How does the freeze drying work? I always wondered about it when they talked about freeze drying the wash during The Long Winter. Doesn't it just melt when it gets warm, making the clothes wet again?

Ooh, this is the business. I bet that's someone's late grandmother's bag and pins.

I'll have to ask my mom what clothespins she prefers. I know she has opinions (and actual clothespins, though I also know she won't part with them). I hope it's not that she's just managed to hold onto the good ones over the years...

I am a lazy bum who doesn't even have a clothesline, but I have cheap-ass wooden clothespins to hold my outgoing mail on my mailslot cover.

Eta: Pink Gingham FTW!

13 Little-Known Punctuation Marks We Should Be Using - Mental Floss

2. Percontation Point or Rhetorical Question Mark

The backward question mark was proposed by Henry Denham in 1580 as an end to a rhetorical question, and was used until the early 1600s.

3. Irony Mark

It looks a lot like the percontation point, but the irony mark’s location is a bit different, as it is smaller, elevated, and precedes a statement to indicate its intent before it is read. Alcanter de Brahm introduced the idea in the 19th century, and in 1966 French author Hervé Bazin proposed a similar glyph in his book, Plumons l’Oiseau, along with 5 other innovative marks.

I was hoping there'd be a sarcasm mark.

The SarcMark (short for “sarcasm mark”) was invented, copyrighted and trademarked by Paul Sak, and while it hasn’t seen widespread use, Sak markets it as “The official, easy-to-use punctuation mark to emphasize a sarcastic phrase, sentence or message.” Because half the fun of sarcasm is pointing it out [SarcMark].

And there's a snark mark!

I don't normally have that many loads to do, but my T-shirts and towels are clearly way out of control. I have no idea what "regular" looks like. My laundry sorts out into hard and soft, whites and colours, and I'll do a bag of whichever as soon as the need manifests, or a bagful has accumulated. I very rarely do All The Laundry.

Freeze dried clothes are still damp when they thaw, but whapping the cat with a frozen sock is one of the perks of winter. Though that sometimes results in a snapped sock.

edit: Yes, I have snapped socks. Not in two, but the fibers were compromised enough that several snapped when frozen, resulting in unwearable socks.

Desperately craving egg custard, no idea why.

I have no idea what this is. Apparently I have never had one.

If it's a windy cold day, the wind pretty much leaches most of the moisture out of the fabric before it freezes. Dump the basket on a bed in a heated room and toss it like a salad every ten-fifteen minutes for an hour, and you're good to fold and put away. Heavier stuff (jeans), hang on a pants hanger (or regular hanger with clothespins) on the shower rod, or a curtain rod till dry.

Or you could be a masochist like my mother (if you were a good wife, *you'd* do it this way, too!) and frikkin *iron* all the damp pieces dry. I've never been a good wife.

Mystery solved! I have been curious for year!

Egg Custard reminds me that I had no idea that all frozen ice cream from an ice cream machine wasn't custard. I thought that is just what you called the stuff on cones (vanilla, chocolate or twist). I think this is because Rochester is practically the home of frozen custard. (and white hots. And the garbage plate. And apparently Chicken French (which is served in Italian restaurants) )

I love the fact that you're familiar enough about clothespins and their use to *be* picky.

My opinion, let me show you it! But seriously, a good clothespin makes a difference. And hanging laundry out to dry changes that part of the chore to something I enjoy. Plus our weather is so lovely we can do it basically all year, and now that the "temporary" line is on the deck under cover, I can even hang laundry out in rain or snow. Since the equinox, I get northeast sun slanting in to the deck, so I get both sun on the line and cover, at the same time! As long as I do it early enough in the day, thus the load every other day methodology.

It's dry enough here that freeze drying is plenty dry.

I used to have a little hanging bag like that dress, only it was a kids' shirt. I think the old missionaries before us just sewed up the bottom of one of their kids' shirts when he outgrew it. But alas, it belonged to the house, and I had to leave it when I left.

So yeah, I should go bring in what's on the line now, huh?