Laundry.

Y'all like to know random minutia about my life, right?

In the interest of promoting the minutia, I present my thoughts on laundry. Laundry in Boston, specifically.

Think back with me (those of you who followed my chronicles of life in Ukraine) to my days of the tiny European washing machine (that I was REALLY grateful to have, by the way) and line-drying on the enclosed balcony (that I was also grateful for). I had moments like this that really challenged my homemaking skills, but for the most part, things just worked out. I mean, I had to wait an hour and 20 minutes for a handful of items to wash, but that was just not a big deal.

Boston laundry is a different beast, but it comes with it's own unique set of challenges. Firstly, let me say that we are very blessed to have laundry facilities (one washer and two dryers) in our building. When we were here in May, we looked at an apartment less than a block away that did not have in-building facilities, and the residents had to haul their laundry to a laundromat down the street. Our washer is $2.00 and the dryers are $1.75. It's kind of a bummer to watch our money slowly disappear into the washing machine, and it's definitely a pain to make sure we always have quarters on hand. We gained a new appreciation for our washing costs recently, though, when we learned that a friend of ours who lives across town not only has to haul her laundry across the street...she has to pay $4.00 a load just to wash. Yeah. That's a pain.

Now, although our laundry facilities are in the building, that doesn't mean that the whole laundry situation comes without frustrations attached. The biggest one (to me) is that the laundry is in the basement (which is the same level as us, so at least I don't have to do stairs). The thing about the basement is that it's dark and dank and scarier than the Forbidden Forest or Shelob's Lair or something. It's soooooo creepy in there! And, the light switches are not even a little bit close to our door. Santa may or may not have brought me a headlamp for Christmas, and I may or may not put it to use to get to the lightswitch... Do not judge until you have ventured into the blackness, y'all. I HATE going in there alone. It's the perfect setting for a mystery to take place in. And, yes, that's all I can think about when I'm in there. Shiver...

We have found some ways to save on our laundry expenses, though. Living on a graduate student's budget has prompted our financial creativity. It's sort of like a game for us, because we're cool and like financial-figuring games.

1. We stopped paying for the dryers. This isn't the most convenient options, but it saves us several dollars a week...which adds up over the long run. My mom got us this handy laundry-hanging contraption when we moved here, and we put it to good use. We hang things on the hanging contraption, in the shower, and even on doorknobs from time-to-time. It totally works for us, and so far, we don't really mind it. With our dry gas heat, our clothes dry very quickly, too. We are open to reconsidering once little Miss Boswell is on the scene. We're flexible like that.

2. We make use of the multitudes of towels and wash cloths that we got when we got married. We have quite the stash, and we use 'em up so that we just do a load of towels once every few weeks. That way, they're not taking up lots of valuable room in the washer each week. 

3. We carefully evaluate just how dirty our clothing got during the course of the day. I realize that this isn't everyone's cup of tea, and you may now be judging us and our hygiene. I can live with that; we never smell bad or look rumpled (well, at least not from our re-wearing practices), and we like keeping our quarters as long as we can.

4. We don't turn our noses up at hand-me-downs. When our friend, Karl, left Boston, he let us have all kinds of goodies from his apartment, which included a LOT of laundry detergent. It's not the kind we typically buy, but we didn't even bat an eyelash. We were happy to help him clean out his apartment! (incidentally, we also scored a box fan, loads of lightbulbs, and all manner of kitchen goodies. We really miss that Karl and his generosity...)

That's a little run-down of laundry in our building. It's been on my mind today, as I've made several trips into the dark unknown today, using my headlamp to search the dark crannies for monsters and creepers. Not sure what I'd do if I found one...hurl my worn-many-times-over clothing at them and hope that it freaks them out? I'll work on a solution. 

Happy weekend!