What's YOUR way?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Ramen - Never tried it. Sounds like too much trouble. I prefer items that jump onto my plate ready to eat.

Laundry - I will admit that my wife does 99% of the laundry, but when I do it goes something like this:

Washing

  1. Realize that I have to do laundry
  2. Mutter
  3. Slouch to laundry room
  4. Look at dirty clothes
  5. Mutter
  6. Sort clothes by dark, light, red.
  7. Debate whether striped item qualifies as dark or light. Make arbitrary decision.
  8. Put dark items in washer until full. Remember not to pack items down. Learned that lesson.
  9. Add detergent 'till it looks right
  10. Look at buttons on machine. Try to remember “Hot for whites, cold for colors? Feed a cold, starve a fever?”.
  11. Just turn the stupid machine on.
  12. Mutter

Drying

  1. Take cold clothes out of dryer. There are always cold clothes in the dryer. I think it’s a rule.
  2. Smell dryer sheet. If it is still adequately perfumey, throw it back in. Otherwise:
  3. Look for dryer sheets
  4. Mutter
  5. Fail to locate dryer sheets, give up.
  6. Take wet clothes from washer, throw into dryer.
  7. Look at buttons on dryer. Try to remember “Hot for cottons, cool for other stuff? Feed a cold, starve a fever?”.
  8. Just turn stupid machine on.
  9. Mutter

Repeat all steps for light items. Red items cannot be washed with anything except red items. Learned this lesson, too. The only problem is there is never enough red items for a load. I really have no idea how red items get clean.

The overwhelming majority of people have more than the average (mean) number of legs. – E. Grebenik

22

::giggling:: Amateurs! Yer all amateurs!

I do a minimum of TEN (yup, ten!) loads of laundry a week. Yesterday I stayed home from work with a sick child and have experience that blissful moment of having every item of clothing, towels, linens, etc., in the house clean at once! The hampers were empty! (This lasted until Eldest Son came home from school, pulled off his dirty socks, and tossed them on the floor. He’s recovering nicely, now, and the surgeon says . . . . )

About five years ago my in-laws gifted us with the super large size washer and drier (my father in law is retired from Sears, so he gets everything at a discount). I didn’t realize how significant this was until about a year and a half ago, when we were remodelling the house, I couldn’t use my machines for about a month. A friend let me bring my laundry to her place – it took FOREVER because she has a standard size machine. I think mine holds at least twice as much as hers does.

Oh – and Youngest Son’s favorite food is ramen noodles. Straight out of the pack. He puts the flavor packet in the seasonings drawer and tosses the ramen into a bowl, and eats it “raw.” He likes pasta this way, too.

-Melin

P.S. Chris CTP – we fold bath towels the same way! ::embracing kindred spirit::

23

Cristi- that is so funny! And so true, I do that too!

  1. Sort into 3 piles–must be washed, can wait a while, and why-is-this-here-it’s-still-clean.

Thanks for the laugh!

24

Ramen
[ul][li]Tear open cellopane package with teeth.[/li][li]Remove brick of noodles and flavor packet.[/li][li]Tear open flavor packet (with teeth).[/li][li]Sprinkle flavor packet on noodle brick.[/li][li]Munch on flavored noodle brick until consumed.[/li][li]Drink mass quantities.[/ul][/li]
Laundry
[ul][li]Jam everything in one load.[/li][li]Add a cup of cheap detergent, then add another (because its cheap).[/li][li]Turn washer on HOT/FAST/HEAVY SOIL.[/li][li]Eat another brick of noodles.[/li][li]Put wet monster wad of clothes in dryer.[/li][li]Retrieve change from bottom of washer.[/li][li]Turn dryer on HOT/COTTON/MORE DRY.[/li][li]Drink twelve pack.[/li][li]Stuff dry clothes in giganto-duffel bag.[/li][li]Pick bits of colored paper out of lint trap (insurance premium?)[/ul][/li]

TT

“Believe those who seek the truth.
Doubt those who find it.” --Andre Gide

25

Regarding questions about the cost of Ramen:

65 cents is a bit over the top, eh. I don’t know why I thought that would be a good guess at the nationwide average…

I generally can get 4 to six packs for a buck, depending on whether or not I’m buying “the good stuff”.

26

Cristi,
If you’re not gonna finish those bugs, can I have them?

Uke

27

Ramen Noodle:

Smash noodles still in package with a karate chop.
Put in pyrex bowl with cold water and seasoning.
Stuff in microwave for five minutes.
Eat straight from bowl.
Repeat daily.

Ramen Noodle Cost: 6/$1.00

Laundry:
Towels and kitchen towels are washed seperate because they can be put in the dryer at high heat.

The rest is simple:When they say wash whites seperately, they mean it.

I hang dry all shirts and most pants.

Iron is done only if a gun is put to my head.

I also only use 1/4 a cup of degerent to take care of the well water smell that we have here and only just started using fabric softener for the first time in my life. The whole house smells springtime fresh and it’s October. I’m so confused seasonally speaking.

I like doing laundry, i just hate putting it away.

Everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to help Mom with the dishes.-P.J. O’Rourke

28

Ramen.I love it!But then,I love sodium. I boil the water,then drop the whole brick in. Then drain it,put on half of the flavor packet(pork) and cut it with a knife! Laundry-1 load a week.All of it goes in,half a cup of detergent,knits,perm press setting. Take it out,put it in the dryer,(one cling free),take it out. Put it away(folded) immediately. ta da.

29

Ramen –

  1. Try to pick up the whole case of ramen noodles that my daughter’s friends scattered on the front lawn in some bizarre toilet-papering kind of prank.

  2. Try to convince squirrels that noodles are good to eat.

  3. Try to convince noodles to turn into grass seed and grow.

  4. Try to convince my wife that they actually look pretty good out there.

  5. Try to catch daughter’s friends in a dark alley with a baseball bat.

Laundry –

  1. Turn a deaf ear to my wife when she tries to get me to do the laundry.

  2. Hey! I do all the cooking and the dishes and she got to pick first.

  3. When coerced into doing laundry do it incompetently (accidents with bleach, washing dry-clean-only items, putting things in the dryer that shrink to child size) in a vain effort to get fired.

  4. Try to think of a comeback for my wife always bringing up the laundry and how beholden I am to her whenever I try to get out of some other chore.

  5. Tell the kids to do the laundry for their mother. However, see Step 3.

  6. Tell my wife she didn’t do it right. Apologize. Apologize again. Apologize for stuff I didn’t even do. Goto Step 3.

“If you had manifested fatigue upon noticing that you had been an ass, that would have been logical, that would have been rational; whereas it seems to me that to manifest surprise was to be again an ass.”
Mark Twain
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc

30

Ramen: I’m generally a instant lunch/cuppa soup kinda gal. That, you throw a mug of water in the microwave, pull it out, pour it over, and wait three minutes. Immensely painless.

But for the block kind, I boil water, throw in the block (don’t break the noodles!!), wait, add the seasoning, eat the noodles, and pour the excess water down the drain.

Laundry:

  1. Put clothes in washer.
  2. Pour capful of detergent over clothes.
  3. Come back in 20 min to find that there are no empty dryers.
  4. Stake out the dryers, and transfer clothes. Start dryers.
  5. Run back downstairs and toss in a dryer sheet per dryer. Start dryers again.
  6. Run back again and clean out lint traps. Start dryers once more.
  7. Come back to find that I have picked the only two dryers that do not have any heat. Decide not to stake out dryers again, and start dryers once more.
  8. Return and restart dryers.
  9. Remove everything but jeans. Transfer all jeans to one dryer, cross fingers and start dryer.
  10. Come down again (by now it’s 3 AM), and bring up my clothes.

Dorm life.

31

Ramen:
Start 2 cups of water boiling. Without opening the bag, smash the hell out of it with a meat tenderizer mallet. Don’t stop until the ramen is completely broken apart or the bag rips open. Carefully open the bag and fish out the seasoning packet. Boil the ramen. Add the seasoning. Eat soup. It’s a meal and a stress-reliever in one.

laundry:
I just do the typical darks-colors-whites separation. I only use liquid detergent and Downy (the ball is a wonderful invention). I hate the powdery stuff, and dryer sheets just don’t work as well. I don’t fold anything but my t-shirts. I might as well use the 10,000 hangers that I own.

32

Same thing for both: just throw 'em in hot water and agitate until done.

:wink:

33

Melin, I guess I forgot to mention that I also average at least ten loads of laundry a week, sometimes more.

I also have the heavy duty, extra large washer and dryer set, and still spend 15-18 hours per week doing laundry.

Shadowfox
“I had plastic surgery last week. I cut up my credit cards.”

  • Henny Youngman
34

Ramen:

  1. Bring some water to a boil. Break brick in half and toss in.
  2. In a skillet (or wok, now that I have one) begin to stir-fry some thawed frozen broccoli, chopped carrots, an onion, and whatever else I might have around.
  3. Mix the seasoning packet with a half-and-half mix of soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce, along with a good dose of Red Hot.
  4. After a few minutes, drain the noodles and add them to the skillet. Add the sauce. Stir until the sauce gets thick, but not so long that it dries out. Remove to a plate and enjoy.

My roommate and I once bought a case of Ramen at Sam’s Club. I’m pretty sure it worked out that they were paying us to take them.

Laundry:

  1. Go around apartment and gather clothes. Major groups are Towels, Socks and Underwear, and General Clothing. Dress shirts, scrubs, and lab coats are done separately. (We are supposed to just return our scrubs and get new ones, but fabric softener does them a world of good.)
  2. Place group into washer with a good capful of Tide with Bleach Alternative and the Downy Ball. Fire it up.
  3. Much later, move that group to the dryer and repeat with another group.
  4. Move clothes in dryer to the kitchen table, where they generally stay until they are worn, thrown to the floor, and the process repeats.

Dr. J

35

Ramen: Open pack, toss in washing machine, add flavoring packet. Set to Hot/warm/light load. Forget about it.

Laundry: Boil some water, add the whole load, add detergent flavoring, stir until it looks right.

Not quite the “proper” way, but I don’t have the time to get every detail exactly right.

36

Ramen: (hey, it’s cheap and I love noodle anything…)

Pound the heck out of the unopened package to break up the noodles. Otherwise they tangle up and end up dripping off my ears, elbows. etc.

Dump noodles in hot water. Toss the seasoning packet–it’s just a weird, chemical tasting salt lick. Instead, I use a little instant soup mix from the health food store, or Knorr’s. (I just keep it in little jars, to use bits at a time.)

Drain noodles, but keep a bit of water. Stir in soup stuff, bits of leftover meat or fish, some veggies, and season to taste, i.e. a jolt of tamari, a grinding of fresh ginger, or a solid slug of hot sauce or whatever. Decent eats, FAST, for under a buck.

Laundry:
I always keep a separate mesh bag/hamper for cold water delicate stuff. When it gets full, or I run out of clothes, hose, etc., then I toss it in, along w/ any dresses or whatever needs special care.

Then I hang them up to dry and walk into them on the way to the bathroom at night,
flailing away at damp hose and and cussing a blue streak. I accuse the dog of hanging up laundry in doorways. She grins at me sleepily and conks out again. (BTW, I hang stuff up in doorways because they’ll airdry over night, and it’s always stuff I need the next morning…)

Regular stuff:
Sort by color and fabric care; toss in as much as the washer can take without throwing up. Switch loads into dryer as I remember. The only stuff I wash in hot water are towels and sheets. And I hate the smell of flowery soaps and softeners.

God, I’m boring.

Veb