Laundry

It's laundry time. I need to wash my clothes. I don't even want to tell you what I'm wearing. The day I was evacuated I was wearing heavy winter clothes, in layers. My final destination was a complete change in climate and land. Off came the long sleeve polo, tunic and long johns. Off came the winter coat. My undies I'd change on a regular basis. Some days I'd even forgo the bra. 

As I said before, it's wash day. Today I'm wearing my two piece bathing suit because I know I WILL get wet. I put my dirty clothes in a large trash bag and added water to it, then closed it up. I shook up the bag to make sure my clothes were fully wet. I reopened the bag and added only a half capful of hand washing detergent. I closed the bag, again, and shook it, hoping the water and clothes would suds up. A few minutes later I, once again, opened the bag and looked inside. Hmmm. Interesting. "Do I need to add another half a capful of detergent?" There were suds, but not too many. I really didn't want too many suds, because then I would need a lot of water to rinse them out. 

Phase two in washing my clothes had me transferring clothes from the bag to my bucket. One item at a time, I put the clothes under water and finished washing them out by hand. When I was done I rung them out completely before placing them in a bucket of clean water. Once again I rung out the clothes. Because water is such a commodity I still had some soap suds in my clothes. Still, the majority of my clothes were now clean. What did I clean? Five pairs of socks, all my briefs and bras, short sleeve polo shirt, tunics, navy blue leggings and shorts. I considered a second "load" for the polo shirt and leggings. But I decided, "Why do a second load for two pieces of clothing?" A full load is what's needed. 

My winter clothes will be washed later. I need to save water for now. 

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