The Domesticity

So far, we've cooked a lot of meals ourselves this week. Went to the store and cooked them from scratch or defrosted something we had leftover (easier to cook for four than for two) at some point after I invested in freezer-safe containers.

Then the folding board came, and I wanted to fold stuff. So I had to do laundry. Our laundry basket was full, anyway, so I did it all. Today, the only loads big enough to warrant doing were towels and Iggy's blanket, all the rest was done or three items of the same sorting group (Our current sorting groups being darks, lights, coloreds, towels and dog). Boyfriend vacuumed today, which caused Iggy to pee on me when I picked him up to prevent him crawling God-knows-where, but that still didn't add enough laundry to the list.

Boyfriend wants soft and fluffy towels, and I sort of agree that our freshly washed towels have been a bit sandpapery as of late. The internet blamed our lack of dryer, our use of fabric softener and our spin cycle for this. I can afford a basic dryer, but not if I want to, say, have enough money left for another couple of months. We could swipe someone else's dryer, but we're lazy and it's a hassle. So I eliminated the fabric softener from the washing, added a rinse cycle to get rid of any leftover soap and fabric softener and programmed the machine to not spin.

When the machine had run its course, I realised I had just ordered the 'basically all your towels, done extra wet'. The natural consequence of this was that the towels, once hung up, gave us two options: mop or start building an ark. We put down the two oversized towels to catch the dripping while I washed Iggy's blanket (without laundry softener for his widdle nosey-wosey, but with a very thorough spin cycle, thank-you-very-much). After that, the towels were still soaked, but no longer actively wetting anything else. So I spun the oversized towels and washed them. And spun them. They're meant to stand on, not to wrap around our baby-soft bodies.

Then I realised our kitchen was a mess. And I mean a real mess. Boyfriend's gone back to buying bread of the non-sliced variety. This means, apart from that my bread consumption has plummeted because the slicing machine frightens me, that the counter and surrounding area's are covered in breadcrumbs. Oh, and we had dishes that desperately needed doing. Including a nice pile of hand-wash only dishes. And there were some groceries that had gotten forgotten behind the microwave and needed to find their place in the world kitchen. And some empty bottles that had fallen over and gotten hidden by the rest of the mess. Things pile up easily in kitchens the size of a three-dimensional postage stamp.

So I cleaned that.

We have a pile of empty plastic bottles, which need to be taken to a bottle bank in Germany (and I have no idea where one is located near us) which I feverishly wish gone.  A few minutes ago, there was also a creatively filled (read: smooshed together), big grocery bag full of old paper and recyclables, but Boyfriend was kind enough to remove those for me.

Still on my to-do list? Refolding the wardrobe, putting all the laundry we did in the wardrobe, finding stuff to cook for dinner on the days to come (though tomorrow is looking a lot like ordering-out-day), cleaning the oven and finding a non-conspicuous way to dispose of the icky old cutlery holder that is taking up space on our serving trolley. My current idea is stomping it to death while Boyfriend is out and then blaming Iggy when he gets home. He's already demonstrated his fierceness on the dust bunnies stuck in the broom and some paper towels we carelessly left in his reach. Who says he wouldn't destroy the hard plastic monstrosity when given half a chance?