You Can't Always Get What You Want

It's no secret I want a hobby farm.  Just five or ten or forty acres to fuel my dreams.  Only, at this point in our lives, we're not in a position to buy.  At least not yet.  However I've decided to be positive; to act "as if."

Now if we were to buy a farm we'd have to move.  And we'd either need to rent out our house or sell it.  Either way we'd have some cleaning and sprucing up to do.  So, acting as if we are going to move, I'm spring cleaning.

I started in the girls' room which was scary to say the least.  Cleaning that room resulted in a monumental pile of laundry.  And, thus, I began a laundry binge -- determined to clean every last bit in the house.

Now midway through my laundry fest my washing machine starting giving me a "sud" error message.  I'd just made a new batch of detergent using a new brand of soap.  I figured it was a little too sudsy and made a note to myself that I wouldn't use that soap in the future.  Then the machine took it one step further -- "F2".

According to Google the drain line was clogged.  I found a drill, an appropriately sized bit, took apart the front of the machine and cleaned the filter (which, by the way, was disgusting).  I put the whole thing back together, proudly dusted off my hands and continued to launder.

Of course things couldn't be that easy.  Next the dryer stopped drying.  Turns out I'd been a bit exuberant putting it back in place (after moving it to repair the washer) and the exhaust line was pinched off.  That little issue was fixed without too much trouble.

By this point most of our clothes were clean and I, in the laundry zone, moved on to other household items -- specifically the rugs in our house.  Bad idea.  Very bad idea.  

The rugs have (had) rubber mats on their undersides which came apart -- into tiny tiny pieces.  These pieces subsequently clogged the drain -- again.

But no fear!  I can fix it! I intrepidly removed the front of the washer, pulled out the filter, cleaned it and put the whole thing back together.

Only the washer still wasn't draining. Ugh.  I got back in there and cleaned the drain tube in front of the filter with a chop stick.  The clog broke free and a HUGE FLOOD of dirty smelly water spilled out onto my laundry room floor.  Yippee!

I mopped up the floor using every single towel in the house.  While mopping I discovered a slimy mess of now wet dog food under the washer.  That got cleaned too.  I pulled out the washer and dryer and cleaned behind them.  Then I discovered a hole in the dryer hose and repaired that.  Finally I put everything back together.

Then I washed the grungy dirty towels. Halfway through the wash cycle the filter clogged again.  And, yet again, I pulled the whole thing apart.  This time using sheets to catch the water because there were no more towels.  Of course it was more of those evil rubber pieces.  

As I type I am hoping my laundry adventures are complete.  The towels are still in the wash and appear to be completing their cycle.  I've purchased new rugs.

I've learned a few things along the way:

1) Sometimes it's better to spend a little money (i.e. I should've simply bought new rugs).

2) New rugs cost much less than a new washing machine.  Thankfully, hopefully, a new machine won't be needed.

3) "... you can't always get what you want, if you try sometimes well you might find, you get what you need."  In other words -- though a sparkly clean laundry room wasn't on my to do list, nor were lessons in washing machine repair, I got both.  Win-win.

4) And, finally, once the Rolling Stones are stuck in your head good luck kicking them out.

xo.