Of This And That . . .

I am so bummed. I really enjoyed my Netflix account. I had no problems with them — they had no problems with me. But I’m out due to a policy change.

What I find really ironic is that the day after I found out I couldn’t renew my account for October, I got four “Tell-A-Friend” cards in the mail. Apparently, they don’t want me for a customer, but they want me to recruit for them.

Not.

I’ve done a bit of Googling lately, trying to find a customer service email address — which doesn’t exist, by the way, so if that’s what you’re looking for, nothing to see here — and found all kinds of complaints about the service.

I can honestly say I never had any of the problems that seem so prevalent. Maybe it’s because I was renting stuff that no one else wanted. I’m not standing in line to get the latest releases — I was working on the 1001 Movies list which is mostly old stuff.

So I don’t have a grudge against them. The people I have a grudge against are the ones who insist on trying to play the system, get something for nothing, and end up ruining it for the rest of us.

I used to buy all my books from Amazon.com. Then they changed their policy and no longer accepted checks. Bye, Amazon!

Now, with the policy change at Netflix, same story. Bye, Netflix!

I refuse to become a ‘bot just so I can enjoy these services. I am the customer. These companies are supposed to be making it easier for me to purchase their products, not more difficult. These are, after all, luxury items, not necessities. I need air, food and water — and a roof over my head is pretty good too. Movies and books? They aren’t on that list.

I can only guess that there just aren’t enough people left out there like me to make a difference to these big companies. Losing a few hundred customers is barely a blip on the radar.

Well, guess what. It’s a “blip” here, too, and I’ll be over it soon enough. Probably even before I hit “Publish.”

I get the impression, sometimes, that everyone knows this stuff but me and I’m making these huge discoveries. But someone somewhere out there doesn’t know this, so here you go —

I know most people don’t have water filters. We here in Podunk are blessed with really nasty water that comes from our wells. The water is great — it’s all the rocks and iron and clay that’s in it that makes it nasty. But, I must say, considering what city folks have in their water, and what it smells like, I’ll take my little rocks any day of the week.

But I have to change the water filter once a week or so and I really hate that job. Mostly because the filter is in the closet with the water heater and I’m always afraid something’s going to jump out at me when I open that door. Nothing every has, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t just waiting for the perfect opportunity. It’s nice and warm and dark in there. I can think of a whole list of critters who would love to live there. Well, except for the poison that’s thoughtfully provided for them.

Okay, so when I change the water filter, I have to turn off the water to the house, of course, and then release the vacuum and wait for the water in the filter housing to drain out so I can open that up without it leaking all over the place. I used to set the timer for 15 minutes or so, but it never failed that at least every other time I did this, I wouldn’t hear the timer, or I’d get distracted by something else and not remember that I was in the middle of that job until I wanted to use the water — which is off, of course — to fix dinner or take a shower. Oops!

I don’t know why, but one day I flushed the toilet. Well, I probably do know why, and you probably do, too. I probably had to go potty after I started the filter-changing process! But, anyway, that drained the lines! Woo hoo!!!

Shut off the water — leave the faucets open — flush the toilet — change the filter! The water’s drained before I can even get back to the hot water heater closet to take out the dealie.

So, there you go. One of these days, this information is going to be important to you.

Writing my other post, I realized I made more changes to get my stuff from being stinky all the time, so figured in the spirit of full disclosure, I should divulge that, too.

I used to just do a load and it got into the dryer when it got into the dryer. So it was sitting in the washer, molding and mildewing, apparently, until I had time to put things away after they finished drying. So I don’t do that anymore. I don’t actually wash a load until I want to dry it, too.

But what I do do is start it the night before. I put all the stuff in — laundry soap and ammonia, if I’m using it — and let the tub fill and agitate a bit, but I don’t run the load. So the clothes basically soak all night. Then, when I get up in the morning, I finish the load, throw it in the dryer — that’s it. That’s how I get my load done every day. If I was still working a “real” job — and that’s in quotes because anyone who thinks staying home with a Kid isn’t a “real” job needs to get a close-up demonstration of my awesome round-kick — what I would probably do is start the load soaking before I went to work and finish it up when I got home.

So, I think it’s a combination of a lot of things, but my clothes aren’t stinky anymore and my washer isn’t, either. I read somewhere that you should fill the washer with hot water and vinegar once a month or so and clean it that way. And I did do that once — when I first started working on solving this problem — but I haven’t had to do it again, so that tells me something right there.

Okay — I think that’s it.

I thought I had posted this, but if I did I can’t find it. Since I made another batch today, I guess it’s as good a time as any.

I make my own laundry soap because I like to. Yes, it helps that it’s cheap, but if you like the smell of Ivory soap, you’ll love just doing this. The whole house smells of the stuff for days.

This kind of went hand-in-hand with using vinegar instead of fabric softener. My towels, especially, were always stinky as soon as they got wet. Since the rest of my stuff usually doesn’t get wet, it got me to thinking that it was probably not clean, and nasty, too, I just didn’t know it. I don’t know if it’s the water or the humidity — good for your hair and your skin, bad for everything else — but my things aren’t stinky anymore. So — cheap and not stinky. What more could you ask for?

And it’s easy. Yeah, it’s a little messy, but only because I am. Someone else could probably make up a batch of this stuff and even Martha Stewart wouldn’t be able to tell. But at my house, everyone knows because of the mess I make.

I use my food processor for this. Since I realized I pretty much never use it for anything else anymore — graters and knives are less work and easier to clean — the food processor is now dedicated to this, so we don’t bother cleaning it anymore. It is a pain to clean the soap out of it. So get a cheapie at a garage sale and save yourself that chore.

3-4.5 oz. bars of Ivory soap
2 cups of borax
2 cups of washing soda

Grate the soap, mix in the borax and washing soda, run it through the food processor and that’s it. It makes about eight cups of laundry soap — this lasts us about a month or so, depending on how much laundry I do. Following the Fly Lady schedule, I do about a load a day, but sometimes more, like when we wash the quilts and towels and stuff.

Be sure you’re getting washing soda. You aren’t looking for baking soda — that’s different stuff. My Wal-Mart has the borax, but, sneaky as they are, they have a big box of baking soda next to it, not washing soda, and they did trick me once. So I do have to go to a different store to get the washing soda, which is also Arm & Hammer, by the way, but that’s no big deal.

I have a 1/8-cup measure that we used for coffee. A scoop of that per load — a heaping scoop if it’s really dirty stuff — and that’s it. Really nasty stuff also gets a cup of ammonia — especially the whites — instead of bleach. We have a lot of clay or iron or something in the water. Don’t know what it is, but it turns everything this lovely shade of brown — looks kind of like the road outside. The ammonia helps with this, but the bleach didn’t. So I don’t use much bleach anymore.

There ya go.