the fruit of her hands

Around the end of August our Dryer quit drying our clothes. It would still turn on and spin them, but no heat was coming out. We inherited the washer/dryer set from my dad back in 2004 when he moved and didn’t need them anymore. So they’d been around awhile and since the dryer had done it’s duty for many years we didn’t want to try to have it fixed. Truth be told we were pretty taken with the flashy new wsher dryer sets that are on the market.

So we decided to go shopping. I think this was during a Labor Day sale. That was helpful anyway! We had originally intended to purchase a blue set when we could replace the washer and dryer, but we didn’t realize that we would have to do that so soon. When we went to Lowe’s and started looking we decided we really liked the blue, but we also really liked the charcoal-ly grey color. Bonus points, the grey was in stock and the blue would take several weeks to get there. Since we really like having a dryer that was a huge deal. :) Of the dryers that came in that color we liked the Samsung 7.3 Cubic Foot Stackable Electric Dryer. It was delivered quickly and we were so excited to have a beautiful new dryer. The Lowe’s salesman assured us that that was a pretty new model and that the matching washer would still be available when we wanted to purchase it several months/a year down the road.

The dryer is easy to use, works great and even plays a little song when it’s done. After several months that still hasn’t gotten annoying. I like that when you set it for a normal dry it calculates the minutes required by how much you have in it and then if it thinks the clothes are getting dry enough it shuts off. However, one thing I have noticed is that if you put large blankets, comforters or couch covers in the dryer causes them to roll into a ball of sorts and then the dryer thinks they are dry when most of it is still soaking wet. The old one didn’t do that. So large items have to be stopped and adjusted several times during drying time. Other than that the dryer has been wonderful! It also has a steam feature that sounds really nice, but we have been unable to use since it requires a water line to the dryer and our washer and dryer sit opposite each other, not side by side.

On the weekend after Thanksgiving I was checking out the black friday sale for Lowe’s (looking for flooring and bathroom parts, actually) and I noticed that the matching washer was on sale for $500 off! We rushed to Lowe’s the next day to grab one, because who knows if it would ever be that cheap again. It was delivered while Kody was out of town and I had to stare at it in the sunroom for a whole week while it wasn’t hooked up. That was hard. ;)

So far I have really liked it. It has different settings for bedding and other load types. There is even a “handwash” setting, which I love! After you choose a load setting you have the option of changing the amount of soil or spin.

What I love most about this washer is that it is a High Efficiency washer and uses less water. Our clothes actually look cleaner than they did with the old washer too. I washed a comforter that I had washed in the old one at least twice since the kids stuck silly putty on it. The other washer had not been able to get the silly putty all out. It was not sticky, but left the brown silly putty spot. I thought it was never going to come off. But when I washed it with the new washer on the bedding setting it came out and now the comforter looks new again.

In conclusion, I would definitely recommend the Samsung washer and dryer set. Overall they have been wonderful. I am also okay with the fact that liking my washer and dryer so much makes me sound really old ladyish. At least my family has fabulously clean clothes!!

A little over a week ago I glanced over at my bookcase and saw this:

Can you see it? Here is the section a little bit closer:

Apparently, someone thought it would be funny to leave the little skeleton man hanging (by a sword) when they took the advent calendar, we did this year, upstairs. And…it was funny. I laughed for awhile. In fact I’m still chuckling over the little guy.

We also did some other ‘hanging around’ this week. On Friday we had 20 kids and 6 adults in the house for our New Year homeschool activity. It was a lot of fun even though we just did a simple goal sheet and lunch. The kids had a blast though and it was a beautiful day to play outside some. Everyone was in and out the whole time and I just enjoyed myself. I hope we can do it again soon because there’s really nothing like being with friends who share the same mindset (and have differences too). Love the people we share our lives with! I didn’t take any pictures of that day though, so you’ll have to imagine what 20 kids in my house looks like. :)

Have a great one, friends!