Greg! ;-)
LOL!
I have a story to tell you. But first, whatever floats your boat. Over the years I've met people who find ironing very relaxing, so I avoid telling them anything. Why should I deprive people of relaxing tasks? For me it's sewing, I love to plan, shop for, cut, sew the blocks and then the top of the quilt, then later machine quilting it -- the key here is that I *machine* sew/quilt everything. It doesn't take long compared to hand sewing/quilting, which I have no patience for. I have friends who knit or crochet and can't stand machine sewing of any kind.
So, anyway, as long as it's relaxing, keep doing it.
For me, I iron/press out of sheer necessity: if something I ran thru the washer and dryer is not looking good enough and I really need to look my best, even if it's only for 5 minutes, then I iron, take the clothes to, say, the wedding, change at the venue, and there we are, I look good for the first 5 minutes, after that, wrinkles or not people stop paying attention after they greeted you anyway.
My mom also hated ironing, but spent most of her life thinking it was necessary, so she was one of the people mentioned above pressing and ironing everything from socks and underwear to all things wearable. I have 5 brothers. So, imagine ironing stuff for 8 people every day. Yuck.
Aaanyway, I kept telling her "just hang and fold everything out of the dryer and it will be fine" and she kept saying stuff like "what will the neighbors think?" which I don't find helpful. I used to tell her to be patient, things out of the dryer don't immediately look good, they need to relax a bit. She wouldn't listen. So, and you probably saw that coming, I took advantage that at that time the deal was I'd wash and dry the clothes, she'd tell me to leave them by the ironing station. One day she had to go the the supermarket, so instead I basically put away *all* the clothes in the closets.
Mom comes in, is distracted for a bit, then goes do the ironing and says "where are the clothes?", and I just say "I put them away". "What? Without ironing?", and I go "Yes." and she's about to lose it, with "It needs to be ironed first!" and I go "well, if you can find stuff that need ironing in the closets, go for it."
She spent about 10 minutes looking and either didn't find any or didn't want to admit to it. So, I'm glad I convinced her to drop that task and only do it when it really mattered.
And yes, now that I'm over 50, I do agree that ironed clothes look better, I'm just not willing to do it or care for over 90% of the clothes, 'cuz, frankly, they'll only look that good if you stand there, once you start moving, sit, drive somewhere etc, it will look like it came out of the dryer anyway, so I leave them that way unless it's important.
Which, in my life is basically weddings, job interviews and funerals. Lately I've been dropping ironing when I go to the funerals, why make my exterior look better than how I feel anyway once someone I care about dies?
Hugs,
-- Paulo.
