Just remember, while I tell you about my laundry, that I've been snowed in. I didn't go to work for many days. I changed from one pair of pajamas to another, for days on end. It was wonderful, really. I read books. I cleaned my house. I matched my socks. I washed laundry - all of it, every curtain, rug, blanket, sheet, pet bed, and stitch of clothes. And, because I'm a total nerd, I took pictures of my cats while I did laundry, and now I'm sharing my laundry thoughts with you.
And I do have laundry thoughts, believe it or not. I've been thinking a lot about laundry ever since my electric dryer failed, back in November. Do you see my new clothes dryer? I've mentioned before that I like to use my outdoor clothes line, but I haven't had to rely solely on a clothes line since I was a little kid, and I've been a little afraid to go without a dryer. But, when the dryer died, we decided it was a good time to give a dryer-less lifestyle a trial. If we could manage to live happily without a clothes dryer, especially during the winter, when hanging clothes outside isn't as much fun as summer days in the swimming pool, then we could forgo the expense of a new dryer, the expense of using it, and the space it will take up in the tiny house we are planning to move into.
After four months of hanging clothes in the house to dry, I think I'm ready to state that not having a dryer suits us just fine. We have a house with three adults, and we have less of a bottleneck with our new system than we did when we had our old and slow dryer. We hang our clothes straight from the washer onto hangers, and once they are dry they go right in the closet. Socks, underclothes, and towels hang on the rack to dry. Big things like sheets and blankets get draped over the rack or open closet doors, and because of the dry winter air, everything dries faster than I thought it would. The only drawbacks so far is that some days my clothes are more wrinkled than they used to be, but I've never minded wrinkles bad enough to iron my clothes anyway. A nice perk is that instead of my jeans feeling tight, now they feel lose when I put them on, and I don't think it's just because of all the vegetable juice I've been drinking.
I'm a little surprised to find that I actually enjoy doing the laundry this way. My friend once said she enjoyed hanging laundry, and I was surprised because my lingering childhood impression was that it was definitely a "chore" that I was glad to get out of. But now that I have less pressing games to play, hanging the laundry with the cats is sort of relaxing. As you can see, we are easily entertained. Where does that dripping water go? It's so amazing. If we angle our heads just right, we can get a drink without getting water in our ears, too. Hanging out in the bathroom with snapping towels and clanking clothes hangers is great excitement, especially when the faucet gets turned to a fast drip.
Even timid Ditto can't stay out of the action for long.
If you ever wonder why my bathroom sink has kitty prints and cat hair in it, now you know. Stalking drips is a favorite game of ours.
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