Monday, April 9, 2007

The Adventures of the Mighty Stain Fighter

Okay, so one has a bit of time to think of silly things while doing laundry by hand.

So my new alter ego, MSF, tackled the overflowing laundry basket that I've been ignoring for a while. Spent a few hours scrubbing clothes, bed linens, my welcome and bathroom mats, and my towel. If you want a good upper arm workout, wash your sheets by hand. Hmm, scrubbing the mats was a good workout too. Plus they're all bright and clean now, and the sheets smell great. As frustrating as it is to do all of it by hand, I've found that not only is it a useful skill, but my clothes look new longer. Another plus is since we have a water catchment tank (catches rain water), I don't have to haul water to do my laundry (or for any other reason).

Tricks I've discovered for dealing with stains: 1) if you can rinse it before it dries, do so (During training I spilled chocolate ice cream on my white skirt. I went to the ladies room and rinses it out and scrubbed the worse parts with a bit of hand soap. Since it was just a small section of my skirt, it didn't take me soaking the whole thing. By the time I finished you couldn't even tell I'd spilled anything), 2) use the nifty bar laundry soap they sell here and then let it soak for a while, 3) soak the darn object in bleach (or the color safe alternative), 4) dye the thing a darker color (I haven't had to use this one yet, but I have a few things I'm contemplating dying just to make them look better), 5) use the stained object for yard work, cleaning, and other things that require older, rattier clothes.

Other than laundry, I didn't do a whole lot today. But I figure it was a big accomplishment to get all of my laundry done. Spent the rest of the day reading and doing little odd and end things. Then I made "Poor Girl's Chicken Fettuccine" for dinner. Basically I cooked five chicken breast tenderloins with some Mrs. Dash garlic and herb stuff, made a box of Kraft "Cheesy Alfredo" pasta, mixed the chicken with the pasta and added some cherry tomatoes from my yard. Overall not a bad little dinner.

2 comments:

your friend the nurse said...

Sounds like a major accomplishment to me, to have done all that by hand. Of course, right now I don't think I could do a few handkerchiefs by hand since my upper body strength is lacking. Do they sell Fels Naptha for laundry soap or is it a different type of bar? I like reading these snap shots of your life.

Amanda said...

It is a pretty major accomplishment, especially when my laundry basket is piled high like it is at the moment. It doesn't help that it won't stop raining long enough for the clothes I washed Saturday to dry. I've got to go up and check to see if there is any room on my landlady's back veranda for me to hang some stuff. They sell powdered detergent, and bar soap. The bar soap brand (if it has one) is usually something like Power Blue. It comes in different shades of blue and thankfully isn't too tough on the skin.

I'm glad you like reading these little snapshots. I have some stuff I need to write about (like the camping trip I went on a few weeks ago) but just haven't gotten around to it yet. I've been slightly lacking in energy and ambition the past few weeks.