My Clothesline Personal Challenge

The element in our dryer broke a week ago.  Again.  We just switched it out two years ago.  So we ordered the part.  And are waiting until the 15th when it arrives to have a working dryer again.

We are blessed and have a dryer we can borrow right across the road (thanks Mom!).  And I took advantage of that this past weekend.

 Then Bryan and I started looking at the weather forecast. It's supposed to be in the 60s and 70s for the next several days.  No rain.

And I looked outside at the clothesline that never gets used (except for picnic forts!).

And I decided that I rely WAY too much on electricity to dry my clothes.  With all the laundry we do, it's no wonder our dryer is falling to pieces. 

I got to thinking.  With the beautiful sunshine that God is shining down on us, why am I lugging laundry across the road to dry in an electric dryer?

Since I was going shopping and could pick up clothespins, I decided to give myself a challenge.  To not use any dryer, at least until our part arrives.  But I'm hoping that once I get in the groove, I can continue throughout the summer.

Ahh. The sight of laundry drying in the sunshine.

I'm now a few days into the challenge.  Here's what I am enjoying:

*The smell of sunshine on our clothing.  WAY better than any fabric softener smell or anything.

*Clothes don't get wrinkly if I leave them too long, like they do in the dryer.

*Our socks are winding up easier to match.  Before, we'd have one in one load and put it away in our mismatched sock tub.  Then the next one would come out a few loads later and it too would go to the tub.  Without getting matched. Now I can see both socks on the line, and match them.

*Sorting laundry for putting away is simple.  Take all the girl clothes off.  Take all the boy clothes off.  Take all the parent clothes off.  Take all the bathroom towels.  Take all the kitchen towels.  Put each into a separate basket and put away.  Done. 

*No lint trap to clean.  You know that lint is made up of clothing?  Kind of makes you wonder....

*No electricity.  At 3-5 loads a day, that's huge!

But of course it's not all wonderful.  Here are some areas I'm struggling with:

*Owen pulling clothes off the line. Seriously.  He thinks they are dangling there just for him!

*Running out of clothespins, and my pins breaking.  Guess that's what I get for buying the Dollar Tree variety.  I've had seven clothespins break apart since Monday.  Bryan is going to stop and buy some different ones for me tonight, thankfully! 

*Actually hanging the stuff.  It's a challenge for me to figure out which way to hang things, and how to best utilize my space.  Especially if I have larger items like bedding. 

*Embarrassment about certain undergarments hanging.  We do live right on the county road.  Which gets way more traffic than it used to.  I'm working around this one by using the middle lines for those articles and putting larger things on the outside around them, but it's still a personal struggle for me. 

*The towels are rough.  

*It's different.  I'm kind of a creature of habit.  This is different.  It's much easier to simply shove clothes into the dryer and turn it on.  This forces me to do something else.  It doesn't actually take that much time, it's just trying to get into a new routine.

But, despite my struggles, I'm enjoying the challenge.  I think I'll continue it as long as the weather allows.   However, I think I will start fluffing the towels eventually. Unless I get used to rough ones by then.  Which I don't think I will!

Any tips for a clothesline newbie?