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Showing posts with label hacks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hacks. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

**Seen & Sharing** My Homemade Small Load Washing Machine

Necessity might well be the mother of invention, but poverty is the daddy. And I know poverty.

I am single - which equals never enough clothes for a wash load until there are too many for just a couple of loads. Also, it costs a buck per load to wash (another buck to dry) in the building. Also, I wash and rinse by hand my kitchen towels often - like every three or four days - and have been looking for an easier way.

So, I've mentioned that we have a type of community table in the lobby in this apartment building. When we residents are getting rid of something useful, we put it on the table so that someone else can take it for no charge. A while back, I got a basket full of artificial flowers and put them into a vase as decor for my bathroom.






















I've given (and taken) cans of food, beverages, planter pots, clothing, and wall art. Recently, I went to the table to put out some tea bags and an old juicer (that came from a thrift store this summer). This is what I found:



I still have to figure out how to use the grill, but...




 ... that Bubba mug. Wow, what a find.

It was really dirty from use and unwashed buildup, so I cleaned and bleached it out, but I have no intention of drinking out of it. The reason I got it is because it's one of the biggest thermal containers I have seen. (By the way, I do believe that at 52 ounces it actually is the biggest.) I was just curious about it. When I looked it up on Amazon, I started getting an idea for how to use it.

First, though, I have to back up and tell you about a product I had on my Amazon Wish List (before they dumped my reviews and I dumped all my lists). It was a portable washing machine similar to this one. The price isn't bad on that thing, but I don't have the money nonetheless. So, this is what I came up with using all free parts: The mug, a kitchen scrubber with a long handle, my soap and bleach, and some calorie-burning elbow grease.




Of course, the Bubba I have 52 ounces so, of course, this washing idea is only for small loads. I was able to do four of my sink towels.



It might sound silly, but this is why it works for me:

  • The insulated mug keeps the water at a pretty steady temp. If I need to, I can close the lid and let items soak.
  • I can add bleaches and other cleaning things and not get as much splashing as when I use the sink. 
  • Uses no electricity (except or boiling water in the tea kettle).
  • A load of wash costs us a dollar and the water never gets as hot as I like.
  • I often have only socks or a few towels in between my bi-weekly loads of wash.
  • This is better than what I've been doing which is using the sink or waiting until wash day.
  • The mug is easy to clean and store.
The first time I used this, I was thinking how great it would be to have the same thing - insulated container with a lid - on a bigger scale, but we all know I don't have the mind power or energy to do anywhere with that idea.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful to someone or sparks a creative idea in their mind. Knowing me, this seems like a great idea now, but I'll be wondering tomorrow what the hell was I thinking!

Peace
--Free

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Quickie Post: Multiple Uses for Ordinary Items

Hmmph! Some people on my list for lifehack mailouts* are such grumps. Fine, I will list my latest list of hacks I wanted to pass on here. For you. The gracious bunch of you.

Multi Uses for:

Other Goodies:


*I get most of my "hacks" from here. You can subscribe to a feed. Let me know of other good places for hacks.

Peace
--Free

Monday, October 28, 2013

When Life Hacks Get it Twisted

I love those "Life Hacks," but, sometimes, the best thing I get from them is a good laugh. Some things (in my life anyway) are just un-hackable. Maybe certain areas of my life are just not to be tamed. Here are a few hacks that I've run across that don't work so well for me:

Hack: Beating your phone addiction. My Life: Too late. I need a serious intervention.

I'm advised that instead of checking my phone first thing in the morning, I should spend my time "organizing my thoughts." Yeah. Okay. That would be great - if I didn't need my phone to wake up in the first place. I not only use my phone as a morning alarm, I sometimes use it as a noise machine for getting to sleep in the first place. (I love my phone so much that, if it had warm toes, I'd snuggle with it.) Once I do get up and think I might be able to function, I need my phone to outline my day. I even use this app (sometimes) so that I have something talking to me. (My phone is the only thing that wants to have a conversation with me before I've had coffee.) A few more years of becoming any more dependent on our phones, I imagine some of us will forget to breathe without Siri or her boyfriend reminding us. (By the way, is it sad that I've been thinking of naming my phone? Some days, I think of her as "Lou." Some days, I just call her "unresponsive bitch.")

Hack: Having "organizing stations" around our home. My Life: If I was that organized, I wouldn't need this.

This hack made me actually stop reading to roll my eyes. First off, there are 11 of these suggested stations. Eleven! Come on now. With my illness, I have the attention span of a toddler. I read the first one and started skimming the rest. Here are the listed stations: Mail/Correspondence, Wardrobe, Fix-it, Cleaning House, Gift Wrap, Charging, Bag Drop, Child's School, Recycling, Car Travel, Health/Wellness.

Well, damn. I had to rest after just going through the list. Talk about needing a Health/Wellness station... Actually, I have every one of those so-called "stations." They just aren't exactly organized. I even have a Child's School station (and no kids). That's for all the coloring books and pieces of crafts I collected when I was recuperating and learning to talk again in complete sentences. Some of the stations are just crazy. (A sister-in-law of mine did once have a Gift Wrap room, but she had a 20,000 square foot house. I guess she needed to do something with a good hunk of it to keep me from moving in.) I didn't even check to see what a Bag Drop station is. Unless it's where I keep my big Bed, Bath & Beyond bag of Walmart and Target bags... ~shrug~ What the hell ever.

Hack: Motivation to show up at workMy Life: I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.

Right now, there are days I dream of getting back to work. This whole idle lifestyle is the pits when you are too broke to turn idle time into fun. When I was working, I had all the motivation I needed: house note, car payment, $200 a month shopping habit and, oh yeah - mouths to feed. When I first saw this hack, I instantly remembered my mother and what she would say when I'd complain about my job: "You better get your happy ass up and get to that office. Hungry trumps tired any day." (I laughed so hard, I got a cramp. I really miss my mother!)

By the way, I actually did get a great tip from this hack. I will now be using the "Hemingway Technique" when it comes to writing.

Since I get a daily email feed of hacks, I could go on and on, but you get my point. You can hack some things, but life is, after all, life. Part of the adventure is to live it raw. Of course, I will take help where it helps.

Peace
--Free

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Still Yakking About Hacking

(I know that my post title is lame, but it gave me a moment of joy.)

Since I discovered hacks for cooking, cleaning, writing and exercising, I'm just all about the hack. Here are some more of my favorite (mostly) food hacks or sorta-hacks and hack sources. The hacks are sometimes hacky and sometimes just cool ideas. Use, enjoy and pass along.


That's enough for today. I'm going over to check out that Rapportive add-on...

Peace
--Free