Post Hurricane Challenges . . .
or . . .
Which is worse? No washer and dryer or no internet at place of residence?
If you blog and post photos, you know how important it is to have your favorite “image editor” on your own computer, which just ain’t gonna happen on a “borrowed” computer.
Not only that, it is also important to have access to the place you store all your edited photos so that you can readily plug them into your blog posts. That ain’t happening either on a borrowed computer.
Hands down, not having internet at place of residence is by far the worse of the two deprivations.
So I’m here to tell you how thankful I am to have a temporary residence; how sad I am that many folks still don’t have cable TV, much less cable internet; and how tired I am of toting my external hard drive, my camera and its computer USB cables (my card reader died on me), and a flash drive around with me in order to post.
I’m tired of hauling around clothes baskets of dirty laundry, bottles of detergent, and clothes hangers and imposing on my friends and acquaintances, and soon–strangers!
I’m tired of turning down visitors who want to stay at Camp Dularge–today a party of two for ten days next month. TEN DAYS!!!
Ok, I need a bucket brigade. We need buckets of bleach water and mops. We need respiratory masks so we can clean out my “down the bayou house”, rendering it temporarily livable until I get my house built above the flood plain.
Lil Sis and I worked with bleach in my old bedroom when she was down, and we could not get out into the fresh air fast enough! It just filled our nostrils and sinuses to the burning point. That stuff is deadly!
Ok, so this post is about griping and complainig to let you know I’m a little inconvenienced and not able to post as often as I would like. I have tons of photos I’d love to share with you that were taken last week on two of the fishing trips I went on. They are of the neat birds I observed while fishing. Maybe I’ll get to do it tonight, dragging along all the needed paraphanalia in order to do so.
Meanwhile, leave me some comments letting me know you understand my dilemma. Share with us a time when you had to wash clothes in a scrub board in the bath tub and hang them out your car windows, while you drove up and down the highway to speed dry them. Think I’m joking? LOL!
Looking forward to reading YOUR stories when I get back online.
Until then,
I’m your complaining and griping, but still blogging Bayou Woman
Pssst! I added a new page!
; 0) Lordy Woman! you have every right for feeling the way you do. We know you’re grateful for your Blessings and that you have compassion for others in your situation … but… you are human! You’re handling it a lot better than I would. I can’t get over the heartbreak you must have felt from the hit on the cottage alone. The paint had barely had time to dry.
You’ve got courage and strength but you also have feelings and it’s hard to keep getting up after each blow. You do it. (((BW))) take care!
yeah boy do I remember the laundromat! Got 13 years we lived with no electricity. I did some laundry by hand or with an old hand-cranked washer, but most of the time I hauled it to the laundromat, then home again to hang on the lines to dry.
This too shall pass, BW. It’s not what you wanted to be doing today or for the next month, but it is what you must do for the time being. No fun, but your friends are still out here and want to know what’s going on.
I lived in a pop up tent camper in 1983. It was ugly. Lantern under foam pad to keep from freezing. CO and fire be danged. Being drunk really helped.
Wouldn’t triple phosphate work instead of bleach? Do not mix the the two though.
How about a nice fully insulated reefer trailer or two? Plenty people living in shipping containers in the new economy, I hear.
I can’t beat Granny Sue or blufloyd but………I hauled dirty/clean clothes 28 miles one way to my mother-in-laws to wash. We didn’t have any laundromats around here for many years. I did that for 4 solid years until we could afford our own. I never take them for granted, even after 18 years.
I don’t know how you mamage the bleach without industrial biohazard suits. Please be careful.
Sorry. Don’t have a tale of laundry woe to add to these. My prescription is to go ahead and buy a new washer and dryer and do your laundry while you post.
If you’re serious about the bleach/tri-phosphate/whatever clean up, just let me know. I’ll bring a hoard down there in a flash.
Love, love, love you and am so proud of you. You’re my hero! When all this “stuff” is taken care of, we be goin on a vacation!
I remember putting cloths and soap in the bathtub and agitating with a (new) plunger then wringing out by hand and hanging to dry. I never take my washer/dryer for granted and realize how very lucky I am now days.
I’m glad Ann posted what she did about the plunger. I told our neighbor how to “make a washing machine” (and give her 8 yr. old son something to do) 3 days after Gustave. Same principle…plunger and a 5 gal. bucket w/ hole in the lid. Think old fashioned butter churn. Oh, I can picture it now…. Termite doing the agitating, you doing the rinsing and wringing. The clothes are then hung from the makeshift clothesline stretched between “The Cottage’s” front post to sway in the breeze. (Ya got to romanticize washday! If you don’t, it’s just work!)
I have a deep admiration for our ancestors, and grateful appreciation for our modern conveniences. I must admit though, I hang my sheets out to dry. Hubby and I Love that “sunshine smell” that lingers for several days.
Its SO SO SO nice to be able to here your voice again my dear! 🙂 I would come and help with the cleaning if I wasnt so dadgum far away!!!!!
For our first year in Augsburg, Germany, we couldn’t afford a washer, so I washed our clothes – and baby stuff, too! – by throwing them in the tub and then using my feet as the agitator! Europe didn’t have laundromats. Our tiny apartment had clothes hanging everywhere to dry on drying racks. When we first moved back to the USA in 1998, the log house apartment we lived in for a year and a half didn’t have access for laundry in the building, nor in any of the 10 apartments; so off we trucked to town (about 15 miles one way) twice weekly to the laundromats — no matter the weather (rainy, snowy, icy, hail, sunny). We homeschooled while we sat in the laundromat. There wasn’t anywhere to hang the clothes to dry outside at the cabin, so we had to use the dryers at the laundromat, too. Now that I have a washer and dryer in our house, I still utilize the “solar dryer” in my back yard now over the machine dryer… 🙂
While on outreaches all over the globe, we always did laundry by hand – and sometimes, leading teams with 30 or more children, I did laundry by hand for them all along with ours for weeks on end while traveling about. Our buses often looked like a driving suq or market as we cruised along to destinations with clothes drying! Ah, the memories… 🙂
I remember being pretty fed up with it all the first month in Augsburg, and the Lord spoke very clearly to me to use the time to reflect on Him – so my washing days took on the time for prayer, reciting scripture, singing hymns and chorus, and uh, “complaining” to God about my situation! 🙂 Our lives are in His Hand, and He plans our days for His glory, so as you endure this time, let me encourage you to seek His face as to what He would have you do with this season of re-settling into your home and life. You will overcome, prevail, and find the treasure He has for you in it all…even though it might be extremely obscure at the moment. You are loved. Praying and love to you.
Living on the road – we have no washer and dryer. I have had to wash my clothes in quite a variety of different places. Some not so nice. I remember the place in Maine that had leaves on the floor and half of the machine didn’t work. On the flip side – we have hit some super nice laundromats where it took us maybe 50 minutes to an hour to do 4 loads of clothes.
We also have to put up with limited connectivity with the internet. Which would I rather live without? I’d much rather have a hookup to the internet – hands down! It drives me bananas when i can’t keep up with all I do here.
Hopefully you’ll be back closer to normal – soon. Have you found enough bleach to get your other home liveable. Any help? How is it coming with that?
Okay, I need to understand this “sunshine smell” these clothesline enthusiasts are posting about. As long as I’ve lived (ahem, 26 years, ahem) I have never known exactly what people mean. (And we’ve had a clothesline before! That red one that looked like a spider web…) All I know is that most anything that comes in from outside smells like puppies on most occasions, especially styrofoam cups, (don’t ask), and unless you use fabric softener most fabrics are pretty scratchy when they’re sun-dried. So, someone please explain this scent to me!
And Mommer, I did have to wash clothes by hand once, believe it or not! In Mexico on my missions trip I ran out of clothes and had to wash them in the shower! The end result? Some kid in Mexico is running around in my favourite softball t-shirt! (Navy blue, #9!) I’m still sad I left it. It’d be the most comfortable shirt in the world by now (10 years later… wow…)!
Anyway, like I said yesterday, I know we’re not exactly neighbors but anytime you want to drive to Apt. B and do your laundry, you can!
Love, love LOVE the stories!!! And what excellent writers y’all are!!!
Vance, I don’t think I ever heard the washing your clothes with your feet story before! I mean, if doing the dishes gives you dishpan hands . . . . .?!!!!
Kim – I went to a new laundromat yesterday and was pleasantly surprised. I still brought the clothes home and put them on the line, though.
Dotter, I am going to let others explain if they will!
BW/Mommer