Skip to main content

Bleach & a bucket

Daybook:  Do something with old, yellow pillowcases

There was a separate reason for sorting every single pillowcase by color, discovering at the end, there were 2, white, yellowed pillowcases, with petite, royal blue crochet trim, firmly and precisely attached to the outer hem of each.  It could not be ripped out and re-used.  One pillowcase had a tear and a hole.  Without bleaching, neither one was acceptable.

The perfect bucket for this project had sat on the backdoor stoop for months slowly filling with leaves. 

The first try was dicey.  Remove the leaves, put the bucket in the bathtub, rinse, fill with hot water, add bleach, insert the pillowcase up to but not quite at the hem.  Fasten the hem to the bucket handle which rested over the side, out of the water.  The angle of the handle relative to the water was shallow, and bleach water wicked into the hem and on to the trim.  Yanking the pillowcase out of the water, over the bathtub, hem-and-trim side up, gravity wicked the water downward and away. 

The second try went well.  More distance was put between the hem and the bleach water.  After 20 minutes both pillowcases were wrapped in a white towel to stanch the drips, hastily carried to a waiting, clean washing machine where hot, soapy water awaited.  Shut the lid, the machine set to gentle wash with a normal rinse. 

The blue trim emerged from the dryer, unscathed.  Refreshed, the pillowcases are less yellow and are more than willing to jump into the mending pile for repairs, and resume their place in the household rotation. 

Welcome, twins.

Popular posts from this blog

A fall day

  The early morning sun promised a clear, comfortable day ahead. Fifteen miles away, a crew of house movers lifted and transferred a tired, dusty-red cottage from its pillars onto a trailer.   The Cottage awoke from a long, abandoned slumber and turned its gaze inward.   Another truck gathered the porch that had been removed and set aside for moving purposes, and the cement pillars that held the house up off the ground.   Followed by a pickup truck carrying mandated signage indicating a wide load ahead, they caravanned out of the driveway, trundled up the county road to the highway, turned left towards the west.   It was a cool, dewy morning on Popcorn Road, like most fall days, except everyone was up a little earlier than usual.   This got all the animals’ attention as they wondered what was in it for them.   Breakfast earlier than usual?   A walk down to the river?   In the early days, as the House on Popcorn Road began to take form a...
Read more

Popcorn Road

Popcorn Road is an imaginary place out in the country about 60 miles in from the central Texas Gulf Coast.  It is far enough away from the coast that hurricanes begin to tire, and close enough to be a 1-hour drive to the beach. Popcorn Road starts outside some town along the coast, and ends in a T where it meets Wagon Road.  Wagon Road parallels the railroad that runs east-west across Texas.   A 2-story, 120-year-old farm house sits way back from the west-side corner of Popcorn and Wagon Roads.  This house has 2 large porches that run the length of the front of the house on both the 1st and 2nd floors.  The ceilings of both porches are painted sky blue.  The 2nd-floor porch was screened-in a while back to give the indoor cat some outdoor air. There is a large chicken coop behind and away from the house, and a large adjacent area is fenced off for the stray goats the family have been gifted with over the years.  Two dogs, one a large, tan Shepherd ...
Read more

Pinecone potatoes

Daybook:   Backyard.   This will take months.   Her mother was a gardener.  Her husband is a gardener.  She loves wildflowers, butterflies and birds and the smell of good dirt and manure, but not digging in the dirt. Months ago, the husband brought home what looked like 3" fused pinecones and left them on the dining room table, which is where they sat gathering dust, no explanation given.  They were hard and deep brown.  In clearing off the dining room one day, they were shifted to a cardboard box, out of the way.  Weeks later a thin, dark brown vine grew out of the box, exploring the cabinetry above.  They were alive.  She asked him, “What are these,” and he replied, “Some kind of potato.  MaryAnn gave them to me.”  ‘Rock-hard potatoes,’ she thought, 'Anything that wants to live that badly deserves water and dirt.'  She carried the 3 pinecone potatoes to the backdoor stoop to find them a home.   A larg...
Read more