my love/hate relationship with....socks

I love bare feet. (which a little 3 year old boy referred to them as 'bare pigs' this summer and that phrase melted my heart)
I walk bare foot around my house inside and out. I am required to wear shoes at work, I take them off without even realizing it.
In the winter, I LOVE my socks. My socks are all hand knit for me by my mother and I LOVE LOVE LOVE them. Before my mother started knitting me socks, I liked funky crazy socks but mostly I loved my angora goat hair ones and my wool ones.
My children make me feel differently about socks. My oldest also likes socks. ALL year round. Bugs me to no end. He leaves them helter skelter all over the house inside and out. He wears socks for days on end and I often have to peel those ones off his feet while he is in bed half asleep. My son is SO terrible for making sure that his socks end up in the laundry that often I have only one of a pair at any given time...which resulted in my son no longer wearing matched socks. The other day he wore one that was stripped red and blue and the other was a solid brown.
My oldest has giant feet that have grown quickly. My youngest son had very small feet when he joined our family but has grown like a weed since and therefore his feet have also grown. Which has resulted in socks that I have no idea who fit whom and if some of them actually fit anyone.
I have tried to fix the sock problem by buying multiple packs of the same type of socks for each child.
I have even stopped matching socks for awhile and just had a giant bucket. I got to the point that I designated two drawers in the dresser in the laundry room to be JUST for socks. Boy socks in the left drawer, Girl socks in the right. My oldest just ended up stealing all my store purchased socks because his feet grew again and his socks were too small, and because I tried hiding his socks for the summer to get him to stop wearing them with his Keen sandals.
When we were at the cottage this summer...there was NO sock issues...I didn't pack any.

Well my latest phase in trying to keep the socks under control....I took ALL socks and bagged them up. Then I purchased a set of 'weekday' socks for each child. If a child does not get his socks in the laundry, then next time Wednesday rolls around, NO socks for them. The boy's feet will match so I will know if someone is not sticking to the plan.
I am not sure if it is going to work or not. There is a single lonely Saturday sock in the downstairs bathroom on the floor.
But I have my fingers crossed that one day, the hate part of my relationship with socks will be a thing of the past.