Life on the Flip Side: Laundry

Or in which I go crazy and air my dirty (and clean) laundry all over the internet.

I am going to be writing a series entitled: Life on the Flip Side: Learning how things work on the other side of the world. I want to record a little bit of how our daily life works right now, so I can remember later. I'm guessing this won't be the most interesting series for that many people, but I do know one person who will appreciate it (Hi Grandma!), so I figured I might as well go ahead and publish these thoughts.

Today I'll show you briefly how I do laundry, later I'll show you how we do some other things, which may or may not be more exciting.

Our laundry set up is on the balcony off of our bedroom. Our washing machine is a bit smaller than most in America, probably about half of the capacity of a standard American machine. Dryers also aren't common here and are hugely expensive, both to purchase and power, so we just do what most people do here and line dry all of our laundry. We have to bars on the balcony to hang the laundry to dry on. They can be raised and lowered with a crank. The balcony is covered so the laundry doesn't get rained on. It actually isn't a big deal to me to hang up the laundry with this set up and now I have helpers too.

I took these pictures on a day back in February when I needed to get three loads of laundry done in one day. I normally don't do more than one or two, but I got behind had to catch up. I figured taking pictures to blog about this process might motivate my to actually catch up.

Crank to raise and lower bars

I washed one load before I started taking pictures. But since the first load I washed was the diapers, it is probably a good thing, you don't really need to see our dirty diapers. You can use your imagination or not as you see fit.

In the washer you can see the clean diapers, a green washer ball (which helps ionize the water and decreases our need for detergent), a couple other colored washer balls (which increase agitation as this machine only has an agitator at the bottom), and off to the right side of the washing machine you can see my detergent and fabric softener.

Diapers are the highest priority laundry item around here, so on days I need to do more than one load, I try to wash these first. We don't want to run out of diapers. Even if split pants and no diapers are culturally appropriate; we don't use that method for many messy reasons.

Once the diapers are done I summon my minions subjects children/helpers and set a classical music timer to get us all hanging up the laundry fast. The only way I can get anything besides basic household chores done in the day is to have the kids help, so I train them to help as soon as they are able.

I spread out the diapers over the bars and railings to get then to dry as fast as possible.

My biggest helper can grab laundry from the machine and  clip them up while standing on a step ladder.

 

 And the littler helper clips up diaper wipes inside. Many hands make light work.

And we're down with load number one! Many days (and definitely if it is cold and rainy and things are taking a long time to dry) I would be all done with laundry for the day. But February was warm and dry and I needed to catch up on laundry.

Alright, moving right along to the second load. We don't use many paper products so I ask my helpers to bring me the handkerchiefs and the kitchen rag/towels as I start to load up the washer again.

Here comes a cutey with the handkerchiefs.

I add some homemade laundry detergent.

And I fill up my downy ball with vinegar for fabric softener. 

The only way to get hot or warm water to the washing machine is to carry it from the bathtub as the machine is only hooked up to cold. So if we want to run a load with a hot or warm wash, if we're trying to conserve water, of if our cold water has been shut off but we still have hot solar water from the roof, we fill buckets in the bathtub and fill up the machine that way.

Here I had taken a bath and then pretreated and let soak some laundry that needed extra attention. Then we filled the washer with water from the bathtub as well.

Full to the max and ready to go.

Alright, finished hanging up the second load by 1pm. All of my hanging bars and railings are completely full now and I would definitely be done with laundry most days. But it is fairly warm and dry so this will dry quickly. I throw one more load of wash into the machine to hang up later.

 We have some things to do and leave the house for a while.

When we come back in the evening I take down the sheets and diapers that are dry and hang up the last load in between any items that are still damp.

Because of the relatively small area,
everything gets hung on hangers and then hung perpendicular
to the bars to maximize the drying space

The little boys shirts and sweater vests are cute all hanging in a row. :)

And the boys are even cuter as they help me fold the diapers, while I take care of making the bed.

In case your wondering how helpful baby is in all of this, he still only has two jobs.

To dirty the diapers.

And be a good boy and smile when we play diaper peek-a-boo.

And we're done! Three loads of laundry washed. One and a half loads folded and put away. Time to read stories, eat treats, hug my boys, and go to bed.

If I blogged about laundry more often I might not get behind, my balcony would get cleaned more frequently, but any readers might be even more bored.

For the next Life on the Flip Side post I'll talk about shopping, which should be more interesting than laundry. And at least I have cute helpers to take pictures of.

DIY Post-it or Sticky Notebook Holder

I wanted to make a little gift to give a few friends here, so I made these quick Sticky Notebook Holders. I think they turned out quite cute, and everyone I gave them to seemed to like them. These little notebooks are an easy, quick, and frugal gift. Here is a quick look at how I made them.

Homemade Post-it or Sticky Notebook Holder

• Post-it or other sticky note pad(s)
• Cardstock, scrapbook paper, gift bag, or other decorative paper
• Button(s)
• Needle and thread
• Scissors
• Glue stick (optional)

1. First I cut out long rectangles out of the gift bag I was using for my decorative paper. I cut the rectangles slightly wider than the sticky notes and almost three times as long (about 4 inches by 9 inches). The exact dimensions of your rectangle will of course depend on what size sticky note pads you are using.
2. Fold the rectangle to fit sticky note pad. I tried to make folds to wrap around each side and then back around the front again halfway (at approximately 3.5 inches, then 0.25 inch further, then 3.5 inches, then 0.25 inch, leaving about 1.75 inches). Again your dimensions will depend on the size of your note pads.
3. Then I sewed a button onto the front cover. I sewed it onto the piece that went all of the way across the front and then tucked the half under it like a tab.
4. Lastly I stuck the sticky notepads into the cover. I used a glue stick to make sure they stayed.

Mandarin Mondays: Shoplifting is a Crime (The Chinglish FIles)

DIY Fresh Sugarcane (or Sugar Cane) Syrup

Alright, so here is quite a unique post and recipe (process?) that I am sure is not for everybody or to do everyday, but it was fun to try a couple of times. I also could find hardly any info online on how to make fresh sugar cane syrup with regular kitchen equipment, and while their may be a reason for this, maybe this post will be helpful to someone.

Perhaps the greatest thing about the food here in southern China, is that you can buy fresh items at the market that are practically unheard of in the states. I have seen sugar cane at a few Mexican supermarkets around New Years though, so if you have high quality ethnic markets nearby you may be able to find some sugar cane at certain times of the year. Anyway, sugar cane is very easy to get lots of seasonally in the spring here. Around spring festival time.

Getting unusual ingredients inspires us to try new, and sometimes crazy things. Most people here just chew on the sugar cane to taste the sugar and then spit out the fibrous pulp. We've done that too. But the regular sugar takes longer to dissolve and tastes more manufactured than in the states. So we wanted to see if we could make a simple syrup to sweeten drinks, pour on pancakes, and possibly even bake with.

Thus begins our little culinary adventure......

Homemade Sugar Cane Syrup Recipe (Using only regular kitchen equipment: knives, cutting board, blender, strainer, cheese cloth or tea towel, bowls, spoons, and pots)

• Fresh Sugar Cane
• Water
  
  
  
  1. The first step in the process (after finding the sugar cane) is cutting it into short lengths and removing the tough outer layer with a very sharp knife. When you buy it here, you can usually ask to have it removed and the friendly salesman will hack away like crazy with a giant clever and several pounds worth will be cleaned in minutes. This is totally the way to go. We had the outer layer removed from the first batch we bought by a professional, and then later we were actually given some free leftover sugar cane that still needed the outer layer removed. Our knife actually broke while trying to remove the outer layer ourselves, so the free batch might have actually cost us more in the long run. Anyway, long story short, remove the outer layer very carefully with a very sharp and very sturdy knife.
  
  
  
  
  
  2. Next cut the sugar cane into little pieces that your blender will be able to handle blending very small. (Side note: my blender isn't very powerful but it didn't have any problems. However, I already mentioned that we broke a kitchen knife the second time we did this, so use caution and good judgment and you may want to even try a small test batch to see if it seems like it is taxing you blender too much).
  
  
  
  
  
  3. Pour water to cover the sugar cane pieces in the blender. Put the lid on and pulse to blend into pulp.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  4. Now rig up a straining apparatus. I took a big bowl that a colander could hang down into and rest on, and then I covered the colander with a cheese cloth. You could also use a clean tea towel or other clean cloth. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  5. Pour the pulp into the colander and let the liquid drain into the bowl. Use a wooden spoon to really push on the pulp and squeeze all the liquid you can out of the pulp.
  6. Repeat the above steps as many times as necessary to process all of the sugar cane you have in batches your blender can handle. This may be the point when we started to question how much this syrup was really worth to us, but we persevered and chopped and blended quite a few batches of sugar cane.
  7. The next step is to put this liquid into a pot and slowly boil it down until you get the consistency you desire. You may have to scrape foam and impurities off from time to time to keep this from boiling over. I boiled ours down to about one third of the original volume and it seemed close to a 1:1 simple syrup (one cup of sugar to one cup of water), the same viscosity or "thickness"  as simple syrup, but not quite as sweet. I didn't want to keep watching the boiling pot at that point so I called it good and we used at that sweetness. You would have to boil it way, way, way down to get actual store bought sugar cane syrup consistency.
  
  
  
  
  
  8. After you are done boiling the syrup, you will need to strain the mixture again to remove more impurities. Then you can store the syrup in a bottle or jar in your refrigerator.
  
  We used this syrup in hot tea and coffee and over pancakes. It did have a bit of a "grassy" taste (imagine that a syrup made from a grass and water tasting grassy), but not bad and it does taste less manufactured to us than our regular white sugar here. The second time we repeated the process (except for breaking the knife), turned out the same and the syrup was equally good. It was quite good as a natural sweetener. Since we didn't get a huge amount of syrup, I didn't try baking with it. I don't know if we will actually try it again with just regular kitchen equipment, but it was a fun adventure slash science experiment.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Mandarin Mondays: Never Irritate Yourself (The Chinglish Files)