During my early teen years, our clothes dryer was broken beyond repair. My parent’s immediate solution was to string a line across the backyard and buy clothespins. Our desert climate lent itself to air drying, so that is what we did for a long time.

My mom taught my siblings and I to hang clothes. Eventually, the long line was replaced by an umbrella-style configuration of clotheslines in the spot our jungle gym used to stand. Hanging wet clothes by wooden pins on hot summer days was not my favorite chore, so when we finally got a new dryer I was the happiest girl in town. I vowed to never hang clothes on a line again.

Then came $4.00 a gallon for gasoline and the domino effect skyrocketing prices of everything else. We began looking for ways to save money when I came upon this post at the Mommy Life blog.

I was surprised to learn clothes dryers rank second in household energy use, behind heating and cooling. It makes sense that they suck up so much power. Between the heating element and the tumbling, it would take a lot of power to keep it cranking and fluffing.

I do a lot of laundry. It’s a daily chore. If I don’t do at least one load every day, it quickly snowballs. I began to wonder what impact we’d make if I stopped using our dryer, so I shared my idea with my husband. He was all for it. We began to research laundry lines. Our first findings were really discouraging. Inexpensive lines were too short. Some of the umbrella styles we found were in the range of $250—which I couldn’t imagine spending in the name of saving money.

Finally, we found an umbrella style in our price range. I was excited by the 250 feet of line, which meant plenty of room to hang multiple loads. We selected a spot on the side of our house, away from where the kids play and behind our little blue spruce tree. Because we live along a well-traveled green belt, I didn’t want something terribly obvious. People walk on the path to enjoy nature and fresh air, not to see my bloomers flapping in the breeze. Also, we are lucky to live in a subdivision without restrictive rules regarding things like clotheslines or house color. Just ask the people a few blocks over with the two-story Barney-purple house.

I began using our clothesline two weeks ago. Colorado has the perfect climate for line-drying—high and dry. The clothes I hang are dry very quickly. They smell so fresh. Yes, they are a little stiff, but by the time I shake them and fold them, they are okay and wearable. The only things I will not hang on the line are our bath towels, hand towels, and washcloths. I will continue using the dryer for those items.

There has been a bit of trial and error as I had to remember what my mom taught me about hanging clothes. Shirts upside-down, full dresses by the shoulder seams, socks paired for easy balling, string shirts together and save clothespins by sharing corners. It is more time-consuming to hang clothes, but I’ve recruited the kids to help me. They are excited by our new backyard ornament. The novelty will wear off eventually, I know, but I am happy they have this new housekeeping skill. I’m happy they see they don’t have to push a button on a big white box all the time. We’ve explained we hope this will save our family money.

I’m hoping we’ll be able to line dry for most of the year. I am realistic about the coming winter, but if a day is mildly warm, I’ll be out there with my basket, pinning and pinning and pinning.

Here is an excellent resource if you are interested in line drying, too: Project Laundry List.

A few years ago, when we were preparing to move, I found an undeveloped roll of film from one of our old cameras. I had no idea what images were housed in the little cannister, but I was excited to find out. The next time I went to the grocery store, I dropped to roll in the one-hour developing bin.

The photos turned out to be a batch from our honeymoon, nine years earlier. They were taken with my husband’s camera, which was having issues at the time. I think we figured the photos wouldn’t develop properly, so we never bothered with the roll. We were newlyweds and wanted to save the $5.95 processing fee.

I couldn’t wait until we got home, ripping into the envelop as we sat in the car. Most of the photos were blurry, but there were a few gems. It was like seeing our honeymoon from a different point of view—like stumbling across another person’s photos of mountain scenes which happened to include us.

We haven’t used a film camera in close to eight years. Now I am all-about my digital Canon.

Recently, I managed to fill my 2.0 GB memory card. A Canon Moment was occurring, so I scrambled through the camera bag to find another memory card. I loaded the first card I grabbed into the camera, only to find it too was full. I was ready to erase it when I thought I better see what was on it, having no recall of what pictures could possibly be clogging it up. I started the slideshow and nearly began to cry.

I saw about 50 photos taken between September 16th, 2006 and September 24th, 2006. Eight lost days, when Beatrix was between 8 and 16 days old. The card was a small 64 MBs, used for the rare (obviously) backup. I never uploaded them. I forgot about them. It’s strange to think I’ve been toting them around in a camera bag all this time.

Seeing them again was like seeing her for the first time. Yes, I have about 1,000 other photos of her first few months of life that I’ve seen over and over. But these were new and there are some truly great photos.

They include the only photos I have of me nursing her. The bonus? Joel had fallen asleep standing up, resting his head on my lap as I fed his new baby sister.

I was happy to find beautiful pictures of my dear mother-in-law meeting Beatrix for the first time:

And then there were photos of just her—sleeping, yawing, eyes open, fists clenched, profiles, full face shots, her feet, bundled in her carseat. Eight days, regained.