Line Drying

It occurs to me quite often that I'm becoming my mother. So I purposely attempt to avoid certain attributes of hers....such as not paying any attention to her appearance. I spent bookoo bucks on getting my hair cut and colored last week. Of course, after the awesome salon blowout/style, I go home, rumple it in my sleep, then get up in the AM and go for a sweaty run.

When I say I'm becoming my mother, I don't simply mean that because I'm a SAHM like she was. I mean in smaller idiosyncratic ways such as.....hanging clothes on the clothesline. I've become almost fanatic about not using my dryer. My hubby got me a wooden drying rack from the Amish shop for Xmas, which I dearly treasure and use constantly. Our house, which we purchased in summer 2008, has a very nice permanent wooden clothesline. It's about 10 feet long and has 8 lines...it's grade A clotheslining.

So I mentioned to Momoo that I have been line-drying our clothes almost exclusively. She didn't even seem surprised...she replied, "When we lived in Edwardsville I hung out all of our wash, and I did ALOT of laundry then since you kids were all home and not that old." I suppose she was secretly pleased that she had passed the torch. It still makes me feel like a throwback, despite her nonchalance.

I don't really have any way to itemize the savings from line-drying, but I know our electric bill is fairly reasonable. It also extends the life of clothing and adds much-needed humidity to our house air in the winter. The task itself I find somewhat soothing, and I love the excuse to be outside in the warm weather.