the simple life

image by flickr user ajrpix

This will be the first of a series of posts, based upon simple practices my family has incorporated into our lives to live simply.

It is very much in the line of modernity to find a device that we must all buy that will solve all our problems. When this applied to the home, household appliances and related devices becomes the saviour of housewives everywhere; or at least that is the story we are told. The truth is much more murky. Take this story for example.

Over the last year or so our clothes dryer has acquired an extreme squeak. I say extreme, because you could literally hear it down the street, with doors/windows/and any other thing closed to muffle the noise. This summer though we haven’t has to endure the obnoxious & embarrassing noise. Early Spring I had been talking about how I needed to put up a clothes line. A friend had told me, depending on your model, your dryer uses enough electricity to cost you upwards of $1.50 per load of dried clothes. That really put an imperative to find an alternative drying method.

I never did get around to putting up that clothes line. Instead I found a much better way. I lucked out in acquiring a ‘drying rack’, & subsequently another smaller one. What it is, is simply an accordion style object with dowel rods as racks to lay clothing across. It is extremely efficient—though you can’t have things dry in an hour, clothes are generally dry the next day—you don’t have to pay for any electricity or maintenance on an appliance.

The only caveat, it will make a lot of cotton based clothing very stiff. I simply put these items in the dryer for 10 minutes on fluff. I enjoy having a covered patio area where I can leave the racks so I don’t don’t have trouble even when it rains, which a traditional clothes line would.

I don’t exactly why, I can’t example it but the change of process is very nice. The simplification of the method, taking out the unnecessary appliance, makes for a nicer experience. Maybe it is simply the hipness of ‘going green’ or the ‘back to basics’ attitude that is so cool that has me enjoying this. I want to say that there is something more to it all, I want to point into the abyss to some deep metaphysical truth about why this is good. But I can’t, so as in reading rainbow style, “don’t take my word for it…”