Sorta Fail: Green Clothes Drying

In my blog reading over the past few years, I readily gleaned that clothes dryers use up lots of energy & cost money. I've always put off trying the clothesline or air drying methods due to convenience sake. This is one side affect of being a frugal, psuedo-minimalist and environmentally conscious person. Since I don't have a lot of certain clothing items, I need them to be clean and dry RIGHT NOW thus I've always used a dryer.

But today I had a bit of extra time, it was like 103 degrees outside (not exaggerating), and I decided to try out my roommate's clothes drying rack thingy since making all my clothes even hotter just felt wrong. So here's the rack.


And cue "You're not a minimalist, you fraud! You own more than two shirts! I can SEE them!" comments.

Heh.

Anywho. I ran the load of wash then hung my clothes to dry about 2:30 pm with high expectations of a brand new environmentally friendly approach to life and laundry.

In my in-and-outs over the next eight hours, the rack constantly brought up overwhelming feelings of unsettled angst over sighted, unfolded laundry. I can't stand unfolded laundry. (It's kinda like a unclosed parentheses.

But how can you fold laundry that's still wet? Sigh, patience! Inner strength! It's good for the world at large!

I finally came back at 10:00 pm, ready to fold, and go to bed. What do you know, eight hours later, it's still wet. Any dry spots felt like cardboard, and everything's got wrinkles to boot! I just threw the whole load in the dryer to finish up so I can fold dry, unwrinkled laundry and go to bed peacefully.

If I try this again, I'm going to have to find a spot out of sight & out of mind so my chi isn't messed up by unfolded laundry. And how do I not have wrinkly clothes?

) That's for all of you who were struggling with the unclosed parentheses.

FAIL: Attempted Purse Minimalism

Last week, my purse was featured on the Everyday Minimalist's "The Minimalist Wallet Series." At first I was extremely flattered, but became a bit miffed when most of the comments are like, "Um, yeah. That's a lot of stuff to carry around, and I'm not even a minimalist."

I'm not used to my being a "self-proclaimed minimalist" being critiqued since 1.) I live in the Midwest where NO ONE is actually a minimalist and 2.) I'm fairly sure my mom, sister & friends Tiffany & Reb are the only ones who read my random thoughts about minimalism and they're supportive regardless.

So a little criticism can't hurt? It can only push me into achieving greater levels of minimalism and thus complete zenlike personhood, right? Exactly! (enter evil, foreshadowing laughter...)

This evening, I had plans to get together with a few friends for drinks. I decided, "Yes! I am going to go WAY minimalist & not even TAKE my purse! It's pockets all the way for me people! I'm shedding this lug of a purse and taking only that which I truly need! Plus we're under a tornado watch due to the currently raging thunderstorm, so I don't want to be carrying lots of stuff." (This is also a good idea for me since in the last six months while out with friends, I have almost lost my purse once, almost lost my jacket twice, and truly lost a credit card once.) Less is OBVIOUSLY better.

Off I go! Armed only with my (replacement) credit card, driver's license, cell phone, some cash, & a single car key, I make my way downtown. I couldn't be more of a minimalist unless I became a nudist! WINNING!!!

I parked, turned to pick up my cell phone from the cupholder and, oops, dropped my single car key in that crevice next to the seat where it quickly became lodged in the seat-adjustment channel. Not good. My fingertips can gently brush the key, but there's no budging it. Ten minutes later, I contorted myself into the next Cirque du Soleil show trying to reach the key from all angles then thought, "If I hadn't pulled this key from the ring with the others, retrieving this wouldn't be wasting my time."

If only I had a pen...wait, that's in my purse. Hmm, if only I had a nail file & some gum...wait, both in my purse. Dang it, I'm very frustrated, & I need my chapstick!!! Also in my purse. Drat you, minimalist peer pressure!

At that point it was definitely raining, and my friends came to help me out. They quickly joined my Cirque du Soleil contortions, and after another five minutes, a friend with very small hands was able to retrieve the key.

My reaction- I don't like being unprepared and tonight, despite my minimalist WIN, I felt extremely unprepared. It's possible that my purse wouldn't have had the right tools to fish out that key, but at least I would have had more options to try. Good thing I have awesome friends!

I might not actually be a strict minimalist, but at least I usually have the tools I need to be prepared for certain worst-case scenarios. I might be a "preparative minimalist." And after all that time wasting, Cirque du Soleil-ing, and general frustration, a gin & tonic with friends never tasted so good :)

FAIL: eBay

Sorry to post two FAIL entries in a row. My life is going quite well at the moment, so I feel bad being Debbie Downer, but this one really was my own ignorance and I have learned much from the experience. Hopefully, this might help someone else avoid the same experience?

Last October after a stuff purge, I was inspired to try selling some of my things around town to hit the jackpot. Getting rid of stuff & making money off it, it's perfect! Here's that story. So this time around, I decided to try selling two items on eBay.

I listed my items, took pictures, wrote good descriptions, waited in agony for a week until the bidding was over, sold both items, figured out how to link PayPal with my eBay account, scoured my parent's basement for a proper shipping box, wrestled with a question, "Can a flag really fit in a manila envelope?" (which it can!), carefully wrapped each item and shipped them. I probably spent about three hours on this whole process. In the end, both items added together brought in $12.49. Shipping ended up being $9.06 providing me with a grand total profit of $3.43.

What I learned from the adventure:

• Sell small things on eBay
• Sell expensive things on eBay
• Charge lots and lots of $ for shipping on eBay
  
• I would much rather spend hours trying to save money than spend hours trying to make money
• eBay is too much work unless it's your full-time job or you are just really good at it

Until I figure out a better way to make $ off my old stuff, I am just going to give it away!

FAIL: Pillow Shams

What is up with pillow shams anyway? I'll be honest, interior decorating is really not my thing. I have no concept of what goes together, what's in, what looks good, why we have certain items, etc. However, lately I have been trying to combine decorating with my dad's sage advice of "Don't own stuff you don't like" and switched my bedspread from a so-called Bohemian pattern that I feel "meh" about to my plain black bedspread from college that I like much much much better. However, by switching I created a bit of a problem: Bohemian pattern had pillow shams and my college bedspread doesn't.

Many questions ran through my head as I tried to process this decorating dilemma. What do pillow shams do? Do I really need pillow shams? What do I gain by pillow shams? Why are they called pillow shams? Who will benefit from me having pillow shams? Will anyone notice if I don't have pillow shams?

I decided I should check out the options available for these strange bedding items since a little research couldn't hurt. First stop, Tuesday Morning the discount housewares store. I entered, hoping to find the Holy Grail of pillow shams but at 60% less than their department store counterparts. I located the shams only to discover an important detail in the world of shams: there are TWO kinds, the Euro sham and the Standard sham. Euro: 26"x26", Standard: 20"x26". I'm glad they put the measurements on the packages, but this is getting complicated. Tuesday Morning creeps me out, so I tried to ponder quickly and chose a Standard beige linen sham. The next day, I returned it. I am going to slightly tweak my Dad's advice to include "Don't shop at stores you don't like."

Today I had the day off, so I checked out the selection at Wal-Mart since they have a new line of interior decorating items, again hoping for a cheap solution to my naked pillows. No good. The new line of decorating items was very embroidered, very flowery, very pastel-y, very not the right solution for me. My third and last stop on the sham quest was Kohl's. At Kohl's, the bedding, along with the signs declaring a SALE, attacks you from the tiny aisles. Somehow, the brands of "Park Avenue," "Chaps" and "Hannah Montana" didn't do much for me. I did find a bedding design by Daisy Fuentes that could have made my bedroom look like a cheap brothel, but sad day, they only had Euro shams. Once again I walked away empty handed.

Since then, I have decided to try life without pillow shams. When I did have them, all I did with them was move them every night & again every morning. My dog enjoyed them as a comfy nap surface, but she has other options available. I'm still not sure if I've failed at interior decorating because I'm lazy or if I've succeeded in uncomplicating another aspect of my life. I'm thinking I'll just postpone the shams until I need them. But that would involve figuring out what one actually needs shams for...