We’re always looking for new ways to save money and a few weeks ago Zach had the brilliant idea that we should start hanging our laundry out to dry. He’d talked about doing it a little before, but there wasn’t a great place for us to set up clothes lines in our yard. The difference this time was that he came up with a place for the lines — our back porch! Since he set them up we’ve barely dried any laundry in the dryer. I’m quite looking forward to the savings on our power bill next month. We’re also feeling very smug about doing our laundry in an environmentally friendly way. When I smell a neighbor’s dryer running I think, “Well hmmm, hmmm, hmmm — look who’s destroying the planet! At least I’m doing my part to stop the polar ice caps from melting.” Of course, I was also drying my laundry in a dryer up until 3 weeks ago, so you should roll your eyes right now, Internet.
There are a couple of down-sides to this air drying business. The first is that none of us are that into crunchy bath towels. One of life’s great pleasures is stepping out of the shower and burying your wet face in a soft, warm bath towel and for now that joy is gone for us. Does anyone of my three or four readers know how to make your air-dried towels fluffy? I’d love to hear about it.
Another problem is that we tend to buy clothes in sizes that can shrink up a bit in the dryer and still fit comfortably. No dryer means no shrinkage though, so we all have a few pieces of clothing that we’re swimming around in. On the plus side, that does make us feel waifish and thin.
