Water stuff

First of all - Happy first annual World Oceans Day!! Go HERE to check out information about this inaugural event.

In other news, our washer finally bit the dust. It has been making these terrible noises for months even though Wayne has tried everything in his handyman power to fix it. Finally it just quit. Now, it wasn't quite as tragic as the death of Sir Washie but ya know, it stunk. The conversation went like this:

Wayne: The washer isn't working.

Me: What do you mean?

Wayne: I mean that it isn't working.

Me: What? HOW is it not working?

Wayne: Like it isn't DOING anything!

Me: Nothing?

Wayne: What did I just say???

Me: Really? Nothing? Have you tried the buttons?

Wayne: Blank stare ::Realizes this is going nowhere and walks away::

So ok - I get it. Not working. Oh goodie - just what I wanted to do today - go spend $1000!! Whoppeeee! Not. Wayne could fix it for a couple hundred bucks but it is kind of old and will be petering out anyway so we just bit the bullet. We decided to just go ahead and get another washer and a dryer even though the dryer works perfectly well. We donated the dryer to our local humane society so that will be going to good use.

We go to Home Depot to pick out a set and Wayne wanted to be sure they were made in the US. Score! Maytag is made in the US and they had a set that we liked that was reasonably priced. Have you gone looking at washers lately? I'm looking at some of them like - uh, can you put a CD in this thing or something? What is this huge panel of buttons for? I mean, how much do you really need a washer to do? Does it wash your car too? With all of this crazy technology WHY, for the love of all that's yarny, can they not make ONE machine that is both a washer and a dryer?? I'm not talking about an over/under here - I mean one machine. Think how much space that would free up for more yarn storage!

Then, the woman tells us it will be 8 days before it can be delivered. Seriously? Holy cow. She says that it is in the warehouse in Atlanta and it will have to come up from there so the soonest they could get it here was 8 days from now. Sheesh. I guess I am used to shopping in Atlanta at noon and they tell you "We can have it there by 5 if you like!". Oh well. I'll be wetting my fiber for dyeing in the sink for a while.

So, last Thursday it got delivered. We had to get a top load because of the whole using the washer to wet out fiber thing (I really don't see the appeal of a front loading washer anyhow). BEHOLD!



I know - that is probably the most un-exciting picture I have ever posted on this blog - but there you have it. Now, my only beef with this washer is that is was OBVIOUSLY not designed for someone to soak their fiber in. We made sure that we got an "energy star" efficient set, right? Because we are all about living as green as we can (we are currently looking into solar panels - I am so excited about that!). But, the problem with this model is that it auto-senses the amount of clothes you have in there and then fills up the tub to the correct level, thus saving water. Well, that's all fine and good - for clothes. Not so much for fiber. I always fill the washer first (on the lowest water level) and THEN put the fiber in because I don't want the water pouring onto the yarn, right? Well, with this model I can't select the water level and then just let it fill up. If you open the lid, it just automatically assumes that you are a moron and fills up to the highest level - which of course is overkill for fiber so I would never do that and waste all of that water. SO, I'll be working on figuring out a way to make this work.

I know you all wanted a commentary on my new washer. Class dismissed.