I Need Some Laundry Advice

After having access to both a washer and dryer my entire adult life, I'm now without a dryer and trying to figure out a few things...

Such as how do you get clothes, especially jeans, to not feel all stiff and rough? I'm using fabric softener in the wash but what else can I do?

Gotta say, I do love the smell of things dried on the line. Quite a heady scent!

Over the past couple days I managed to get six loads washed, dried and put away. Major feat considering the washer takes about 2 hours to do a load. But that's just about enough time to dry a load on the line. On a sunny day.

Which it's not today. We had a storm blow through last night and the rain looks poised to continue off and on all day. So those final three loads will have to wait a day or two. And by then I'll have another one or two. I am so very grateful for the washer!!!

The hubby put his back out helping our friends on Thursday. I think it was wrenching out those fence posts. Anyway, he's had to spend a couple days recuperating from that so we haven't done any heavy duty stuff at the house yet.

He did put together our Poang chairs and they are SO comfortable!

And he's been browsing the papers for used cars, too. After talking to taxi drivers, shop owners, and anyone else he thought to ask, we've decided that a Renault, Peugeot or Fiat would be best since service and parts are readily available for those makes.

For some reason cars do not devalue as much or as rapidly as in the U.S. So while a new Fiat Uno is $26,000 pesos, a 1997 model is still $19,000! Someone explained to us that the wear and tear on an engine is not factored in, but they do count any kind of work they've ever had done on it, even new tires. Seems a bit odd since tires wear out and need to be replaced every few years, but that's the custom.

You can figure on three pesos to the dollar, give or take a little, so that $19,000 is basically $6,300 U.S. dollars. For an eleven year old car that's small and usually doesn't have any bells and whistles but does have lots of miles and the engine requiring an overhaul soon (if it hasn't already been done at least once).

Finding something decent that we can afford now is proving difficult but we continue to pray for God to provide the right car at the right time. Just like He provided our rental house, and allowed us to file all our D.N.I. paperwork in one day, and actually get our container through customs in a week. All of these have been huge blessings and we know He'll provide a car in His time. Meanwhile the hubby is getting quite the education on cars!

My education in Spanish is progressing as well. Some days it seems I can understand more of what is being said and other days I only manage to catch a few words here and there. And talking on the phone? Impossible! But both my hubby and tutor say they see improvement. Yeah!

In the coming week we hope to re-pack and store items we won't be using right away and keep chipping away at scrubbing the floors and painting the walls. Oh, and I'll be looking for the fabric to start making curtains for the living room. We found a store with the hardware we need to hang them up close to the ceiling.

Doing laundry, learning Spanish, buying a car, getting settled...all of it "poco a poco".