crunch confession #02...

these are not my clothes.
we are not the family of funky jammie pants.

i'm going dryer-less.

for july, anyway. i recently read a great idea about giving up the clothes dryer for a month. and since jeremy JUST hung our clothesline up, and we're in the midst of a sweltering heat wave, AND i'm off work, what better reason to try?

i have to admit that while i love the smell of line-dried laundry, it can get a little, um, stiff. i was talking to my grandmother today (who's line dried her laundry every friday for probably 50 years) and she swears by tossing the laundry into the dryer for 5 minutes with a fabric softener sheet BEFORE hanging the clothes. she says it gets the wrinkles out and keeps everything nice and soft. but since we've given up fabric softener in place of vinegar (more on this change some other day) i'm not sure a pre-dry would be all that effective. a post tumble, maybe, but for the sake of diving in headfirst, i'm going to give up the dryer entirely. besides, a pre-dry or post-dry is an added step in the whole laundry process. i have a seven week old baby. i do NOT need any extra steps.

so here goes. all family laundry, including diapers. every pair of panties. every nursing pad.

every little baby sock and bootie.

what can i say? cute feet deserve cute footwear.

i confess that i have a nasty habit of using my dryer as an iron. when something's a little wrinkled, i'd much prefer to toss it in the dryer for 20 minutes than to haul out the ironing board from the closet, heat up the iron, IRON the piece of clothing, and put everything back. because half the time i've ironed something, i put it on and decide that i didn't really want to wear it anyway. that it wasn't the wrinkles that made me look crappy, it was the clothes themselves. then i shove it back in my closet, cursing the fact that i wasted time ironing.

i also throw things into the dryer to shrink back up after wearing them for awhile, especially jeans. giving up this habit shouldn't be nearly as hard, since i still have 10 extra baby pounds on me and i don't certainly don't need to be wearing anything skintight. not yet, anyway.

i wonder if going dryer-less (do you like this new word i've coined?) will be like giving up carbs or chocolate. you know, after you've done it for awhile you don't even miss it? we'll see. i hung dry a load of mine and lucy's clothes today and i swear it took like 15 minutes to get everything hung. i stubbed my toe in the process. later, it took another few minutes to get everything down. and now it's sitting in the living room, looking all forlorn cause nobody will fold it. sigh.

giving up the dryer. with grandma on my side, i can't go wrong, right?