.
Visiting my maternal grandmother (Mawmaw), meant going to Crieghton, AL
no sidewalks, lucky strike cigarettes and wisteria trees.
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Mama was a career military wife. She taught me to do those corners, too. I do like the fitted sheets on the bed. 😁 Big hugs, Janet.
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love this post! My fitted sheet is on my bed since morning. I use to have no problem folding it. Now they must have changed the fitted sheets! At my age I agree just roll up and put in drawer.
I love your new shirt hair cut! I think you are looking younger ! Love the new picture!
Love you cuz!
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Cousin, anyone can look really good if you take the picture far enough away. 😆
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I too still cannot fold those silly sheets!! Wonderful post CurtissAnn!📚💜
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Be free, Susan. Be free! 😆
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I love your new picture on the couch!!💜💜
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