Two weeks into my minimalist life – four to go. And I am noticing some things that I miss and forgot to pack for this temporary move. I wish I had my ironing board and iron. I didn’t think I ironed much. I don’t. But… and this is just plain dumb on my part. The clothes I put aside for me to wear for 6 weeks? Well, a good few of them need to be ironed.
The other thing is that when you only bring a limited amount of clothes with you… well you end up doing laundry more often. And guess what? Yep, no washing machine where I am. So yesterday, I finally carved out time in my day to go to the local laundrymat. Now it’s been a while since I used one so I wasn’t sure what I was in for. Thankfully there was a very nice, handsome, young man there doing his laundry who was more than happy to show me the ropes.
On one wall were washing machines – all shiny and new looking. They digitally told me how much to put in to do a wash. I looked around and saw more machines against another wall and went over to them. “Gosh, these are small dryers eh? How much do they cost to use?” The look on his face was a cross between someone about to cough and that look you get in hardware stores when you ask for a “thingy to hang my stuff”. I looked into the tub to see what was so amazing to him oblivious that it was me causing the reaction. “That’s a washing machine, top loading”. I turned to him in the smoothest of styles with the sweetest of smiles and said “I knew that”.
It cost me a total of $7 to do two largish loads. Not sure if that is a bargain. But they’re done.
The thing about moving, even if you are not doing the insane dance I am doing is that clothes do become an issue. We wear them every day and because I am not on holiday I need a greater variety or management system than I had first thought. Adding “planning laundry” to my schedule (which involves getting it all together and hiking it all outdoors) does complicate things. But I brought a great book, there was a wonderful cafe beside the laundrymat who were totally cool about my popping in and out to check on the laundry so I actually had a great afternoon.
Still need to find out how to iron my clothes though….