Method of Madness

We have been married for a year and a half. We have lived in three different residences in that time. We have done our laundry differently in each place we've lived.

Method One. If you aren't familiar with The Chronicles of Our Apartment Part I and II and the ensuing, though thankfully short-lived, madness that resulted from our upstairs neighbors doing laundry in their sink, then you may not have realized we didn't have a washer or dryer. We most frequently did our laundry at the dorms at W&M. Since many of our clothes aren't dryer friendly and we didn't have a laundry room, we had to become rather creative when hang drying our clothes. After doing laundry our living room often looked like this:

(Although not visible, my favorite was probably the hanger tree... drape an article of clothing on one hanger and balance a hanger on either end (each also draped with an article of clothing), and place hangers on each end of those hangers... you get the idea.)
Method Two. A month after Addie was born we moved into the basement of some family friends in the DC metro area. They had both a washer and a dryer. Although it was a temporary living situation, and thus a temporary convenience... Doing laundry was heavenly.

Method Three. Our washer is as deep as a stack of 3 large Papa John's pizzas (man, that sounds soooo yummy!). I know you think I'm joking, but I really can't stress enough how small and shallow our washer is, and even though it hardly seems possible, they do carry/sell smaller units. But I digress. You see, to dry our clothes we sometimes do this:


It's not a bad method. My mom used to do pretty much the same thing during the summers of my childhood, and I still recall with fondness the smell of those line-dried clothes. The pitfalls of line drying in Almaty are: 1-Hanging out of a window four and a half stories high, 2-Dropping the item rather than clipping it to the line like you thought (it means your husband has to go down 4 1/2 flights of stairs to pick it up from the ground), 3-Having to plug your nose when you dress in said line-dried clothes, because although said clothes are clean, they don't smell good. There is not really such a thing as "fresh" air in a city of this size. I'm so completely serious.

Method Four. Wait a second. Four methods? Yes. You see, once the weather changes there comes a point when you can't hang your laundry outside. It's around the time when your apartment is freezing and you are anxiously awaiting the day when the city turns the heat on. Conveniently enough, the water heaters which warm your home then double as clothes heaters... Stack and heat until dry.

And in case your apartment is too dry, this works well as an alternative to a humidifier. Just what you always wanted, right? ;)

**Please note, this is post should be read as informative rather than whine-y. While handling an individual article of clothing up to as many as six times from start to finish of the laundering process is not my idea of a party, it's not THAT bad either. And I am learning, it could always be worse.**