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? 

Household Tricks: Part 3

This is the third part in my household tricks series. If you want to catch up on part 1 or part 2, feel free to do that first!

Today's tips include some more laundry tricks that I've discovered over the years. I really thought most of this was common knowledge and I was just discovering it on my own, but after talking to some friends, it's actually not. Who knew. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’m not the most eco-friendly person who ever walked the earth, but I do value reusing, repurposing, and salvaging when possible  

 1. Air dry new clothes after the first wash after washing in cold water.

We all know washing in cold water prevents shrinking. But air drying after the first wash does too! I discovered this when we washed out baby clothes for our first baby. I'd buy it in one size, wash it, and then feel like she was outgrowing it already. It was also obvious when I looked at hand-me-down clothing vs new clothing we'd air dried after the first wash in the same size. The ones we'd air dried really looked an entire size larger. By air drying my kids’ clothes after the first wash, they keep their original size and we can wear them for much longer. This sounds like a lot of extra work, but the key is to remember it only applies after the first wash. Once you wear it and wash it again, you can feel free to chunk it into the dryer willy nilly without having to pick out each specific item to air dry. 

For clothes we’ve bought new and carefully air dried, I’ve been able to keep my kids in them for two sizes! (My 18 pound 8 month old baby boy can still wear size 6 month clothes, but he can also fit in size 12 month clothes hand me downs which have shrunk.)

2. Air dry clothes with stains after washing just in case the stain did not come out.

I used to just give up after one wash if a stain didn't come out and either throw the piece away or live with it stained. Then I realized if I didn't dry the clothing after, it would give me another chance to remove the stain. If I've washed it twice following careful instructions and it still doesn't come out, then I count my losses and move on. 

Pretty sure these had stains and were air drying after a wash. Some pieces are going through a second hurrah with us right now with little brother 🤗

3. Separate stained or new clothes into a laundry washing bag.

There's a lot to remember if you have to pull out specific pieces from the washing machine to keep them from being tossed in the dryer. A trick I use to make my life easier is to throw them into a laundry washing bag before going into the washer. Then, when it's time to dry, I pick out the bags and toss everything else into the dryer. This way, I'm not trying to filter through each wet, entangled piece of clothing to make sure I've found all my pieces to hang dry. 

This may seem like a lot of work to go through, but to me, if it means I get more use out of the same clothing, I’ll take it! 

Stay tuned for the final part of my household tricks series. 

"Terrible" Twos

My daughter is two. Are the twos as terrible as they're infamously named? In some ways, totally. She, on occasion, wakes up from her naps screaming hysterically, and we don't know how to calm her down. Sometimes this lasts for 15-20 minutes. 

She likes to play the "I don't actually know what I want" game. Not familiar with it? It goes something like this:

S: I want ice [in my water]!

Me: Ok. *adds ice in water*

S: No. No. No ice.

Me: 🤦🏻‍♀️ *Takes away bottle. Dumps out - refills water only. Hands back bottle*

S: Ice! Ice! Ice!

Me: Are you kidding me?! 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

She likes to sleep with her door open, but if it's not open enough, she'll scream at you to open it more. 

She needs all her stuffed animals lined up in a particular place and way under the blanket and if they move even the slightest bit (even if she moved/kicked them around), she'll start crying for you to come back and fix it.

Are you exhausted yet? That's just the start.

**

On the flip hand, she amazes me at how helpful and capable she already is at just two years old. She can help me unload the clean clothes from the dryer into the basket, and sometimes, she'll even drag the basket to the living room for me to fold if she's feeling extra cooperative. She can help me bring bags of light items from the grocery store into the kitchen for me to put away. She can turn on and off light switches when asked to. She can retrieve items for me when requested. 

So is she really that terrible as a two year old? 

Sometimes. The answer is sometimes. 

**

It's the year 2020. We've only had a handful of years with two 2s so far: 2020, 2012, 2002, 1922. Unfortunately, many people started the year with high hopes, only to have them be squashed. Some would say it's been a terrible year. It has indeed been a year filled with uncertainty and unrest.

Mamalogues: Horror Stories: Mommy Edition

I woke up feeling good about this Friday. I didn't have to teach, I didn't have any timely engagements to be at, and it was cold and gray outside. The baby woke up not too early which gave me some time to get my act together before getting her. She did a great job eating her first bottle in the morning and was happily playing with her toys. I was getting my breakfast ready and poured the hot water into my instant oatmeal and was waiting for it to absorb.

And then I smelled the poo.

I picked her up and migrated to her room with the changing table. I unbottoned her jumpsuit and onesie and opened the diaper to assess the damage. There was definitely poo. I lifted up her bottom to see how far up it went. It kept going....up the diaper...and up....and up....so much poo.

I wiped her butt off and removed the dirty diaper from underneath her and began planning the removal of her soiled clothes in my head. During this planning process, she wanted to flip over and sit up and crawl away and grab at everything around her on the changing table. The attempt at keeping her jumpsuit clean failed. The attempt at cleanly removing her soiled onesie failed. I took a wipe and wiped her down and then spontaneously decided it was time for a bath. (We don't usually do baths after blowouts because if she stays still, I wipe her back and then redress her and we're all good.) Well, not this time.

We took a quick bath and I redressed her and plopped her back into her crib while I rinsed out the onesie. At this point in my head, I was thankful the first batch of laundry I started was ours so there was still time for me to wash this onesie in her laundry. I rinsed it and left it in the sink to soak a bit.

Now, after what felt like an hour detour in my day, (it was actually about 30 minutes), I returned to eat my cold oatmeal that had well-absorbed all the liquid. Not appetizing anymore for someone who dislikes oatmeal to begin with, but hey, any time a mom gets to eat is a good thing. After wolfing down my oatmeal, I realize she's being quite fussy still and won't play by herself - which she is usually very good at - a cue that she's hungry. Well, obviously,  after clearing the pipes, who wouldn't be hungry again?

So I fed her solids, the ones she likes, so I wouldn't have to play tricks on her to eat. Once I heard our load of laundry finish in the washing machine, I transferred it to the dryer and started her load of laundry in the wash. I was so excited to have two batches of laundry going, a fed baby, and everything ready to go out to buy groceries.

And then it started raining. Not pouring sheets of rain, but enough to make myself wonder why in the world I thought it was a good morning to go grocery shopping in the cold and now rain. We made it to the grocery store, and of course all the shopping carts were wet having been towed in from the previous day and this morning. Hooray for shopping cart covers to double as towels. I grocery shopped and realized that the baby had again leveled up. Every time I stopped the cart to grab something, I'd see her lean out as far as she could and grab whatever she was next to. Note to self - park the cart obnoxiously in the middle of every aisle so the baby can't reach anything. People will understand that you're actually thinking one step ahead instead of one step behind and preventing any grocery avalanches from occurring, right? Totally.

We made it home from the grocery store and she fell asleep about 5 minutes from home. I pulled into the garage and saw her open her eyes! I watched her through the mirror and saw that she was just dozing and was closing them again. We both sat in the car for 5 minutes, mostly for me just to make sure she was going back to sleep and wouldn't wake up as I unloaded the car first before unloading her. Once I got her in and settled on the floor, I again, saw her open her eyes! This usually doesn't happen, not to mention twice! I walked away and hid in the next room to wait and see if she'd resettle herself back to sleep. When I saw that she wasn't moving her little hands or making noises, I reappeared and continued finishing up things around the house. She fell back asleep again, thank goodness.

As I quietly unloaded our laundry from the dryer and transferred her laundry from the washing machine to dry, I thought in my head if there was anything that needed to be hung dry. I checked the jumpsuit for poop stains and didn't see any so deemed it dryable. We air dry anything that was stained before washing so the stains don't set if they didn't come out 100% and we can either keep the clothes for keepsakes or maintain as pristine condition as possible for resale.

Then it hit me. I didn't wash the onesie that she pooped all over.

I walked over to the bathroom, and sure enough, the onesie was still there soaking away. I had failed to add it to the wash before loading us all up for the grocery store.

It'll get washed next week.

On the bright side, the baby is still asleep, I've put all the groceries away, and it's time for me to wolf down some lunch before she wakes up.

Yes, I still love her. :)

Mamalogues: Pillowcases, Pillows, and Laundry

I used to have time to iron my pillowcases.

We set up the ironing board in our bedroom for the longest time because my husband would iron his shirts. (This has since been replaced with her pack and play.) One night, I just decided I wanted to iron the pillowcases.

There was a set of pillowcases I'd had since I was a teenager. I bought them before I'd met my husband. They were multicolor polka dots with a teal stripe on the side as a more "sophisticated" edge. I'm pretty sure they sat new in the package for over five years. I bought them in order to meet a $25 minimum for free shipping because what I actually wanted was the duvet cover. They weren't folded perfectly in the package so years later when I opened them to actually use them, they were wrinkled.

So that night, I said I was going to iron out the wrinkles and make them beautifully pressed and arranged in the little basket of pillowcases I have in our linen closet. I went over each side of the pillowcase and ironed and smoothed and pressed until the wrinkles came out. They were beautifully ironed and flat and looked so perfect when I returned them to the linen closet in the basket.

And then I had to wash them. Of course, the wrinkles came back.

After that, I gave up ironing pillowcases. After all, we layer two or three pillowcases on each pillow, because, you know, we don't want the nasty yellow stains on our pillows because those are gross. But when you buy $10 pillows, I guess it doesn't matter anyway because they're easily replaced for cheap. But then I decided to go out and get "fancy" pillows because we stayed at the Omni Hotel once and man, I fell for their pillows. They had the nicest pillows I'd ever slept on, and usually I'm not terribly picky. But those pillows....perfectly soft and perfectly firm. Man. Should have just bought some at the hotel after we stayed, but instead I tried to Google the supplier for the pillows the Omni has. I bought those instead (for 1/5 the price of one pillow at the Omni website).

They are definitely 1/5 as good as the Omni pillows.

This afternoon I did three complete loads of laundry. And I mean three large loads of laundry filling the machine each time. I'm not even trying to show off my eco-friendly-ness. There was that much laundry. One for the baby. One for us. And one for our sheets.

The baby decided to take a two hour nap this afternoon which was amazing because I could start and finish each load with about 40-45 minutes between to do other tasks around the house. Hubby helped me to feed her before her nap and get her to sleep, and then, he was able to get some things done on the computer.

Y'all. There is no time to iron pillowcases anymore.