Day 22: 0n Being Practical

Horror of horrors, I'm becoming a practical person. Darn it all! My angst ridden, Anne of Green Gables loving, teenage self would disown me. But it's true. Here's the latest proof. About two weeks ago, our dryer went kaput. When you put wet towels inside and turned it on, it made a very sick sound and stunk up the towels without drying them. Curses. Time to start dryer shopping!

I had literally talked to Luke the night before about saving up for a new dryer. Our old one drove me batty because you could only dry for 30 minutes at a time on the low heat setting, and so I would have to take multiple trips down to the basement just to get a stinking load of laundry dried. It was super annoying. The dryer was getting old anyways, so Lover and I discussed saving up for the next few months and purchasing a new one when there was a good sale early next year.

Unfortunately, the dryer had other plans. And while I like to think of myself as resourceful and hardworking, going without a dryer for the next several months was just too much to ask. I've got 2 kids under 2, remember? That creates a lot of laundry. I have to change Javi's sheets just about every day, and then there are the myriad of towels, blankets and other fabric items that need to be washed on a daily basis due to the presence of a certain newborn in the house.

If money was no option, and I wasn't being practical, these are the kind of machines I would like.



Actually, I don't want a front loading washer. I've read lots of reviews about how they get moldy, something we struggle with anyways in our damp climate. Also, I'm the kind of person who starts a load and then remembers that extra towel lying on the bathroom floor. So I need to be able to throw things in after the fact. But the dryer sure is pretty. But...

I'm turning into a practical person, remember? So Lover and I decided on a budget for a "new" dryer. And I started browsing Craigslist for an electric dryer, in our price range, with delivery. It took about a week, but we found a guy who fixes up old dryers with a General Electric dryer for sale for $70. He was willing to deliver the dryer to our house if we gave him our busted one. We settled on $65 and happily kissed our busted dryer goodbye.



I wanted an all white dryer with pretty controls. Or that turquoise front loader. But at the end of the day, what I really wanted was to be able to dry our clothes, towels and sheets in a timely manner without having to turn our basement into an enormous hanging rack. So the old GE dryer won out. And you know what? It works perfectly. And it's so quiet you can barely tell it's running. And my clothes are all dry. :) Here's to practicality!