one hundred loads

Who'd have thought that I could write one hundred posts with some connection to doing the washing and not run out of things to say? It's still all backed up on my head like an overflowing laundry trough... but  to mark this oh so momentous occasion, I thought I'd do a list of 100 laundry related things I might (or might not) write about one day....

...bananas wash their pajamas :: images of women washing clothes as a sign of poverty in depression era Australia :: the governments new exhortion for us to hang out the washing, as part of being climate clever :: an article about how to fold a fitted sheet and domestic goddesses, with a nod to the domestic gods :: gay foam bubble parties (features washing machine imagery) :: more magic faraway tree and the Dame that sends the water down the tree, always splashing one of the children :: more about my lint filter :: more about how G chides me for having a blog about something I don't  do very much of anymore :: the laundry pile on the table that has been waiting to be folded for days :: and how it magically gets done while I'm at work but when I'm at home the laundry folding fairies seem to go on strike ::G gave me his special stainless steel peg....

....and says he gave me the bamboo one but it seems to have gone missing :: more about washing hanging from the balconeys of flats :: pages of instruction from the Australian girl's book of crafts, pets, sports and hobbies :: since when was caring for your clothes a hobby? :: that low in iron ad where the woman is slumped over her ironing board :: the netball star with the hills hoist in the background, it's an ad for sneakers :: and there's one for chocolate with a roof top clothes line :: then there's the book about the kid who live in a high rise who envies the kid who lives on the ground, with evocative clothes drying images :: why are pictures of washing hanging out so prominent in children's books? :: pictures of washing in photography books :: garden design and washing lines :: my dream laundry :: laundries in houses that we're looking to buy :: Hills hoists and other clotheslines in potential houses....

....a conversation I had with an old friend of mine about how it's possible to move and straighten a Hills Hoist :: G says a line between two posts will do the same job :: but I am particularly fond of Hills Hoists :: Not the modern plastic ones, NO, NO, NO, but the old steel ones :: I don't really like those fold out washing lines either :: why aren't clotheslines part of modern backyard design? :: how home design magazines don't seem to feature laundries although there are lots of ads for washing machines and dryers :: and sometimes for laundry faffery, like shelves and tidies :: but no good laundry design :: In parts of the USA, people aren't allowed to hang their washing outside!!!!! :: Project Laundry List is campaigning to change that :: the old woman who lived in a shoe, of course she had a full line :: snow white doing the dwarves washing :: Mary Leunig and her washing machine pictures :: when all the odd socks match up :: the light that falls across white nappies on the hills hoist (endlessly, it would seem):: the scratchy feeling of terry towling napipes that have been drying in a hayfever laden spring wind :: bob dylan's laundry song :: that Neil Young CD cover with the row of washing on it :: I think there's a megadeth or metallica one too, but it's pretty gruesome :: looking at the silverbeet while hanging out the washing and simultaneously wishing that I didn't have to go to work tommorow so I could be hanging more washing out and being glad that I am going to work so I won't be.....

....how I tried to fold a fitted sheet and gave up instantly :: obviously I'm not a domestic goddess. Nor do I wish to be :: a time travel cartoon that features the heroine as a washer woman in deprived evil past :: I keep thinking that I must put Grace's soft toys from the oppy through the machine and out to dry one day :: but there never seems to be a confluence of time and good weather :: it's not the sort of thing G would feel comfortable doing, you know, putting toys in the washing machine:: I have no qualms about washing stuffed toys in the machine at all....

....not handmade toys though, even I'm not that much of a barbarian :: although I do find the sight of toys pegged to the clothes line unbearably cute and touching :: Grace still thinks doing the washing is fun, especially when she gets to hold one end of the laundry basket making the rounds of the house :: lately I've taken to washing anything black or delicate inside a pillow case, carrying the laundry bag theory to the extreme :: it does help with the lint :: if anyone reads all this, I should come and do their washing for a week... :: no, maybe a month :: but I won't. I think eleven people read this blog (not including family). which astounds me. :: my stats go much higher when other bloggers mention Mrs Washalot, but they don't hang around. :: like I've said before, I'm very OK with this blog being boring. It's quite liberating writing about (or around - now I sound like that irritating super ad) something as boring as doing the washing if and when you feel like it :: I've been writing this list since weekend before last, now it's nearly the weekend again, which means more laundry activity :: maybe I should do a load of blankets, seeing it's almost time to put them away...

....life is so much easier once the weather improves to the point that the washing is dry by night even if you don't hang it out first thing in the morning :: or have to dry it in front of the heater :: at boarding school we used to have big heated cupboards for drying washing in :: and once we had a party in the laundry just for something to do we were that bored :: laundromats, I love the look of laundromats :: I don't mind doing my washing there if we're on holdidays or something and I can read or go opshopping while the clothes are being done :: but life at home is too fast paced and multi tasked for laundromats. yes really. :: laundries in caravan parks are a joy too :: especially when you've been wearing the same clothes for days and even the t-shirt you keep clean for going to town is looking dodgy as :: chemicals, science and detergents....

....not that I know anything about that but I could learn, I like hardcore liquid laundry products :: eventhough I know how to make soap sludge :: and it's better for the environment :: and really cheap :: but it doesn't get your clothes really clean I don't find :: I've just seen the most absolutely fabulous laundromat mosiac here. Like drool making, please go and have a look :: There are several laundry related groups on Flickr, here, here and here :: And one for Hills Hoists :: And one just for pegs....

....I have a peg collection in a tin with a sailing boat and clouds on the front :: and pegs in little bowls around the house, used for such prosaic things as attaching tops to hangers :: the little bowls overflow and I run out of pegs on the line, buy more pegs and then am awash with pegs :: all I need to do is remember to put them back in the peg bucket :: I saw an ad in the paper today for a device that you can run your washing machine water through so that it's clean enough to put on the vegie patch :: sounds like a good idea, but is it just more chemicals? :: although we do use a fair bit of water for washing :: despite my washing minimisation schemes :: we're not that good really :: wicker washing baskets :: I love my wicker basket, it was my paternal grandfathers, I think :: along with my dirty washing basket with a lid that fits in a corner :: I like the stiff feeling of wind dried towells :: but I iron my work shirts and skirts and trousers, but not t-shirts :: and hankerchiefs when I remember while I have the iron out :: how I love an ironed hankie!

....and that's it in the laundry for the moment. Phew.