Calculation Sheet Question

The calculation sheet is a true eye opener! Everyone should give it a try. But, there are some things I noticed with the calculation sheet that are not considered...

We heat our hot water with oil... we have a boiler mate (this is on demand hot water).

We use propane for our dryer... not natural gas. And the last time I paid a propane bill for my dryer it was over $5 per gallon due to having a small tank size. And for the record... I have not purchased propane since... this is why I am using my lines faithfully!!!

Could this calculation sheet be revised to take the above into consideration.

Thanks everyone for keeping me informed! I truly appreciate all your efforts!

Pam

Halloween Art!

Halloween Art!

As I have said before, I use my clothesline every day for something...usually laundry. However, once in a while I choose to use my line as a piece of art and let it hang for aesthetic purposes. This always causes a stir in my neighborhood! Each day folks walk by in my small town just to see what might be on the line. It is Halloween week...I shall not disappoint them!

Lou Ann

Lou Ann is a storyteller, writer from Northern Indiana and from Ocracoke Island. When she is not writing, she is hanging out her laundry for all the neighborhood to enjoy!

Truth in Advertising

Bad news. The EIA reports to me: 5.2% more Americans had electric dryers in their homes in 2005 than they did in 2001. Meanwhile, GE ramps up its ad campaign for a new washer/dryer with 800 feet of clothesline. See http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/130/creaitive-mischief.html. Does that make sense?

Did anyone see Wife Swap last night?

It was very interesting. The wives that swapped were a lobsterwoman from Maine and a showpiece from California. The lady from Maine tried to show her "new" family that hanging laundry could save some money and the guy had a freak fit. He jumped around from hanging laundry makes it dirty (somehow putting it in the dryer creates some kind of force field that repels dirt? (My impression of his thought process)) to only poor people hang their laundry. It was a real eye opener to some of the ridiculous reasons people will give to not hang their laundry out. It really put him into panic mode, like if you were to sleepwalk naked into a 7-11 and then wake up (the only example I could think of that matches the paniced way he was !! :)

Nancy

A funny reply

I got this funny reply to my What do you do post.

I was 'checking you out' (your blogs, that is) I came across the Clothes Peggers blog. I wanted to comment to your post on there about hanging clothes out when the weather gets cooler, but I have a little funny story and I didn't think it would fit in the comment box if I commented there.
Last April, I noticed my dryer was making a funny screechy type noise. I immediately shut it off and waited until my dh got home from work to tell him he should look at it. Of course, he had no interest in trying to fix it b/c he has found over the years that they build washers and dryers in such a way that you almost have to be a repairman to be able to even take the outer 'shell' off those things without breaking something! lol It was older when we bought it, so he told me to run right out to the secondhand dealer and get another. I didn't want to spend the money on one right away, so I told him since the weather was getting nicer, I would just hang the clothes out for awhile. Well, spring turned into summer and summer turned into fall...and all that time I had only needed to take the clothes to the laundromat 3 times b/c of too many rainy days in a row ( I have 3 boys, so there is ALWAYS something needing washed!) The only complaint I EVER heard was the groans when I would occasionally ask the boys to run out and take the clothes off b/c I was busy with something else. I was so proud of myself and even prouder when I actually put off buying another dryer until almost the end of November! By then, I had the money saved up and the days were staying chilly and it was taking forever to dry what I had hung out. The day finally came, and I put the boys into the van and we headed to over to the dealer. We were driving along listening to the radio and my older two were talking back and forth. I heard my middle son say to his brother, " Aren't you excited that we are going to get a dryer?" and my oldest said, " yeah, I know." My kids are generally excited over getting anything- new or used, so when I asked them why they were so excited, I expected to hear the normal, "Just because". Instead, when I asked them, " Why are you so excited about getting a dryer?" , the reply I got from the back seat was " Because our underwear won't be crunchy anymore." ROFLMBO


~Christine~

What do you do?

It is going to be a beautiful day here in Ohio. A perfect day to hang some stuff on the clothesline.

As I was hanging stuff up, I was thinking about what I was going to do when I could no longer hang clothing out to dry on the line. I don't much fancy hanging stuff out in the cold and snow. But I like the savings we are making but not running the dryer.

So my question is........what do you do when you can't hang stuff outside?

Carolyn

I have a suggestion!

How would this go over as a bumper sticker and would someone be interested in making it up? Would PLL be interested in adding it to the store? Cafepress? I don't have the time or the patience (let alone the artistic talent)

Some kind of picture of laundry hanging with the phrase
"Some Americans aren't allowed to hang laundry but all Americans are allowed to own a gun - What side of the fence are you on?" ProjectLaundryList.com

What do you think? too many words? I've seen wordy bumper stickers...

Nancy

Putting it in perspective (for me, anyway)

According to my laundry hanging bible, Weatherbug, it was supposed to be sunny and beautiful yesterday & today. I hung out about 5 loads of laundry and I probably could have fit more. My intention was to leave them out overnight and retrieve them after the morning dew dried. I thought to myself last night that I could save myself some work and it was really a nice night to be pulling in my clothes but I lazied out. Problem was that I didn't check my weatherbug. Here on Cape Cod the weather can change at the thought of a strong wind. So this morning when I woke up I found there was a 40% chance of rain and, looking at the radar, it would be here soon. So I pulled in all my clothes, hung the shirts and transferred the socks to the indoor line and popped the pants into a medium dryer for 1/2 a cycle.

Then it hit me. I didn't even realize how much laundry I did until I was looking at it all staring back at me. There are 34 (or close to it) shirts, each of the 5 sock hangers have 8 arms with 2 hooks each and I quickly passed 2 loads of pants through the dryer. There had to be at least 125 pieces of clothing total (in the fall I wait to hang for nice days :) There was a split second of dread. If I had put all these items in the dryer load by load I would have been doing laundry all day! I'm getting tired just looking at these pictures! All along I was thinking that hanging laundry was more time consuming (and rewarding) but in actuality it's a huge time-saver. Wow!





Nancy

Laundry Art

Dear Folks,

I am a consistent laundry connoisseur...not only do I hang out my laundry because it needs to dry, but every once in a while I hang out a group of clothing for artistic purposes. On this clear Autumn day, I pulled several items from my granddaughter's dress up trunk to pose as art in my back yard. Shadows, blue sky and a light wind make for a whimsical piece of art...if only for a short time! I'll post my Halloween line next week!

Lou Ann

Lou Ann is a storyteller, writer from Northern Indiana and from Ocracoke Island. When she is not writing, she is hanging out her laundry for all the neighborhood to enjoy!

Revelations of anatomy and thrift?????

I have a love of old gardening books and on a visit to Powell's book store in Portand a few weeks ago, I found a lovely book.
The book is by Charles M Skinner and was written in 1904. It is about how to landscape small gardens such as were an increasingly common problem for city dwellers of Brooklyn.
I was struck by one lovely phrase that shows how even at the dawn of the 20th century, there was something slightly unseemly about delicates on the washing line:

"And when I speak of yards I have in mind, not the spacious lawns and gardens of the country, but the strip behind the city house that is given over, on wash-day, for the sunning of the family linen, with the revelations of the anatomy and thrift that pertain to that necessity."

I guess there was really nowhere to hide oversized bloomers and corsetts in those small lots!!

This link gives the online skanned version of the book:

http://www.kellscraft.com/littlegardenscontent.html