Don't Ring My Doorbell!

It's been awhile since I turned on my clothes dryer. When it's hot in the summer, I'm loathe to make it even hotter in my house by using it. I used to just do it at night once it's cooled down, but with the washer and dryer sitting right between the wee ones' bedrooms, and Little Miss especially being a light sleeper... well, that was a little hard.

I started out just not drying certain things. Swim suits are never dried to keep them from getting yucky. And I don't dry pjs to avoid removing the flame retardant. Oh and team jerseys should never be dried. In fact, they should rarely be washed in my mind.

But this summer, my house has started looking like this on laundry day.

And this:

And this:

And yep, even this:

I just stopped drying more and more things, and then it seemed so silly to run the dryer with so few clothes in it. And we've been so busy that I rarely had time to run more than one load in a day, so the clothes would sit waiting to be dried. This just seemed better.

And then I started thinking about the energy I was saving. I felt a little green. And then I saw a little more green as my gas bills were a bit lower -- or at least the usage was lower; gas rates have gone up a lot this year! That made me feel a little better.

My husband started questioning it when he saw the assorted laundry. He brought out the redneck factor, which I repudiated with the cool green factor. And really, I do sort of tend to get my way in the house. Especially since he's banned from doing laundry after ruining enough of my clothes. Have you ever seen a silk blouse after it's been through the washer and dryer?

My plan has been to get an outdoor line drying something. But I can't find what I'm really looking for. I don't want the lines that attach to the house and pull out because I don't want anything attached to the house. I don't want the ones that are out in the middle of the yard because I want to be able to put it away when I'm not using it (and I don't want to have to pour concrete in the yard). I need something bigger than the normal line drying racks, as the sheets need enough space to be hung. Really what I think I want is something like the one that gets planted in the middle of my yard but that sits in my patio furniture umbrella stand and folds up and goes away when I'm done.

Really, I'm probably not looking hard enough. I have searched a few times, in my defense.

So in the meantime, my house looks like this when I do laundry, and I'm ok with that. Fortunately, we have a lot of bannister space. The only time we have a problem is when I realize that the mom of a friend of Mister Man's is over to pick up the pirate hat her son left behind after a playdate and will be standing in my foyer staring at my whole family's laundry. Whoops.