07 April 2008

Waiting for Godot

I was just realizing that I haven't written a letter to a friend that is now overdue three weeks. I keep waiting for something interesting to happen in my life. Compared to so many blogers out there, in Italy, Israel, Singapore and other exciting spots (for vacation, I mean) my life seems boring. But if I keep waiting, I might as well just stop blogging, so here goes with what happened over the weekend:
  • 4 loads of laundry, washing, drying, folding

Some other bloggers have noted that they use a drying rack, but I can't quite figure that out. Either they have far more clothes than we do, or they must have a magic wand: it rains just about every day here and it would take days for jeans to dry on a rack. A load takes hours, with the slowness of the front load washer and then about another 90 minutes to dry. Then folding and putting away, which I generally try to do when the children aren't around:

  • 3 loads of dishes, putting away each time
  • Made a one pot ground turkey/rice/zucchini meal
  • Went grocery shopping (I need to go at least every other day just to get milk. Then I add whatever else I can manage to put in my trolley).

Saturday morning the German and Thing1 (with 'help' from Thing2) put together the playhouse that we had gotten from Ikea (with help from our very kind landlord: we saw the house last week but it wouldn't fit in our rented car, so he picked it up for us this week). The Things love it and it's a help to be able to let them go out and play in it when it rains (again!) and they are begging to go out.

Sunday I sent the German and the Things out to play in the (wonderful) playground at the Zoo after breakfast: I needed to clean up, put clothes away, get dinner/lunch ready and in general reclaim the apartment. It amazes me how rapidly the apartment degrades after a few hours of the children playing.

They came back just after it started to rain (again) and Thing 2 was sleeping so we just put her down for her nap. Then I fed the others and set off for the first meeting of a potential women's book swap/club. It was in a section of Berlin that's quite close but which I hadn't seen: Charlottenberg proper. I quite liked it (and its architecture) and I found myself walking by the Broken English store that Dr. J had mentioned.

The group was nice (although no times were set for another meeting- let's see how it goes) and it was so relaxing to my eyes to see an apartment that was painted and had colors- I am so tired of being in a sterile white environment! But while we never know how long we will be here, we really can't paint. This is the longest (6 months) I have ever lived anywhere without painting the walls.

5 comments:

Diane Mandy said...

Don't you dare stop blogging! I know what you mean by drying racks. I don't know how people use them. Of course, we went out and bought a Blomberg dryer. After running 2 hours and 2o minutes, the close aren't dry. So we end up hanging them anyway.

G in Berlin said...

Are there settings on your dryer? Ittook me hours until I figured out the correct settings- now 90 minutes is generally enough.

Do you vent inside? I do, and until I realized that I needed to empty the water conatiner during the cycle, it took longer. If you vent outside, how about cleaning the vent line?

Or, buy an LG dryer. They are great. Miele is also fine. gas is faster thanelectic (although we have electric).

swissmiss said...

Hi G,

Thanks for stopping by my blog and your comments on the poem.

As for the drying rack, in the bad weather I use it inside in the bathroom and on the good days out in the sun. Yeah, laundry here takes forever doesn't it!?

Diane Mandy said...

It's an inside vent, but the water never seems to fill up. I have so many settings I can't really figure out!

G in Berlin said...

There's your problem. If you have an inside vent and the water trap is not full after a load (and I overfill, to my mother-in-law's horror so sometimes I need to empty in the middle) then your dryer setting is wrong and you are doing some sort of tumble. My clothes used to get so hot they would steam and burn me if I touched them! I had to change the settings and I still line dry the kids shirts and anything with a decoration or sequins (or Nemo) on it.
Get someone to help you with the settings- perhaps the person who sold it to you.