The Washing Machine Works!

I feel like I left you all hanging after my daily updates on my washing machine saga. Work has been crazy busy, and combined with cleaning, planning and doing a few things for the various weddings I’m attending for the rest of the year (three of them!), blogging has not been in the cards. Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things again!

So the short version of my story is that the washing machine is finally fixed.

The parts finally came in, and I got a call from the repair company. When they wanted to schedule an appointment, I told them that I wanted the same guy as the last appointment, since he seemed to be the only one who knew what he was doing. Fortunately, that worked out.

The Saga Continues…

I’d like to say that since I was finally home (and relatively illness free) this weekend that I got a ton done around the house…but I’d be lying. After a long week at work, and all of the travel and sleeplessness, insomnia, jet lag, etc. of the last month, I was just plum exhausted. So yesterday was officially a lazy day – I decided that if I woke up and the weather was bad, I’d just be couchbound – and when I woke up, it was 45 and rainy.

Perfect inside weather!

Now, there is plenty I could do inside, and with all the spring-like weather lately, I should be working on some spring cleaning. But instead, I watched my DVR’d shows, took a nice long nap, and worked on some crochet projects. Today was more of the same, although I did get motivated enough to vacuum the whole house, and steam clean the first floor, as well as take all the garbage/recycling outside.

And it’s No Longer Funny…

Surprisingly, my washing machine saga is NOT concluded today.

The repairman showed up at 8:20 (which I wasn’t expecting), and after a few minutes of tinkering declared that the washing machine had been repaired.

He came in with the timer, and after he left, I noticed that the timer in the box that he left behind looked awfully new. Hmm.

He also said to me “I’m surprised this wasn’t done already.” And I explained about the wrong timer being ordered – I think he was just trying to cover himself by pretending he didn’t know about that. I let it go.

The Never-ending Washing Machine Saga

This has been one crazy month. I flew over 32,000 miles in 34 days, in 10 flights.

Needless to say, I’m EXHAUSTED.

I’m finally home for more than five minutes, and yet, my washing machine saga continues. When I last left you, the part for my washing machine was on order, and I was hopeful that I could get everything taken care of in between my travels. Despite feeling like total garbage after my first trip (the London-Italy-KL trip), I had to spend about six hours at my parents’ house doing laundry. It’s not as bad as it sounds, because they have a comfortable couch, so I set myself up with my laptop and the tv, and realized I didn’t have nudgy puppies bugging me like at home. So it was actually fairly restful.

But three weeks’ worth of laundry, which included virtually everything I own, meant that things were air drying everywhere. I left it all there late that night, and returned the following day to pick it up. Originally, my mom was supposed to be coming to my house to watch the pups, so I figured that she could be on hand to let the washing machine repairman in, so that everything would be right as rain when I returned from trip #2 to Dallas.

The Washing Machine Saga Continues…

So, as much as I wanted to put off dealing with my leaking washing machine, I decided to go ahead with contacting a repairman. I brought the bronchitis back with me from my trip, and have been steadily feeling worse, instead of better. So I had high hopes that I’d call the repairman, he’d immediately fix the washing machine, and I’d be able to do the loads upon loads of laundry that I brought back from my trip…in advance of the next trip I have. On Tuesday. Ugh.

But anyway.

I have a Maytag stackable washer/dryer. So while I pictured the Maytag man of the commercials (who never has to work because the machines are so well made), it occurred to me that I should go through them to get the machine serviced. And that was the easy part – I logged into their website, found the section I needed, plugged in my model and serial number and scheduled an appointment.

My Favorite Photo from KL

If you’d like to see a wider selection of my photos from Kuala Lumpur, I’ve got them over at my photography blog, here. However, I thought I’d share with you my favorite one – this was taken at Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur. And while these monkeys look sweet, darling and adorable, one of them did bite one of our delegates, without being provoked, so you want to stay far back from them! The telephoto lens helped!

Instagramming it

I made a resolution this year to do another 365 project, but this time using the Instagram app on my phone. I haven’t stuck to it that well, but I’ve definitely been using it more often, and playing around with some of the features. I’m also using a neat little app called PictureFrames, which allows me to put multiple shots in one image for a collage-type look.

Here are some of the shots I took on my trip, using Instagram:

Flying to Innsbruck!

Back from my World Tour

I had fully intended to arrange for posts to be published while I was globe trotting over the past twelve days, but the best laid plans, as they say…

I’m currently on the final flight of my journey for this trip – flight eight of eight in twelve days. And yes, that’s as exhausting as it sounds. We have been to England, Austria, Italy, Dubai (just the airport) and Malaysia, and I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed…for all of five minutes before I am off again.

It’s a busy month.

With only about 5 days home the entire month of March (yes, I’m serious), there isn’t much handy homeownering going on. But I can share with you a few photos from my recent travels, and you may want to know some of my tips for settling your house for a long trip away.

In the “Somedays I Just Can’t Win” Category…

So last night, all I wanted to do was watch the last three episodes of Downton Abbey. The first one that I hadn’t seen was airing at 6pm, and of course, I forgot – but luckily, I’d already set the DVR. I thought I’d just run the steam mop around quickly (as I’d been in bed on and off until three with a terrible migraine) and then jump into watching the show.

That might have been what happened if my washing machine hadn’t gone on the fritz. And by “on the fritz,” I mean, leaking like a sieve when it’s running.

It’s awesome. No, really.

I noticed it when water was coming out of the bathroom as I was cleaning. Fortunately, the steam cleaner has a water vacuum function, and it wasn’t a lot of water. I couldn’t figure out why it was happening – I can tell that it’s coming from the drain hose and not the incoming water pipes (fortunately!), but I don’t know if it’s because the machine is unbalanced or because there’s an actual leak. There seemed to be some feathers in the water, so it might even be a clog from washing my comforter the other day.

Spring…er, February Cleaning

So, the only cleaning chore I actually like doing is laundry. To me, it’s the most tangible – clothes are dirty, you put them in the washing machine and dryer, and they come out clean and smelling nice! Plus, it’s the only thing that the dogs can’t seem to dirty up immediately!

I realized recently that there are some spring cleaning-type things that I should be doing involving the laundry…like washing my pillows and comforter. I was reading in a magazine yesterday that you can, and should, wash pillows regularly, and it’s something that I forget to do. So tonight, after my regular laundry was finally finished, I put the pillows in with some fresh powdered detergent from Sweet Grass Farms. My mom had gotten me some of their laundry sachets for the dryer for Christmas, so I recently ordered some of their powdered detergent and fabric softener, and it does make my laundry smell so lovely and fresh.