Sorry about that!

It's been crazy, I've been crazed.  Frankie wants to leave home.  Even Zorro and CC seem to sense Old Woman is about to go over the edge.  Excuse me, I've got to gain control.   It seems I either want to go into a fit of giggles, or bawl my eyes out.

I'm sick of being a home owner.  Maintenance, up-keep, repairs. There is always something, ALWAYS.

Saturday my clothes washer blew its pump and I have been spending the weekend washing clothes by hand. I'm surprised how easy it is to do.  And, believe it or not, (since I don't seem to have done laundry in a former life) I decided I had better research the best way to go about it.  Yes, folks, the Internet has web sites that will tell you how to do laundry by hand.

Surprisingly, I grew up in the era where women stockings came in two pieces, (not attached to each other) they each had a seam that ran up the back of each one, and these 'delicates' had to be washed by hand in the bathroom sink.  So, I was pretty sure I remembered how to do that and could be in control of my current situation. Amazingly I discovered I had indeed not forgotten how to wash clothes by hand.  

However, dealing with rather large pieces of clothing is very tricky.  The first load I pretty much 'sloshed' all over the kitchen sink counter...and...of course the floor. Thank goodness for paper towels...yes, I used paper towels to sop up the mess...I didn't want to make myself a separate load of cloth rags to wash.  

I quickly got the hang on exactly how much water I needed to fill the sink, and exactly how many pieces of clothes to add so that the water ended up about an inch and a half from the rim of the sink.  

At first I take each piece of clothing and dunk it up and down in and out of the water several times. (According to the Internet instructions) this dislodges the dirt. Then I allow the clothes to soak, depending on when I remembered the clothes were there they soaked anywhere for 20 minutes to 2 to 3 hours.  

The hardest part of this chore and the messiest, is squeezing the excess water out of each piece of clothing after the soapy wash and rinse water drain out.  The water eventually runs down my arms to my elbows. I gotta' tell ya' all that wringing made my hands hurt like heck after the first day,  And, here's a l-o-o-o-o-o-t of squeezing required doing laundry this way.  I thought about using my rolling pin to get rid of the excess water, but decided that might be a bad idea.  With my luck all that rolling in the bottom of my sink would surely break the seal around the drain, and water will leak under my sink so that not only will I have a repair bill from the appliance company, but a plumber, too.

So, squeeze I do, every single piece of clothing...not just once, but after each cycle.  By the time my machine is fixed (which could take a month, maybe more) I will be able to wrestle bears and alligators.  Grrrrrrrr, where do I sign up.

This is pretty much how my weekend went.  Load after load of laundry.  I can't remember how many I've done so far, but I can tell you I'm down to my last two (I was hoping I could cram the clothes in as one big load, but that's a 'no go' this morning.)  As a result one load is soaking in the sink as I write, while the last one sits on my kitchen step stool.  Oh, happy day, happy day.

Here's the thing.  I've decided until my machine is repaired, I'm going to continue doing a load of clothes a day.  When I put new clothes on in the morning, the ones from the day before will go directly into my kitchen sink.  I know this breaks a cardinal rule of laundry protocol, however, for the time being whites and colors will be washed together, they'll just have to get used to it..  Because I'm pretty sure I can live with that.

However, I'm sick, sick, sick of all this home owner junk.  I've got to start working on a plan to get into an affordable Independent Living Facility.  I like the idea of somebody taking care of me for a change.  I've been checking some places out.  There has got to be one out there in my price range.  What's nice is I can take Frankie, and pets are allowed.  Does that sound lovely, or what?