There it is. A real life look at what indoor clothes lines look like. Ain't it.. well, not pretty, but economical. :)
I've finally gotten two lines up, and the laundry is hanging. Karen Grassle certainly earned her money on the show just in the time she spent hanging laundry on those pesky lines. It takes awhile. Certainly longer than it took to toss the clothes from the washer to the dryer.
BUT, for the next two hours electricity won't be used to dry them.
Just because of space issues, it's hung between the window frame on the right side, to the door frame on the left. I used simple eyehooks, and got the clothes line from Home Depot. I've got 100' of line, and that's going to be enough for 4 lines. I've only got two up right now though.
I bought some links, they're like chain links only they screw open. The idea is that if I tie the line to the chain links, and then link the link (am I saying "link" enough?) to the eye screw, then it would be simple to take the line down in between uses. At the moment to take it down I need to untie and retie for every use. That's not hard, but it can wear out the ends of my rope.
Unfortunately, the links that I bought weren't wide enough to fit over the eye screw, so I need to exchange them for wider ones. When I redo this, hopefully I'll get some more of the slack out before I tie it up again.
It's not much. It isn't much at all.
But all this isn't about 'much'. It's about just being conscious. God doesn't work on the barter system. So, my way into Heaven doesn't become somehow more sure because I'm making some more changes. It's not like making my house less wasteful will somehow purchase for me a miracle, or signs or wonders. That's not what this is about - it's simply about something that's bugged me for a long time.
But change isn't easy.
Change looks weird. Changing things that I'm thinking about changing, those things change a way of life.
These things are beginning to grab me, and my thoughts have slowly begun twisting from blithe ignorance and thoughtless usage of 'stuff', to thinking about how much water I use, how much gas I use, how much stuff I throw away that might have had some other use.
Unfortunately, too often these things are only thoughts and never actions.
It's "normal" to say it, it's strange to 'do' it. So, turn your thought process around and do what you say.
... meanwhile, I sure hope my towel is dry by morning.
2 comments:
i did some of this growing up...and my mom had a long stick...or maybe it was a branch but it was long enough to prop the middle of the slack in the line...of course we did not prop it up until after we got the clothes hung on it when we were young. i seem to remember the line being made out of wire back then. when we visited in new zeland everyone had outdoor clothes lines...the weather is much better there year round than in oregon. they had the fancy ones on a pole that turned round and looked like a giant tv antena.
Actually those fancy ones on a pole that look like giant tv antennas are still available. At least if you're talking about what I think you're talking about. :)
I almost bought something similar until the thought struck me that the whole point of this was to go au natural. So I hefted myself up to Home Depot to figure out how to get the lines up.
I've gone back since then, and now I have some supplies to get up a line or two outside. Apparently this is much better because outside is more wind and more wind means less stiff laundry.
I tell ya, I could have stood some of those towels up and made a card house out of them.
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