Laundry

 Thoughts on life without a dryer...

No matter how industriously I keep filling the washing machine and immediately hang it to dry, actually having clean, wearable clothing completely depends on atmospheric conditions out of my control.

Drying clothes in the summer is miraculous. I have hung and dried 3 washer loads of clothing one after another and had them dry in a day. Drying clothes in the winter can take FOREVER. The combo of heavier, thicker clothes and cool weather is impossible. A drying rack by a running heater feels like cheating, but is often our only option.

The heat of a dryer is somewhat sanitizing and so is the sun, but what about when you have neither, for MONTHS?

What do you do with lint on clothing if the dryer never tumbles them off? Also discovered this issue after cutting hair.

Cardboard towels. At least they are exfoliating!

Outside factors. Today there was bird poop on Lydia's clean pants. I'm so scared of losing something important to a breezy day. I'm constantly watching for rain and trying to guess how MUCH rain we are likely to get on our weather app! I didn't realize how much my life was conveniently climate controlled for convenience until moving here.

Sheets! My clotheslines hang 3 feet off the ground. How do I hang sheets? Currently one at a time over several lines at once, but that feels unsustainable.

Our washer has been broken for a while and was fixed yesterday. Thank you, God! This morning I got up quickly to start washing clothes to catch up with the laundry piles, but the electricity was out all morning. When the electricity came back on, I started washing small loads of laundry in case I had caused the problem by overfilling the machine, but now the sky is dark with rain clouds. With a family of 5, I just may never be caught up on laundry again.

Laundry detergent is very heavily scented. There is no such thing as unscented laundry detergent here. I finally found a baby detergent at the German beauty store that is very subtle.

I now have favorite clothespins. I've never had favorite clothespins before.

Sometimes I wish I had an Albanian mama to teach me all the subtleties of doing life here.