Airing my laundry

So the other weekend we decided to take a rather spontaneous trip to Amish-country, Ohio. It was to be a cultural experience for our exchange student and a shopping trip for me. We ended up at Lehman's, where I bought several desperately needed items for the house: an outdoor umbrella-style laundry line, a folding indoor laundry rack, and a grain mill.

OK, so the last one wasn't so desperately needed. It was just really, really wanted.

That, and the butter bell, which I can totally justify for keeping the butter fresh and free of cat-tongue marks. Not that that happens. Only once in a while. But definately enough to justify a butter bell.

So enough of that.

I've been putting the clothes-dryer to good use. Well, both of them. It's been just enough rainy here to mostly-dry the clothes and towels outside, but just enough that I have to finish them in the house on the rack (sounds so...torturous, doesn't it?).

The only issue I had was mounting the umbrella-dryer. It's supposed to be removeable, so it has a plastic pipe that you have to cement into the ground and then you can lift the umbrella out and put it away when you don't need it, and even mow over the sopt, so you don't ever have to wee-whack there. Problem was the cementing and the hole-digging. The laundry needs done now, not later when the cement is dry!

Lucky for me, the pole is the same diameter as the umbrella in the middle of my patio table (which is solid cement and takes three grown people to move in two parts).

So my laundry has been hanging all weekend over the cement benches of my patio set. Looks funky, and more than a little ghetto, but the laundry is dry.

On the other side of it, I haven't used my appliance-the-dryer since late September. Liza doesn't trust it, and I hang dry most all my clothes anyway so I don't look like I did in seventh grade when I grew so fast all my pants hems were ankle-height or higher...

End of flashback.

I'm also participating in Crunchy Chicken's Hang 'Em Dry challenge, and am starting to think I might not go back to using the dryer much after October is over. I like the feel and the smell of line-dried clothes too much.

Oh, and even though you didn't ask, here's a pic of my new niece at one day old.

I was shocked - she doesn't even look like a prune! I thought all newborns were purple, wrinkled, and puffy.

And I love the little purple bow pasted to her head. Totally made me laugh!

(It's OK - it's ultrasound gel pasting it there - completely water-soluble.)