Secret Garden
May 11th, 2008
I’ve never been so disappointed that I’m caught up on my laundry in my whole life, because my grocery store had the ENTIRE DOWNY FAMILY half off in some sort of fabric softener fire sale, and I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but … well two things. First, I love laundry. So much. I love doing laundry, smelling laundry, folding laundry, putting away laundry. I am the sole laundry-doer in my house and won’t let Adam NEAR the laundry. I would, in all seriousness, be a professional laundress with absolutely no complaints whatsoever. I know all the tricks. I am a master folder/hanger. I can get out any stain under the sun. And yes, I will absolutely do your laundry if you want me to, provided you let me bring my own supplies.
This brings me to my second point, which is that the only thing I love more than laundry is laundry PRODUCTS. I love and use it all: detergent, fabric softener AND dryer sheets, except on products that would be more absorbent in their absence (dish towels and dish cloths, basically. Bath towels totally get the softener, I don’t care). Tide and Downy Clean Breeze are my favorites, although I use mostly eco-friendly stuff now (I don’t know why except it makes me feel virtuous. It probably does nothing), except in case of SALE SALE SALE, like now. Half off! Half off everything! Expensive fancy Downy softener! Dryer sheets! Lavender and vanilla! Cashmere something! Pear and gardenia! I bought out the store!
Bottom line: I have an entirely new arsenal of products and no laundry to do. It’s like TORTURE.
Also, fun tip: You know that Downy Wrinkle Releaser that they sell for a bahollion dollars? Well, maybe not a bahollion, but more than it’s worth, anyway. First of all, it works to de-wrinkle stuff, yes, but what it REALLY works for is relaxing fabrics like, say, if you’ve accidentally shrunk something (who me?), or if that one seam isn’t quite laying right and an iron would just make it confusing (I’m thinking of smocked shirts and ruching, really. Things that are a bitch to iron). It’s brilliant stuff and will de-shrink almost anything except for wool sweaters and it freshens clothes too! But you shouldn’t buy it. Ever. What you SHOULD do is buy a cheap spray bottle and even cheaper fabric softer (I have a container of Nice N’ Fluffy for this purpose) and mix one part softener to five parts water. Voila! Downy Wrinkle Releaser! For pennies. You’re welcome.
Anyway, to answer a few very kind questions, no, I didn’t get the tubal flushing/Oompa Loompa treatment on Friday — that’s coming later, with some kind of crazy tube lube (um, ew?) but I DID adore my new gynecologist. ADORE. She spent an UNGODLY amount of time with me, and there was no leaning or inappropriate fondling and she didn’t talk down to me about charting. I did, however, get some other slightly unpleasant things in addition to an ultrasound, and Allison is totally right. My uterus was SO TINY. I let out an awed, “ooooh!” at what I thought was my uterus until the doctor said, “I know! Your bladder is really full! It’s HUGE!”
Ha HA. Yes, perhaps I should brush up on my anatomy before I go all Florence Nightingale on the world. But when I finally saw it, it was so tiny, like a baby T-bone steak! And the tubes are wee little shoelaces!
The only things that remotely matched my expectations were my ovaries, which resembled lychee nuts almost exactly. And though she got all excited and pointed to a follicle, I couldn’t see it and was craning my neck all, “Where’s the follicle? WHERE IS THE FOLLICLE?” like I was trying to see my unborn child in there, or perhaps the visage of the Virgin Mary, when it was just a FOLLICLE. Hence, my strange desire to become a part of the medical community. I’m still pissed I couldn’t find the follicle and would be even if it weren’t my own. Ultrasounds are way cool. Feel free to invite me to your next one so I can ogle your follicles.
Incidentally, I was wrong about the boob saga: it seems it rages on. My doctor got the report and wants to follow up with a boob specialist to be 100 percent sure, which even she admits is superfluous. I kind of love her for that, as she’s being overly cautious and that makes me feel very safe, but what I love even more is that her office makes the appointments like they’re my own personal secretary — this is true of any referral they make. I sit back and accept or reject appointment times based on my ever-changing whims while relaxing on a tuffet and eating Ben & Jerry’s. This is beyond awesome.
Anyway, the week ahead promises many, um, treasures, including a new freelance project, a new hairdresser (Tomorrow! Hold me) and Tuesday, I’m planting the first tier of my garden, which will include carrots, radishes, lettuce and beets. (Avid gardeners may think I’m late for this, but ha HA! We’re zone one. Which also includes Canada. It’s, um, COLD HERE.) Other tiers will include herbs, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. I’m genuinely frightened, for I have false hopes of lush, fruitful gardens of rich vegetables that will nourish our family for months to come and I have fantasies of … well, of canning. I know. This whole fantasy is ridiculous and bound for nothing but disappointment.
Also, random heads up that we’re moving servers this week, so there will be some downtime at some point, I don’t know when. Not that you’re waiting with bated breath or anything, but I know that I usually panic and think I’ve broken the Internet when I get an error, but if it’s here, I assure you, your Internets are fine. We’re just moving servers, that’s all. (Bluehost here we come! So, ah, if you hate them, speak now or forever hold your peace!)
Have a great Monday!
*Bruce Springsteen. I don’t normally like him, but I have a few albums. It’s sort of required, isn’t it, if you’re a music person? Along with Bob Dylan and The Beatles, among others. I don’t love them, either, but I appreciate them. It’s much the same with good ole Bruce.
Entry Filed under: Nuttin'
33 Comments Add your own
1. tutugirl1345 | May 11th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
That is the greatest laundry post ever! I totally starred it. Good luck with the hairdresser! I hope you have a great experience. (If you leave looking like Florence Henderson, I have some great tricks up my sleeve now for making it cute!)
2. Camels & Chocolate | May 11th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
You are a rare breed, and if I move to Vermont, I’m tracking you down. Because laundry, seriously? Though I must admit I do love the smell of clean clothes, but it’s the getting there that’s not always so fun…
Good luck to you and your boobs! Hope everything turns out OK.
3. Tessa | May 11th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
I also love the laundry. It’s the one thing in my life that makes me feel like I’ve completed something.
And I am crazy insane jealous that you found a GYN you love. Sure, you had to go through the leaning guy first, but I’m still jealous. My new one told me that I hadn’t gotten pregnant in 3.5 years of trying because I wasn’t trying hard enough, and suggested what I like to refer to as “three-a-days”. Seriously? That’s your full diagnosis? Great. I’ll be sure to pass that along to my mom when she asks.
4. She Likes Purple | May 11th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I am in such awe of you regarding laundry. Why don’t you live closer?? I’d ABSOLUTELY let you bring your own products!
And, you know, I have all those required albums you speak of but all because they remind me of being a kid and my dad blasting in the tape player and teaching us the meaning behind the lyrics. So, it’s not that I’m really a music person (Greenday is one of my favorite bands and that causes a lot of people to laugh at me). It’s just that they remind me so much of my childhood. “If I Should Fall Behind” will always be one of my favorite songs — and not the Faith Hill version.
5. Inzaburbs | May 11th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Unbelievable! I just this minute posted about laundry and how I fantasize about employing a washerwoman…
Please feel free to relocate to Texas at any time and take up this role – unpaid but I am sure you will enjoy it as much as … um … I don’t.
Of course, you would have to contend with the lack of clothes dryer. Are you up to the challenge?
6. Shana | May 11th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
You come do my laundry and I’ll pay you in airfare and mini Reese’s PB cups. Frick, I hate laundry with an all-consuming passion. It’s ETERNAL. LAUNDRY OF THE LIVING DEAD OMG.
We haven’t seen Sunny in awhile, you know. (I am reminded of this because I’m mostly caught up with laundry, but for the neverending dog laundry. Add a kid to my mix and you may as well shoot me. [Your kid, of course, will be different. And, with half-Jonna genes, will probably, like, want to do its own laundry. So unfair.])
7. Shana | May 11th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
P.S. You’re totally doing good with ditching Tide (and the other stuff). Tide has phosphates, which, if memory serves, jack with algae populations, which, in turn, jack with just about everything else. Reason #317 I won’t let the hub touch the laundry — he insists upon the most chemical-laden crap available.
8. Amy K | May 12th, 2008 at 12:59 am
Good luck with the new hairdresser! I hope he/she is as good as the last one but without, you know, all the weirdness.
I realized something about Bob Dylan recently. He has (or at least had) some bizarre and powerful charisma thing going on that just isn’t apparent unless you’re watching him sing. I’d always appreciated him for his songwriting skills but could never get past the nasal voice enough to really like him until I saw a 60s video of him performing It Ain’t Me, Babe a few weeks ago. Holy crap. My heart skipped a beat and I knew that if I’d been born a couple of decades sooner I would have been a groupie.
9. Swistle | May 12th, 2008 at 2:53 am
I am love/hate about laundry (I hate loads of itty-bitty white stuff, but I like choosing what to put in the washer, and I like the “processing” aspect of it), but I LOVE laundry products. I just bought several big things of Tide at 30% and then 50% off, plus I bought a new kind of fabric softener sheets. I use softener even on dish towels now, after years of avoiding it, and I’m not noticing absorbency problems. Considering the years I spent imagining that softener would make them practically REPEL WATER, it was a pleasant surprise.
10. Shelly | May 12th, 2008 at 4:59 am
Tide Lavender/some other fragrance and Downy Cashmere. My FAVES. I hate dryer sheets—they smell too strong, whereas Hubby LOVES them, so we fuss. We’ve compromised on unscented, but the full on sheets……too MUCH smell (and I love smell—just not fabric sheet smell)
The hard core canners may throttle me, but you know, you can freeze fresh produce too without the hassle of canning. Obviously, with different results, but frozen tomatoes—not good sliced, but makes fabulous sauces! And corn freezes quite well, too. Zucchini freezes well if grated (like to use in breads and soups).
The hairdresser thing doesn’t mess w/ me. I use the cheapo strip mall walk in places–I’m not too weird about my hair, and let them cut it and color it myself, with varying results. I can’t afford a ‘real’ hairdresser—even as cheap as they are around here, so I go with the generic, and probably LOOK like it too! Good luck with yours!!
11. Jess | May 12th, 2008 at 6:02 am
Somehow it makes sense to me that you are all about the laundry products and fabric softeners. I connect that stuff to perfume in my head, and we all know that you are an expert on that. Also, I’m surprised you didn’t go roll in a mud puddle or something when you got home, just for the opportunity to do some laundry.
12. elise | May 12th, 2008 at 6:42 am
Can I just mention how EXTREMELY JEALOUS I am that you love laundry? I mean, wow. I hate it, with the heat of a thousand fiery suns, and it piles up and up and up and makes my life chaotic and messy. And then I hate it even more. What I would give, just to love laundry!
Also, thanks for the Downy Wrinkle Release secret recipe! That’s awesome.
13. Heather B. | May 12th, 2008 at 7:09 am
Your Downy Wrinkle Releaser idea just made me want to make out with you.
THANK YOU!
14. Shamelessly Sassy | May 12th, 2008 at 7:22 am
I just don’t like putting the laundry away. the pretreating/washing/drying/folding thing..not so bad. But putting it up is the pits. Also, good luck with the garden. I love having enought tomatoes to can some for the winter. Loved garden grown canned tomatoes..Oh, how I love them.
15. H | May 12th, 2008 at 7:27 am
I’m also in zone 1 and I hate that we can’t plant sooner than mid-May. This year, I think we’ll have to wait until the end of May because the winter, it will never end. We had snow flakes floating through the air on Saturday. Thankfully, they melted as they hit the ground, but it was still snow — on May 10th! UGH! Will it never end?!
I love having home made canned salsa in the winter but I do freeze most of my veggies because it is easier and somehow the whole botulism thing freaks me out a bit. But canning is good.
16. Angella | May 12th, 2008 at 7:43 am
I love clean laundry, but am a lazy bum when it comes to the folding/putting away. I also have no idea where my iron is.
I laughed at how you are grouped with Canada and that we are COLD. Because, um, we are. We just planted some veggies this weekend and are going to buy flowers this week.
Also! Yay for Bluehost! They are awesome.
17. Carolyn J. | May 12th, 2008 at 8:51 am
OK I’m calling BS on you guys…you just can’t be in zone 1! Where the hell are you, generally? I live within driving distance of the Arctic and I’m in zone 3! *Digs out hardiness map*
18. Andrea | May 12th, 2008 at 9:28 am
You can get ANY stain out of clothes? I may have to put you on retainer for consultation as my son finds new and amazing ways to ruin his clothes. How do you get paint out? I’ve shouted and soaked, shouted and soaked, and never dried. Are the pants ruined?
I’m glad you found a non-creepy gynecologist. Every woman deserves at least that much. And I hope fervently that the plans in your future will include your musings on what your child looks like on an ultrasound. Because lo, those pictures can eff with a person’s mind. It’s like a Rorsach Test in pixels, and it can be fun. Also, your laundry skills will come in handy, and once you have a child, you WILL NEVER RUN OUT OF LAUNDRY. I promise.
Am jealous of your garden. I’d like to find an afternoon free enough to plant ours. Maybe this coming weekend. My schedule doesn’t allow for zones and such. I just plant an pray. Oh, and with the canning. You might want to read up on how to do it, which I’m sure you probably would do anyway. There are some canning blog posts at The Cleaner Plate Club (http://cleanerplateclub.wordpress.com/) that talk about how to do it right and if you get it wrong, it can grow botulism in the can/jar. Yeah, scary. Which is why I haven’t started canning, even though it sounds like something I’d enjoy. I’d end up poisoning my family.
19. jonniker | May 12th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Carolyn: Northern Vermont. And I … well, the zone thing is very confusing, for I get different answers when I look at them. An old copy of Crockett’s Victory Garden has us in HIS Zone 1, which is the United States continentals only — not including Yukon Territory and Alaska, which the Internets maps do. But I think we’re in most people’s zone 3 or 4. Bottom line: I can ONLY NOW start planting lettuces, peas, carrots and other root veggies. Tomatoes and the like aren’t until JUNE. JUNE. MY GOD.
20. -R- | May 12th, 2008 at 9:44 am
My mom was an avid canner when I was growing up; homemade canned pasta sauce, homemade canned veggies, and HOMEMADE CANNED PICKLES! I imagine you canning 100 jars of pickles and then eating them within one month. =)
21. Kristin H | May 12th, 2008 at 9:52 am
My theory on gardens is, I go ahead and plant as soon as possible. And while I don’t want my plants to die, if there should be a hard frost and they do die? I’ll plant them again. I must have garden tomatoes as early in the season as possible. (PS: No tomato plants were harmed in the writing of this comment.)
It has never, ever occured to me to try and enjoy laundry. But I am going to give it a try! Because it goes with my general life philosophy, which is “It’s all in how you look at it.” So many things can be better if you change how you look at it.
End philosophical laundry discussion.
22. Donna | May 12th, 2008 at 9:59 am
I thought you already found a hair stylist there. You did a post on how your hair color caused him trauma, yet he did it perfectly and for cheap. How come a new person?
I too vote for more Sunny news/photos.
Laundry is very much like filing. No big deal if you stay on top of it, but can become daunting if you don’t.
23. jonniker | May 12th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Donna: I did! But the last time I went there, he was clearly in utter panic about having to do my hair again. PANIC. He almost seemed like he didn’t want to. He was all, well, ah, I might be able to follow it again, but I ah, don’t know. And then he suggested plain blond highlights.
So, after a hairdresser accosted me at the co-op the other day and asked if he could do my hair, I figured why not? I like to try new things and if I ever want to change my hair up, I figured my dude wouldn’t ever be able to do it.
And well. It’s done now, and is the color of a strawberry ice cream cone. So basically? AM FOOL.
Andrea: What kind of paint? I’ve gotten oil-based paint out with some special stuff before, yes. Acrylic, too. But you must be gentle! Also, Shout sucks. It doesn’t work any better than regular detergent.
24. ali | May 12th, 2008 at 10:33 am
you don’t like the Beatles? what?
25. Shelly | May 12th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Ok, I know I post more than my fair share here, but I need to recommend GREASED LIGHTNING as a laundry pre-treater. I know, it’s a household all purpose cleaner, but folks, it takes grease stains THAT HAVE BEEN DRIED out…..most times. It takes a brush and some work, but does it EVER work. Not for use on delicate fabrics due to the heavy scrubbing, but so far, it’s gotten grimy football pants pearly white!
26. Ks Grandma | May 12th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
OK, I’ll bite. How does one fold those new fangled elastic on all 4 sides “fitted” sheets? I just recently got a new set of sheets, but the fitted one must be for some mattress on steroids because it is way “not fitted” in my world. Sigh I got 2 sets for that day when it’s raining and I need fresh sheets, but now I don’t even want to open the 2nd set as I can’t for the life of me figure out how to fold that fitted one, so basically, it has to come off of the line and go back onto the bed. Woe is me! And yes, my garden has tears too.
27. jonniker | May 12th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Ali: I don’t! I don’t! I mean, I APPRECIATE them for what they did, but I wouldn’t sit back and choose to listen to them, no. I love certain songs (Eleanor Rigby is my favorite), but other than that … meh.
Ks Grandma: I roll all fitted sheets. Folding them is considered to be a ridiculous endeavor in our household, and I find it’s best completely ignored on those sheets. I roll ‘em up and tuck ‘em with the rest of the sheets.
28. Shana | May 12th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
K’s Grandma: stick one of your hands in one corner, and the other in the corner next to it. Bring your hands together, and flip one corner over to cover the other. Do the same with the other corners, then flip them all together. Straighten out the folds and edges, then lay the quartered sheet on the bed. Fold in the flaps attached to the corners, so that all the mess is on top. Fold it up to whatever size you like, with all the elastic on the inside. It’s ridiculous, but it’s the generally-accepted way, I believe. It does make one wonder, though, decades after putting a man on the moon, why we haven’t come up with a better way of doing this, plus a cure for allergies.
29. jonniker | May 12th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Oh Shana. I love you. HA. I don’t know why, but this strikes me as hilarious, that right here in comments, we’re learning how to fold fitted sheets.
That sounds similar to what I do, except when the corners are all flipped together, I just roll it up like a sleeping bag and slip next to the folded other sheets.
30. ks grandma | May 13th, 2008 at 4:29 am
Well yes, it’s good to tend to the important stuff. I used to be the queen of folding fitted sheets when it was just the corners that were elasticized. But ugh, the all the way around thing. Probably just still pouting over losing my crown. But thanks! Maybe with practice I can at least have a tiny tiara for effort. Maybe not.
31. Lori | May 13th, 2008 at 5:39 am
Ok folding experts, how about waterbed sheets? Actually, I do the corner matching thing like fitted sheets, but it’s a PITA to do alone with king-size sheets.The big question: Does anyone know why they are attached to each other?
32. Beth | May 13th, 2008 at 11:35 am
You are aware, I am sure, that there is a strange confluence of the topics in this post in that reproduction involves more laundry than you can possibly imagine. I mean really, think about the most dirty laundry that a 10 pound person can possibly generate in a week. It is so much more than that. You will be in heaven,
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