SUDS!

We had a wonderful house before moving to Maryland.  I’m pretty sure that’s why we disliked the MD house so much, it didn’t have a fighting chance against our near perfect home in IL.  But that’s for another post.  Anyway, when we moved from the perfect house, and realized that it wasn’t selling, we took all of the accoutrements that were there – rolling shelves, tons of shelving in the garage, work counters, light fixtures, washer/dryer, coat hooks, etc.  I’m not actually sure why we took the washer and dryer, since the MD house didn’t have natural gas, but we took it.  Tried selling it when we first got there . .  .. no luck.  Tried selling it again when we figured out we were moving.  We had LOTS of inquiries, but none that actually panned out.  As it turns out, God was looking out for us.

Two weeks before the big move, the piece of junk washing machine finally gave up the ghost.  It just wasn’t getting out of the low gear and there was lots of clicking and all of the lights in the house were flashing . .. not a good thing.  Oh, and it wasn’t agitating anymore . . .no wonder the clothes didn’t seem to be fresh and clean!  Soo, what to do?  I still had 3-4 loads of laundry, and of course, every other day I do a load of dipes.  Schlepping 3 kids to the laundry mat was totally out of the question.  And then, I remembered the washing machine in the basement.  Ahh, how glad I was that it hadn’t sold!  In a flash, we rented an appliance dolly, hauled out the piece of junk machine, which had been graciously (or not) been left there by the previous tenants, and installed our nice, Bosch front loader.  As soon as I started using it, I got this huge sense of nostalgia . . . so many good memories of our perfect house!  I was able to finish up the 3-4 loads without any problems and I freecycled the other washing machine.  Not sure why anyone would want it, but want it they did.

So I bet you are wondering what this has to do with suds?  Remember the every other day load of dipes I have to wash? Well, front loaders are pretty much the enemy of cloth dipes.  To really get them clean, you need to use a healthy amount of water.  Dipes are made to be absorbent, so they soak up a bunch of the water, then you need even more for the actual cleaning portion.  Front loaders are made to be water efficient, not so good for washing dipes.  It’s possible to do it, just takes a bit of outsmarting the machine.  (Like placing a wet towel in with the dipes so that it weighs more and the machine uses more water.)  The other killer thing is that you don’t want tons of soap when you wash dipes. I know, seems weird, but if you use too much, it doesn’t all get rinsed out, then you get soap build up and then you get mega stinky dipes.  I thought I’d figured out how much soap to use and what cycles to use.  Clearly, I thought wrong.

I happened to be walking by the washing machine mid cycle and noticed that I couldn’t see into the drum . . . . . ..

 

yep, SUDS!  The entire window was FILLED with suds.  Not good! I couldn’t open the door, because the machine was smart enough to know that would have resulted in a mess of water.  So I ran a spin cycle to get rid of the water.  Here’s what was left.

So yes, suds started spilling out when I opened the door.  DS1 “MOMMY!  You are making a mess!  You’re making a mess!”  He’s the neat freak, so it was really a huge deal for him.  I thought it was hilarious.

I grabbed a bucket and the bambini and I started scooping out suds.  I’m pretty sure I filled 4-5 buckets with suds.  I certainly had a sink full.

I have NO IDEA why there were so many suds . . .I did nothing different with this load than I had with other loads.  I just chalked it up to a fun experience with the kiddies!