Washers

Tuesday night our washer seems to have nearly died. I say “seems to have nearly died” since it does turn on, and just pours water out of the bottom.

It’s as old as … purchased in late 1996 when we first moved to Georgia. It’s been run, run, run, including cloth diaper duty from 1999 to 2002. First it was three people it serviced, then four, then five. We’ve had problems with the dial, the “settings” for the last 7 years, in honesty, and we never got it looked at since we didn’t want to put more money into it to keep it running. It’s not the most efficient use of a machine for me, it’s so deep, it’s a struggle for me to use it.

After we bought it is when front – loading washers began to be sold here in the US and pricing come down more recently, and machines have been bettered since then as well. We could get another top loader of generalities for little, but that’s not what we want, nor what would be best for us. Front-loader can actually be stacked with the dryer, we’ll get a washer first, and the dryer later (our current dryer is still working, though it runs too hot, for my tastes, on the lowest heat setting even.)

DH is getting paid tomorrow and he says we’ll go out and find a new washer. Stackability is my desire eventually, even if we don’t do it sooner, we will later.

I discovered the washer via our downstairs hallway being flooded, and the laundry room too. We have had things in the laundry room as storage, and recently had begun removing things to sort them, and well, this problem came too soon, and we did have to throw some books away. Some boxes have loose stuff and that is so problematic for me to sort. What to do with it, ugh. The bain of my existence.

I’ve been trying to simplify things and those boxes in there, as well as the ones in the garage, are the masses of grossness that must be wittled away before simplicity can be won here. 🙁

One of these days the laundry room will be empty except for a new washer, and the dryer and the shelving to house laundry things. I hope to have an ironing board/ironing center, and clothes hanging area too. There is plenty of room for that.

My way of laundry is horrible usually. If I don’t care much for it, I don’t care for it well. So good quality, good construction is what aides me. To me, it’s simplicity, it lasts, it’s WORTH caring for. It looks good. It’s not extravagance.

In this is my desire to sew skirts, blouses and dresses for my daughter and myself. I used to sew for myself in my youth, not a ton, but some, and enjoyed it. I have sewn for my daughter when she was younger, but put myself into major project creation which is not the same as what I intend to do in the future. What I want to make are things of Classic Traditional look, beauty. Simple things that have wonderful fit and wear (not cheap fit, cheap wear.)

The few good things we have from stores I have mostly tried to care for, and if they fall out of care I do try to put them back in place eventually. Unlike cheap things, which only wear out easily no matter how they are cared for.

I’m saddened that we have no washer right now, but it’s only a few days, if we can deliver it for ourselves this weekend, which I hope we can. I’m gladdened by this prospect, that a super useful tool will finally come into my laundry room, and it will also lessen dryer usage. Yipee! Also, I do not use the dryer at all for some things, and the drip, drip, drip of those items is quite bothersome.

The washer flood wasn’t fun, I had to wake up DH, it was 12:02am and it took a lot of work with our little 1/2 gallon shop vac in use. I didn’t do a lot, since I’m first-trimester (6 weeks this week,) but I did stress out a bit more than I should have, and whether that was the cause or I would have anyway, I got a migraine. I hadn’t had a full blown migraine since being pregnant, I had the beginning of one a couple of weeks ago, that went away naturally when I just sat down and blew my nose good and rested, and drank something.

This night in question was plainly horrible, I layed down and tried to rest, but the pain grew and grew and grew. It wasn’t so very bad, but bad enough, and my guts took a dive down to ugly land and I eventually got to the place in the AM where I had no choice but to heave, heave, heave, with nothing to come up but a little watery stuff. It didn’t help me except to take away the impending upping of stomach, the white, cold icey feeling that grows upward and finally burns in your ears … ugh. So I was in bed all day, and after the heaving session I did take Excedrin, and that helped some, but I had to take two more doses later and later than that. By evening I was doing better, but I stayed in bed. I actually got out a cross stitch project that I had previously opened and had gotten the thread set up to use, but never started stitching it. I stitched the first middle section, which employed four changes of thread colour. It’s a picture of multiple tulips of varying colours in a wooden box. So now one Tulip in the design is stitched, and that was enough for the first session. It was nice to be counted-cross-stitching again. 🙂

I got up this morning and felt as good as I do most usual mornings, which is a bonus, since I felt so bad all day the day before, and was very shaky afterwards. To be normal tired in early-pregnancy is great by comparison. 🙂