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.

World TB Day

Well Saturday was World Tuberculosis Day. Since it fell on a weekend, the health department I volunteer at decided to hold the event today. Myself and several of my co-workers went out into different clinics and hospitals to present on TB. We also made nice little poster board presentations to leave at the various places for the week.

I gave 4 talks on the subject at the local hospital. It was slightly chaotic since we gave the talks in the outpatient clinic areas (there was a lot of noise and movement). But most people seemed interested (and remarkably were able to hear and understand me). We even got a few questions. I thought my voice was gonna go toward the end since it felt like I'd been shouting. Other than that it was definitely a good morning.

This afternoon I spent making a PowerPoint slide show on a government assistance program they have here. My PC supervisor asked if I could do a presentation at an upcoming conference. This way other volunteers can learn some more about the program and maybe point it out to those in their communities who would benefit.

Came home washed a couple of items of clothing, but couldn't hang them on the line because of our daily afternoon rains. So the shirts I need for the conference are hanging on my shower curtain rod with my fan blowing at them. Hopefully I'll get the rest of my laundry done early enough this weekend that it will be dry by the time the afternoon rains hit. Ah the joys of doing laundry the old fashioned way.