Our new clothes line

The local power company is really stepping up. It now mails out energy usage comparison reports. We got ours last week and our gas usage is 38% below energy efficient homes in our area that are similar in size.  However, our electricity usage is 47% higher! This is simply unacceptable. I unplugged the toaster oven, microwave, phone chargers, and powered off all the computers (we have many) and tablets. Husband told me that our electric dryer uses up quite a bit of energy. So... I put up a clothes line.

Hanging clothes to dry in the sun is a common practice in other parts of the world. 

Image by Wikipedia

Burano Island, Italy. Image by SuperStock. 

Croatia. Image by theimagefile. 

Lisbon, Portugal. Image by agefotostock.

Growing up, our apartment building looked a lot like this. We lived on the top floor of a 24-storey building.  We would accidentally drop socks and clothes clips, among other things, quite often and had to go down 24 floors to find them. There was no guarantee we would see them again and when we did, they may not be in their original forms. I remember hoping no pedestrian would get hit. Luckily we lived on the top floor so there was no worries of other residents' clothing ending up on our clothes line!

Hong Kong. Image by smugmug.

One sunny afternoon, I had B help me try out our clothes line. He decided this is more fun than riding his bike. 

I turned the jeans inside out so the color doesn't fade in the sun. Strategically, he clipped on to the pockets. I thought that was pretty clever.

In no time, we're all done. 

He's now hitting the ball in the back. Do you spy the ball?

Such a simple thing and I felt so good about it. It not only brought back some childhood memories but also fit right in with my effort to get back to a basic and simple life.