Line-Dried Laundry

I haven't used scented laundry detergents or fabric softeners in years. Seriously, years. I am au naturel. I like my laundry to be unscented. Which is what it always is when you use a tumble drier and unscented soap. And I have to tell you that I have never line-dried my clothes before, unless they were wet-from-the-pool suits and towels, which still smelled like chlorine even when dry.

But now...

I am so addicted to the smell of line-dried laundry. It's delicious! I would never have opted to give up my tumble dryer. That this rental didn't have one did give me pause, but now I wonder if I'll ever go back!

And here is a truly unexpected benefit of line drying the clothes: You can't get behind. When I had a clothes dryer, my laundry routine looked sort of like this:

Monday

Vow to get caught up on laundry. Have at least four loads, not counting sheets.

Tuesday

Three loads down! One to go. I'm awesome. Now, to find time to put away these stacks of clean clothes.

Wednesday

Fourth load smells sour after I left it in the washer too long. Re-wash. And Ollie knocked over all my stacks. Re-fold. Re-sort.

Thursday

Busy day with the kids. Kept forgetting about that load in the dryer. Re-tumbled four times to get stuff wrinkle-free. Need a dryer with a buzzer.

Friday

Finished! Still need to put it all away. Piled on dining room table for now. Move to bed so that I am forced to put away before bed tonight.

Friday - late

Stayed out late and got home to laundry piled on bed. Dang! Move to floor so we can sleep.

Saturday/Sunday

Giving myself the weekend off. Will deal with it on Monday.

Can you relate? Ugh, that was the story of my life! Chronically behind. I have know forever that the secret is to do one load a day. Duh. It's not rocket surgery. It's just laundry, and common sense.

For me, the very real constraint that the clothes are going to need about a half-day to dry keeps me on track. So I throw in a load before breakfast. Hang it out to dry. Fold it after dinner. Put it away before bedtime. (Okay, I still leave stacks of clean laundry sitting out, just begging Ollie to knock them over, but it's progress!)

How Did We Get Here?

I sort of blame it on Don Miller. His book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned while Editing My Life was one of those books that can be dangerous. In a good way.

Mike and I had both heard about the book from different people and then the book was given to us as a thank-you gift by a missionary friend of ours, Stacy, who stayed with us for a few days while she was in our town raising support.

Okay, okay, we'll read the book! 

The premise of the book is simply this: If some Hollywood producer were going to make a movie about your life, would anybody watch it? Would it be a movie set in an inspiring or interesting place? Populated by fascinating characters? Full of inciting incidents that require the main character to dig deep and do something significant, something not self-serving, something that changes him and the people around him for the good?

It was a great book that Mike and I both devoured in a day or two. I've since passed on my own copy and given it as a gift to at least four friends. It's that good.

So reading A Million Miles... was the catalyst. That's why I can only partly blame (credit?) Mr. Miller. For us, we'd been exploring the idea of living abroad for years.

We had talked about taking a job transfer to Montreal with UbiSoft (Mike's company) back in 1998 but since I'd just started grad school and we'd just bought our first house, the timing wasn't right. In early 2007, we were very close to taking a job transfer to UbiSoft's Paris headquarters but changed our minds when we found out we were pregnant with Ollie. 

How many Saturday mornings had Mike and I sat with our cups of coffee on the couch in our living room, daydreaming and trying to plot out possibilities? Starting a business? Living in the mountains? Going back to school? Selling everything and traveling in an RV like friends of ours? We even talked to a friend who runs an orphanage in Botswana about working for her. We felt trapped and stifled by commitments, financial and otherwise. We wanted out. While we loved our house with the fenced-in back yard, plenty of space, and neighborhood pool, it sometimes felt like we were prisoners of a mortgage and slaves to home maintenance. 

And where can you find the money to do the things you really want to do, even feel called to do, when your paycheck is spoken for? And where can you find the time to do those things, when you're overscheduled and living a too-big life?

Some people probably would be able to make small changes over time to live differently, smaller, more intentionally...but for us, it was just time to do it. Whatever IT was. So we started praying. And exploring options. 

Obviously, income was a biggie. Mike loves working for UbiSoft but after more than a decade at the Red Storm studio working on the realistic military genre (I'm out of my element here, so forgive the improper use of video game terminology!), he was looking for a bit of a change. UbiSoft has studios in more than 25 countries, so we started looking at different studios, the games made there, and whether they had openings suitable for Mike's skill set.

We narrowed it down to Newcastle, UK,  Barcelona, Spain, Paris, France, or Malmo, Sweden. We looked at things like city size, language barrier, crime rates, and climate. (Now you're saying, "Climate?! But you ended up in England!" to which I reply, "How's pollen season in North Carolina treating you right about now?" That's mean, I know. But funny.)

About this time, I broke the news to my girlfriends. Mike told his parents and I told mine. That went over like poo in the punchbowl, as they say. I think everyone is, basically, fine with it now though; in fact, through this blog and Skype, maybe they even feel more connected....? I don't know....I can't speak for them.

Fast forward to the last couple months of 2010. Mike traveled to Newcastle three times in November and December to do consulting work on their current project, the latest release in the Driver franchise. And then they offered him a job. Doing what he loves: Art direction. We were like, "Wow. Is this really happening?"

So many details worked out in such a short amount of time. He got his job offer on December 17 and was living here as a bachelor in a hotel room by February 4. The boys and I flew out to join him about 10 days later. 

The house? Rented.

Two cars? Sold.

Mangy felines? Placed with friends for the six-month waiting period for entry into the UK.

Furniture? Sold, donated, or stored in our home's attic.

Our belongings? Three yard sales to get rid of what we weren't bringing.

Everything else? Packed into boxes on February 14 and shipped by boat....we are STILL waiting for these boxes to arrive! Just two more days to go! Yay!

So that's pretty much the story of how we got here. Thanks for reading...

"Good things take time. Great things happen all at once."

- From the movie Rat Race, spoken by Breckin Meyer's character


If you are interested in reading Don Miller's book, you can buy it here (note: I don't make any profits from the sale of the book) or get it from your local library!

What Can You Live Without?

Could you live without a dryer? Our new house doesn't have one, but I don't mind.

I have talked about downsizing, simplifying, and decluttering for years. And I've taken steps in that direction slowly over time. All of that must have been preparation for this.

We arrived here with only the bags we carried onto the plane.

Back in NC, we stored some of our belongings for when we return. And we packed up some boxes to send via boat here to England--that stuff won't be here for another four to six weeks. Everything else: Sold, donated, given to friends, or tossed. If I had to put numbers on it, I'd say that we stored 20%, sent 10%, and got rid of 70% of the our things as we prepared for this move.

Was it hard?

Surprisingly, not really. I remember that Mike said, watching a very nice couple drove off in our (now, their) 2005 Audi A4 Wagon, "With everything we sell, I feel better and better. It feels so good to just let it go." Me, I was just in get-it-done mode, not really taking the time to reflect much. Now that I've had a chance to think about it, I've got no regrets.

And now we're here, waiting for our boxes to arrive. The movers said we were shipping about 2,000 pounds of stuff. As we live here for our second week without the contents of those boxes, I'm wondering if we really actually need it all. I'm also wondering where in this sweet little townhouse all of it will go!

What's been interesting is to track the mental tally of items that I really miss or need. My chef's knife. A cast iron skillet. A stock pot. Running shoes. Extra socks. Merrit's rain boots. Ollie's basket of matchbox cars. Pens and paper. My own pillow. All my big, fun earrings.

I'm missing my hair dryer, but I need to buy a new one because the outlets are different here. Haven't stumbled upon a beauty supply shop yet! So, my hair looks flat, but hey, it's raining, and no one knows me anyway! LOL.

I definitely can't wait four weeks to exercise, so I'm planning to buy new running shoes in the next day or two (again, not sure where to go for that, but I'm going to ask one of Mike's co-workers that I've met).

And, really, that about does it.

It's been very calming to live with just the essentials. With the exception of a few favorite things, I'm feeling very free and unfettered living without all that stuff. The pace here is so appealing. One load of laundry a day. Small loads of dishes in a small dishwasher; works for us since we've only got four bowls, four plates, four forks, etc. Carrying home groceries for that day's meals. Simple and fresh, and open to last-minute changes based on what you're in the mood for or what looks good at the butcher shop.

Am I in the honeymoon phase? Probably. :-)