Musings from Marilyn

Archive for the ‘Frugal Living’ Category

Since becoming a complete and total air-drying fool several years ago, it’s amazing how the little things thrill me.  Now that summer has finally seemed to settle in somewhat in the Seattle area, I have been able to do most of my line drying outside.  Yes.  On a clothesline!

During the loooooooong, rainy winter, spring, and the first weeks of summer, I was feeling quite doubtful that I would ever be able to use my outdoor clothesline again.  Racks of laundry drying indoors filled my kitchen, bathroom, and occasional hallway.  It took days for it to get completely dry.  It was like doing the tango, maneuvering through the maze of drying racks.

It hasn’t been really hot here, but 70 degrees and a nice breeze seem to be the ideal conditions for good drying.  It’s so nice to hang laundry in the morning and actually take it in, dried, in the afternoon.  Everything is so smooth, crisp, and has the intoxicating scent of the sweet summer air. Aaaaaaaah!

Sheets and towels are especially blissful air-dried.  I may be in the minority, but I love a fresh, snappy, stiff air-dried towel!  You will never want to go back to soft, limp, non-absorbent dryer-dried-fabric softener-Bounce kind of towel after you get used to air-dried towels. Fake scented, chemical coated towels are a thing of the past for me, thank goodness.

I am relishing, and have a much greater appreciation for these nice summer days.  It’s great to put the summer weather to work; just hang and go (I am inherently lazy)!  Plus, it’s free, and I think the laundry turns out much better.   Here’s to more great summer weather! 

“After enlightenment, the laundry.”  ~Zen Proverb

~Marilyn Huttunen

I had to smile when I read that Kate Middleton was seen at the British  high-street beauty store Boots, last week.  It was before attending a charity gala dinner at Kensington palace; the one where she wore the gorgeous sparkly pale pink sequined gown by Jenny Packam.

It turns out our Kate was buying Nivea moisturizer.  Yes, that same basic tried-and-true moisturizer that has been the staple of many a woman throughout the years.  I just love this!  Well, other than the fact that it will probably be hard to find Nivea moisturizer from here on out, that is!

It’s rather refreshing that Kate’s beautiful English complexion is owed, in part, to a basic beauty product that is available and affordable to us all.  She could afford any expensive luxury beauty product, but opts to buy a moisturizer that she has probably used most of her life.

The smell of Nivea moisturizer will forever be a poignant reminder of England for me.  Several decades ago, in my more hippie/alternative years, I backpacked and camped out throughout Europe and the UK.  I can remember buying Nivea moisturizer at Boots (a store that I was completely enamored with), and slathering it on while inhaling the delicately intoxicating scent.  It was a delightfully feminine indulgence in an otherwise rather unconventional way of traveling.

So I think I’ll go buy some Nivea moisturizer for nostalgia’s sake;  I want to experience the poignancy once more.  And if it makes my complexion look like Kate’s, all the better.  Now that we know Kate is using it, there will probably be a run on Nivea moisturizer at the stores – I hope they don’t sell out!

~Marilyn Huttunen

I’ve aired my dirty laundry for about 6 years now.  Well, actually it’s clean laundry and I air-dry it on either a drying rack or clothesline!  Being a “slow dryer” as it were, I often feel as though my whole life is consumed by laundry.  Either washing it, hanging it, waiting it for it to dry, and putting it way.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  It is a rhythm that slowly weaves its way in and out of my days.

Outdoor drying becomes a huge issue when you live in the Pacific Northwest.  Especially in the fall, winter, and much of the spring.  My indoor drying racks are in constant use during these times.  Once in a great while I dare to hang laundry outdoors in the depths of winter, but it is almost always to no avail – little or no actual drying gets accomplished.

This winter and spring have been especially rough on Seattle-area air drying enthusiasts.  Out of the 132 days since January 1, only 27 days have NOT been rainy!  I may not be that great at math, but I know that it means there have been 105 rainy days.  No wonder I haven’t used my outdoor clothesline much!

Yesterday and today have been sunny though (knock on wood).  Add temps in the 60s, a brisk breeze, and you’ve got ideal conditions for successful solar-powered drying.  In fact, the laundry is dancing out on my backyard clothesline as I write this.  When you become a consistent  air-dryer, nothing brings satisfaction to your soul quite like seeing laundry flap in the wind.  And the resulting intoxicating scent of outdoor dried laundry that is beyond compare.  I love that Mother Nature does her work so wonderfully and bonus, for free!

Those of you who already air-dry know what I’m talking about; and those of you who don’t, I invite you to at least try it.  It does take a bit more patience and waiting.  But when you let nature do the work in its gentle way, you are in for a great experience.  E. B. White says it well: “We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it’s only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.”

~Marilyn Huttunen

If you don’t know it by now, I am a bit of a green-laundry diva.  Yes, I admit it.  The past five years or so I’ve ditched the dryer, opting for complete air drying with an out door clothesline or indoor drying rack.  Since I no longer use the dryer, there is no need for dryer sheets, so I ditched those too.  To complete the green aspect, I’ve been washing with unscented, ‘natural’ detergents in cold water.

Recently though, I’ve realized that I may have gone a bit too far over to the stoic side of laundry.  I’m not quite at pounding the washing on rocks at the rivers edge, but I was headed in that direction – ha!   I realized that I was missing a key element in the laundry process: scent.   I love scent, I love perfume, I love all of nature’s aromas – why did I give that sensory delight up in the laundry?

Sure, if I hang my laundry outside, it does pick up an outdoorsy scent; but after a particularly long, cold winter of indoor drying, that was missed greatly.  My laundry was hung indoors, wet and scentless.  Something was missing.

So I decided to go back to scented detergent.  I washed a load this morning and half the laundry is drying outside, and half inside.  The aroma is amazing, it smells so clean!  The drying laundry inside freshens up the whole house.  The drying laundry outside mingles with the outdoor scent and combines to make an intoxicating smell that can’t be reproduced in the lab.

I will continue to do cold-water washing and air-drying, but I will take back some scent in the process.  I’ve decided that even green-laundry divas need their aromas!

“We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.”  –E.B. White

~Marilyn Huttunen

Being a bit of a laundry renegade, I am ever on the search for laundry procedures that will not only save me money, but preserve the environment AND get clothes just as clean!  As you probably could guess by now, I am an avid clothesline user.  I air-dry 100% of the time, using a clothesline outside in nice weather and drying racks inside during inclement weather.

As far as my washing procedures go, I use my trusty 20 year old washing machine.  It is nothing fancy, but definitely gets the job done well.  I’ve always washed darks and wools in cold water, but stuck to the age-old tradition of washing colors in warm and whites in hot.  I guess this is just how  it has always been done.  Not wanting to mess with housewifery  tradition,  I didn’t want to change the routine lest some evil descend upon me!

One day, in a flash of determination, I decided to wash everything in cold water.  Yes, even whites.  Even towels.  Even sheets. Even underwear.  I know…GASP!  Eighty to ninety percent of the energy used to wash clothes heats the water.  And unless you are washing something that is really muddy or oily, it’s completely unnecessary with the modern machines and detergents we have now.

I have not noticed any difference in the cleaning results using cold water.  Things get just as clean, in fact to my eye they almost seem cleaner.  I may not feel the warmth from the dryer or hot water washes anymore, but that’s okay with me.  Laundry renegades will do most anything to be cool.

~Marilyn

When you’re a 100% year-round air dryer/clothesline user like myself,  one must pay much more attention to the ever-changing weather conditions.   Good thing that I’m a bit of a weather geek;  I actually like tracking the weather!  This comes in handy for determining the ideal conditions and placement of drying the laundry outside, or whether to dry it inside.

Autumn weather gets tricky; the days are shorter,and it gets colder and rainier.  Even if it is sunny, it can lull me into a false sense of drying expectation when I hang the clothes on the line.  It just has that nip in the air, the sun is lower, and there is enough humidity (at least here in the Pacific Northwest) to delay the drying a great deal.  I can hang laundry on my backyard line early in the morning, and late in the afternoon it is still damp.  Thus begins the ol’ clothesline switcharoo.  I have to take down all the laundry from the clothesline and then put it on drying racks inside the house.  Which is kind of a hassle, I must admit.

Even though it is a bit more work, one advantage is that the laundry has spent the day soaking up all that deliciously heady autumn air smell outside.  When I place it on the racks inside to finish drying, the poignant smell fills the air.  There is just something so wonderful about the outside-dried smell.  It changes with the seasons too.  Autumn smells different than summer, which smells different than spring or winter.  No man-made chemical scent could ever top Mother Nature’s!

I’m still trying to hold onto outside drying as much as I can, even though the attempt is futile at times.  Soon I will be drying inside full-time for the winter;  drying racks will be filling my kitchen once more.  But that too, is kind of charming in it’s own way.  One must definitely be adaptable to be an air-dryer!

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” – George Eliot

~Marilyn