Does Size Matter?

Our washer and dryer are going on 12 years old. We purchased them for our first apartment because we could either rent the units from the apartment complex for a monthly fee, or we could buy our own. We bought our own and they've been working hard for the last 12 years. 

We were grocery shopping together last week and got a free sample of laundry detergent from the sample dispenser. The marketing line? 1XL pod = 2 regular size pods. So the sample was 1 XL pod. I turned to my husband and immediately said, "I'd rather have the 2 regular size pods!"

 

Our washer has a 3.6 cu ft capacity. When we purchased our set, I didn't think about the size as much as I did the cost. It was very cost efficient compared to other sets and for just the two of us, it worked great. I've never had trouble with cycles not cleaning well, but size has become an issue. If everyone's (littles and bigs) laundry basket is full, I can't do everyone's laundry in one cycle. It has to be two. Sometimes, if our hamper is completely full, I can't even do all the bigs laundry in one cycle. 

When I look at our washer, it doesn't appear to me as small. 
But when I look inside other washers, mine looks small...

I end up doing a lot of laundry in one week. On an average week, it's about 3 loads. Most of the time, it's not because there's a lot of dirty laundry. There's a decent amount, but if I had a bigger machine, I could do less loads.

I honestly would rather have the 2 regular size pods as a sample because for our machine, 1 XL pod is overkill for 3.6 cu ft of laundry. Whenever I use laundry detergent now, I have to remember to fill the cup for the "medium" loads even though I'm washing an XL load on my machine because that's how much I'm washing compared to what some of the larger machines out there can hold!  From the research I've done, there's a good number of washers between 4.8 - 5.5 cu ft! Our machine is 25-35% smaller than a lot of machines on the market. 

I've been asking myself for years, is it worth it to upgrade to a larger washing machine even though ours works? Sometimes, I tell myself we don't have any problems with our washer and it's fine. Other times, I really want a different machine (a removable agitator?!) to be able to suit my needs (or glorified wants?) better. 

Last year for Black Friday, Lowe's was giving out free appliances to one winner per store. I didn't wake up early to get in line because I don't believe in my chances of winning, but man, it's a nice pipe dream to wish I could have been one of the winners. 

Do you like the size of your machine? 

Scrappy

A month ago, we hosted a guest and I was stripping the bed to wash the sheets. I discovered our fitted sheet had completely lost its elastic and had turned into a giant flat sheet. It wasn't an expensive or special queen sheet set we'd used, but considering the fabric itself was in decent condition, it would be a shame to retire this sheet simply because the elastic went out.

Now replacing a queen fitted sheet runs anywhere from $10-$50+ depending on where you're buying it from and what deal you can find. We were definitely not looking to spend a lot of money to replace this fitted sheet. I got the grand idea to buy elastic and replace it myself. It couldn't be that hard, right?

Elastic was cheap. I could get yards and yards of the stuff for maybe $5-$7. The amount I actually needed for this project amounted to probably $1 of the actual yardage if not less. The rest of the project was the time and ingenuity I needed to have in order to replace the elastic.

Materials: fitted sheet, new elastic, safety pins, scissors, sewing materials

*I was gifted a sewing machine toy when I was about 6-8 years old. Sadly, I never used the machine and it has been long gone over the years. I did keep the sewing kit which came with the machine and it is still my sewing kit today, the one seen above.* 

I spent some time pondering this project before actually starting. I knew the elastic was sewn into the edge of the sheet in a little channel. Assuming they did it cheaply, the elastic should not have been sewed into the fabric but would be loose all the way around the perimeter. This meant all I had to do was cut a small slit, pull the old elastic out, and thread new elastic in. Easy, right?

The whole process ended up taking just over an hour, which relatively speaking, even for someone who knew what they were doing, is pretty efficient. The longest part of the project was actually removing the old elastic from the edge. I made the mistake of cutting the slit without pinning the elastic in place next to my slit. As a result, when the elastic was cut, what little tension was left pulled the elastic deeper into the channel away from the slit I had just cut. It probably took a solid 20 minutes just to retrieve the end of the elastic to start pulling it out. 

I can't tell you exactly how I did it. I ended up finagling it with a safety pin and a needle. Miraculously after numerous tries, the elastic peeped out with the safety pin and I could start pulling it out. 

After removing the old elastic, I began to thread the new elastic in. This part, I had premeditated for a long time. I knew threading anything through a narrow channel was not easy, so I'd make sure I had this figured out before I started this project.

I clipped a safety pin to the head of the elastic I would thread into the channel. The safety pin served as my "pusher" to get the elastic through the channel because the elastic itself is too flexible to put pressure. As I stuck the safety pin into the channel, I'd scrunch the fabric over the safety pin and then un-scrunch it on the other side, productively moving the safety pin attached to the elastic through the narrow channel about an inch at a time. It's effectively how any kind of caterpillar or worm propels itself through movement. Although still time consuming, having this technique greatly sped up this process. 

After successfully threading the elastic through, we had to properly space out the elastic around the perimeter and then sew up the slit I originally cut. This was a much faster process and it was so satisfying to be able to fix this fitted sheet with my own two hands. 

An hour of my time is worth more than a $10 sheet. An hour of my time is actually worth more than a $50 sheet. But considering it was during the night time, I wouldn't be teaching or earning money anyway, and I was able to do it while watching tv sitting on my bed in my bath robe, I'd consider the money savings worth it. 

Consumerism and convenience has turned us into people who look for the quick-fix answer. We trash the old/broken and buy something new to replace it. And while I understand the need for simplicity in our lives and less mental clutter for our own sanity, I also understand the need to value the things we have and not be wasteful if we can help it. What's one way you can be a little more scrappy? 

Takeout with the Tos #22

We had a conglomerate of food this week. It was a little bit of hodgepodge.  

Green Beans and Pork: $14.99

Steak (2 8oz ribeyes) : $39.99

Mashed Potatoes: $8.99

Green Onion Pancake with Shrimp: $24.99

Tortilla Kebabs: $12.99

Total: $101.95

Tax: $8.41

Grand Total:  $110.36

 

 Green Beans and Pork

I make this dish a lot. It's easy, we have ground pork in the freezer on hand, and it's tasty. These beans were from a friend's garden. I seasoned with salt, sugar, cooking wine, soy sauce, and oyster sauce. I blanch the beans first in salt water to get a softer texture without being fibrous. The salt helps to keep the vibrant green color and actually cooks the beans faster than in unsalted water. 

 

Steak 

These steaks have been in our freezer for almost a year. I got them on sale last year when I spotted them and vacuum sealed for the freezer. It wasn't our intention to save them for a year, but when I vacuum seal my meats, I'm more at ease about "forgetting" them for long periods of time. My husband cooked these and seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic. I'm typically not a fan of steak, but when he does it, I'll eat it. This makes me wonder if all the steaks I've ever ordered at restaurants have not been cooked properly. 

Mashed Potatoes 

 

Mashed potatoes go with steak and we had a lot of potatoes leftover to use. Nothing fancy here - no box mashed potatoes though. An important thing to note is when boiling potatoes, use low heat. Boiling too high will overcook the outside faster, resulting in crumbling outsides. To keep the potato intact, add the potatoes into cold water and bring to a boil, then lower the heat to continue cooking the potato evenly to prevent it from falling apart. Once the potatoes are cooked, we drain the water, add milk, butter, and seasoning. 

Green Onion Pancakes with Shrimp

I bought a giant pack of green onions from Costco a few days prior to making this. I can use up a lot of green onions if I want to, but boy does Costco sell a lot at once in their bag. I ended up using about half the bag of green onions to make these pancakes alone. I've made these many times so I no longer reference a recipe, but the one I started out with was by Maangchi. I've done it many times so I just wing the batter now and look for consistency. I still mess it up every now and then, but that's the errors of being human. These are so good fresh off the pan when they're nice and crispy. 

Tortilla Kebabs 

This recipe popped up on my social media one day. It seemed interesting and was mesmerizing to watch him make. I filed it away in the back of my head. One weekday morning when I was home, we started running low on food options. I had leftover tortillas in the refrigerator from before and decided I was going to make this recipe. 

*Note: I followed the recipe very loosely. I don't have half these ingredients on a whim and I wasn't going out to buy them. So my kebabs are not Lao style. They're simply...Lao inspired.*

My meat filling consisted of: one pound of ground pork, Kewpie onion dressing, lemon pepper seasoning (to replace the lemongrass), salt, sugar, oyster sauce, garlic, cilantro, and green onion. Then I followed the recipe to layer the tortillas and the meat. 

I didn't end up with perfectly flat tortilla squares. Once I filled my meat layers, it did start to sag on the ends. Maybe this goes away with more experience, but I clearly don't have the experience. This came out really delicious for a first try. It definitely took some time to assemble and cook the skewers and they were consumed in a fraction of the time. These types of recipes make me sad, but good food is good food....

A Great Vacation

It's been a minute since I've sat down and typed up a blog at my computer. The last couple of weeks were a bit different from our normal routine because we had two spring breaks! No, unfortunately, this doesn't mean we had two weeks off of school or work. Instead, it meant my kid's spring break was one week and my students' spring break was the following week. Because of this, we couldn't really go out of town or do anything big. I didn't mind, but it meant finding other creative ways to have fun without going on an official vacation.

During the first week when my kids didn't have school, I took them out in the mornings for excursions. We visited IKEA, hung out with a neighbor, ate lunch with friends, and even had a sleepover one night! The following week when I didn't have to teach, we scheduled dinners at restaurants during the week we normally wouldn't be eating at because I hardly get to eat dinner with my family during the week. Honestly, not cooking is one of the best vacations I can give myself! It doesn't quite hit me as hard when we're away from home on a trip because we almost have to eat out every meal, but when I can relax at home and not have to cook, that's a real treat!

There were a few dinners during my week off where I made more extravagant meals instead of eating out because it was still tasty and slightly more cost effective than eating out.  

Sunday -  8z New York Strip Steak with broccoli 

broccoli not pictured.  this was very tasty. My husband had fun cooking steaks in his cast iron pans for the first time - he even used my fresh rosemary while basting with butter!

Monday - smoked salmon, cream cheese, bagel, side of kale salad 

Tuesday - Sausage Calzone and Chicken Parmesean

Wednesday - Chicken Curry with Rice

Thursday - Sushi

Friday - Pho 

Although a mixture of home cooking + eating out at restaurants, if I estimated the cost of all meals counted as restaurant cost, it would have cost us $250+ for six dinners.

I enjoy cooking for my family because it's a huge way I show my love for them. At the same time, cooking is work. A lot of work. Although I cringe at how much eating out can cost, it is really nice to sit down, be served food, and not have to do the dishes after. Or pick up the food my kids have slowly scattered all over the floor. So all in all, I had a great vacation, both from my salaried and non-salaried duties 😁.

Joy

The first year I tried planting things was more experimental. I wasn't sure what would and wouldn't work. So whatever I got was bonus. Last year I had more confidence being my second year. I had high expectations, and unfortunately, most of them weren't met because the weather didn't cooperate with me. 

This year, I'm growing for the joy of it. Lots of things are growing. I've harvested some sage to grind down to use in my cooking. Everything else is slowly getting into the groove. There's been a lot of covering and uncovering because of multiple cold snaps we've had since our 90 degree February days. But so far, everything is still alive.

That's not to say I haven't failed this year. I've actually "failed" twice already. I got a grow light at the end of last year for my indoor plants. As 2024 started, I was reading about people starting seeds indoors already with their grow lights to get a head start on the season before the temperatures became too hot. What a great idea! I wanted to try it.

My first failed tray of seeds.

Honestly, my set up was okay. My mentality was good. But the execution was not good. I learned grow lights need to be placed mere inches above the top of the seedlings in order to get them to sprout. I learned more about bottom watering and figured out what I did wrong - not only was my grow light not close enough but I kept them covered too long. Mold claimed this tray of seedlings. But it's okay because my pepper seeds are plentiful.

As a result, my pepper plants are behind this year, I think. I finally was able to germinate some sprouts around March 20th but that's pretty late for growing from seed. Oh well, we'll see what happens. 

This year, I don't have expectations. What grows will grow and what dies will die. Am I working hard to protect them and care for them as best I know how? Absolutely. I might be checking the weather more than I'm checking social media. And my husband jokes I pay more attention to my plants than I do him. He's not entirely wrong...but he lives in a climate controlled building with ready-made food for him. My plants live outside and are at the mercy of the weather. 

But there's one key difference in growing things this year. I find it so joyful and I'm recognizing the joy I get from growing my plants. Would it be nice to get a great harvest? Of course. Is it sad and disheartening when things don't produce or grow like I wish? Definitely. But the process of it all excites me and motivates me to get out of bed in the morning. Also because sooner or later we'll reach that point in the year where if you want it to be less than 90 degrees out, you need to beat the sunrise. 

Here's to year three of growing! 🪴