The past few days have been a little crazy.The Scouts are doing their chicken BBQ next weekend, so I am making about 300 Scouts Honor Rolls. I have the fourth batch (out of five) rising as I type.
On Saturday, I spent most of the day in the kitchen: chocolate muffins, 8 pints of cranberry orange sauce, candied orange peel, baked pumpkin, two pies, and five loaves of pumpkin bread. We had corn dogs for dinner (an emergency meal from the freezer)!
But the baking frenzy continued Monday with bread and cookies, and another pumpkin in the oven (not a metaphor).
I think there is something about fall that fires up my inner baker (and canner). I've done two batches of pear butter, one pear syrup, and an apple butter so far, and I haven't even started the jams yet.
Mondays and Fridays are our regular laundry days, but I thought we could squeeze in changing sheets. Usually I schedule that on a different day, but I figured it would be fine, just 5 loads instead of our usual 3. I had forgotten that our heavier winter clothing pushes us to 4 loads. And that I needed to help kids with closet cleaning.
Then, when the sheets were off the beds, I started to wonder how often we were supposed to wash the allergy covers. The internet consensus is: twice a year, spring and fall. But if we were doing the allergy covers, we should probably do the blankets to prevent cross contamination.
Taking Microbiology has made my life harder in some ways, but it really has helped with managing the dust allergies around here!Each kid, when they were born, was given (by some very dear friends) a wonderful furry (twin sized) blanket which they all still use and love. The label said it would last forever as long as you didn't use heat on them. This appears to be true, but it means they all need to be washed in the morning so that they can air dry during the day...
It was one of those projects that looks like it will fit into your schedule.
I'm so grateful we have two sets of laundry machines! And a Kitchen Aid!
And I'm going to sit down now!
3 comments:
Wendy,
Oh my, you've been busy! I bet you're tired after all that work.
14 loads of washing? I like to use the washing line to dry our clothes and it only holds 2 large loads. I suspect you used your dryer at least for some of the loads. Either that or you have a lot of washing lines! Many of my American friends use the dryer regardless of whether the sun is shining or not. Is this the case with you? Different customs for different countries! Most people here use the line, drying their clothes outside, but maybe that's got something to do with the fact our electricity costs a lot more than yours!
Actually, where I live, it's illegal to dry clothes outside. That sounds crazy, but the reason is that the houses are so close together, that everyone would see everyone's laundry. I suspect that some of my neighbors could get away with it if they have backyards with high fences, but my backyard is only 3 1/2 meters wide!
I have a large side and front yard, but I have almost no outside space that isn't seen by passersby (that's why I planted the shrubbery). I have to admit, it's the only thing I don't like about this house- very little privacy.
And it was a rainy day, anyway! I draped blankets over the balustrades, and turned them every hour until they were dry. I will admit, in nice weather I would have put them over part of the deck that faces my neighbor, because I knew they wouldn't bother anyone- they'd be done before he got home.
When we got our first house (in Baltimore, a fairly large city), it had no dryer, but the entire basement was festooned with clotheslines! I didn't want to hang clothes there because there was so much mold. It did have poles for running a clothesline outside, now that I think of it, but with both of us working full time, and fixing up the old house, we got a dryer so we could do laundry in the evening.
It's interesting to see the difference in customs. Can your neighbors see your clotheslines? Would it bother them if they could? Thanks for stopping by!
Wendy,
Thank you for sharing your washing customs! I did enjoy reading about them. We live on a 1/4 acre block. We do have fences and I have planted a hedge alongside our house. This has reduced the view into our neighbours' gardens and gives us privacy. But the hedge doesn't extend down to the bottom of the garden though I hope to do some more planting eventually. We can see one of our neighbour's washing lines and I could peer through the bushes at the other! They can see ours. It doesn't bother any of us. Washing hanging on a Hills Hoist rotary washing line is a true Aussie icon! It's what everyone expects to see in a real Aussie garden. Quite acceptable. No one seems to mind seeing undies flapping in the breeze!
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