LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

laundry

A laundry miracle!

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I’ve been behind in doing laundry this week, so tonight I grabbed a big gob of clothes and stuffed them in the washer. (It’s high-capacity, so it can take it.) I washed:

7 pairs of dress pants (one of them Lloyd’s best pair)
11 shirts (3 of Lloyd’s school shirts, his best Sunday shirt, 2 t-shirts, and various school shirts of mine)
some socks
a green pen

Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles – these two shirts were the only things that got inked. I guess stuff was jammed in there too tight for a lot of damage.

Seriously. That’s all I’ve got.

TWO tests

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…. can you believe it? I wanted to figure out a solution to the tipping problem, so I ran a couple of scenarios this week. Method one: Disassemble an old patio table and use the top as a base. Ribbons hold the legs of the drying rack down, and while the whole contraption is now as sturdy as the day is long, it does make me the crazy lady who keeps a giant metal circle on her patio, sans legs.

tied

Method two has a smaller footprint, but might prove less sturdy. It involves a cinder block and a shoestring, and since I’m already the crazy lady with several cinder blocks scattered purposelessly around the property, this seems like the better option.

shoelace

Unfortunately, these options were both tested on nearly windless days, a rarity in Nebraska. However, I consider the problem mostly solved and feel confident enough to link to the guy who makes these cools racks. www.bestdryingrack.com He’s located in Columbia, Missouri – just 45 minutes from Lloyd’s hometown!

By the way, Dollar Tree sells GIANT clothespins that go around the dowels and won’t make a single mark, so I didn’t even have to prototype!

A small fail

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I didn’t want to post about this yet because I’d like to wait until I have the problem solved, but I’m out of ideas for tonight, so here goes:

folded
I bought a pretty cool drying rack to use outside when the weather’s nice. I’d like to keep line-drying my laundry during the summer but it gets pretty damp down in our basement, so we don’t need any extra moisture. Plus, anything dried outside smells so dang awesome. You might remember that I tried a homemade contraption last fall with disastrous results. I saw this thing on the internet and had to wait a whole month before the guy was ready to sell them on his website. Finally I ordered it and it arrived on Monday. Hooray! Made of wood, built like a tank, holds at least 12 items, and sets up like a dream. I was so excited that I quickly washed a load of whites so I could hang something up before Parent-Teacher Conferences.

full

Yay! Clothes hanging outside! I used hair clips because it was kind of windy and the dowels are too wide for clothespins. (I don’t really want the marks from any kind of clothespin, so that’s going to have to be a prototype project.) Anyway, I made Lloyd come out and look. “Great. Wet clothes,” he said. He has no appreciation for coolness. I made him admire the ingenious design that let the gentle breeze spin the top around, like a laundry pinwheel of sorts.

Um, while I was at conferences, the wind picked up a bit.
p3290044

Apparently it needs a little modifying for withstanding Nebraska wind. It’s construction should be exceedingly simple…..

June to March

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Cheap Girl update: Remember the last box of laundry soap I opened in June? Well, I opened the next box of detergent this past Saturday, so excuse me while I try to work out some sloppy math here.

Average….. five loads a week? (Whites, lights, darks, towels/bedding, misc.)
One week in June
July to February is eight months/ 32 weeks or so
One week in March.

So, 34 weeks at 5 loads a week, is 170, right? (The old box was for 120 loads, but I use less soap.) Ten bucks (cost for the box on sale) divided by 170 works out to like a millionth of a penny per load, right? Lloyd says that’s not right. It’s more like a nickel. Dnag it – math is hard.

Laundry musings

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This post started to be about the time – 8:15 and I’m ready for bed, but that would just be silly.  So I went downstairs to throw a load in and thought I’d tell you about my fake Oxy-Clean.

Even though Billy Mayes hawks Oxy-Clean, and I believe everything he says, I can’t bring myself to buy the stuff in the big plastic tub.  Clorox makes the same thing in a cool box, so that’s what I use.  (A box can last over a year.)  Yesterday I went to Wal-Mart to get some more….. and they were out!  I hemmed and hawed about just buying the regular stuff or the store brand, and decided that I’d just do without.  I walked dejectedly down the aisle, past the clearance section – where there was one last box of my stuff!  Super-score!  I’m good until 2009!

Jars are easier to open than bags inside boxes.

Ok, I’ve told my story, it’s 8:17, and now I can go to bed.  G’night.

Oh, wait.  I have to tell you about the teenage boys in the toothbrush aisle.  I need a new toothbrush, and as I entered the aisle two late high school/early college boys left.  I noticed that they had been wearing cologne, and it was quite pleasant.  I thought about it while I searched and searched for my toothbrush, and after several minutes I realized that I was still smelling it.  How much were those guys wearing anyway?

Stupid cats.

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It was a gorgeous afternoon. I had thrown our sheets into the washer before church and wanted to hang them up outside on the sheet-drying contraption. I was like a crazy person – checking on them every fifteen minutes, fiddling with them, smelling the fabulous smell that only laundry dried in the fresh breeze can get. After a while, Snickers, the outside cat that I feed, came over and actually sat by me! (Take that, Mr. “That cat won’t even let you pet it” Royuk. It was a cutting remark Brad made during the summer. *sniff*) Anyway, I petted the cat, enjoyed the sunshine, then went inside to get something from upstairs. Looking out the window – that dnag cat was spraying my laundry!!!! Arrrggghh!!! Rewash. Dry inside.

Fuzzy cats are hard to draw.

To add to the naughty cat list, Cricket found out where I hid the cat food bag.

Whoever would have thought that Pfennig is my favorite?