Dishwasher Myths

1. Dishwashers kill germs

2. Dishwashers use used less water than washing by hand

3. Dishwashers are timesavers when there are a lot of dishes to be washed.

Do today's dishwashers really kill germs or do they just provide new and different ways for germs to multiply? They grind food particles exceedingly small and recycle the water constantly, so the same tiny particles slosh over dishes frequently, just as they would in a pan of hot soapy water. Saves water over conventional dishwasher methods, but is it safe? And is the final rinse water really fresh? Can a machine that uses fewer than 3 gallons get that many dishes really clean?

There is no drying cycle. Water pools on flat surfaces. Having to dry all the glassware by hand is an annoyance. Sometimes I toss incompletely dry flatware into the flatware drawer. I put away dishes that are not completely dry. How is this better than the old days, when we either covered the counter with drying items or roped a family member into drying and putting away? The real reason counter tops of the 1950s had no clutter is that we needed a place to put wet things while we washed the rest of the dishes.

I've noticed tiny dark dots on all my glassware and vintage Tupperware containers. Those new disposable food savers never look clean after a trip through the dishwasher. I always end up washing them by hand. Having to wash them by hand points up how very flimsy they are, and makes me long for the old plastic stuff. Glass is better for food quality, but  it's heavy. 

I run the dishwasher on empty, with vinegar, every month to clean it, just as I did for its predecessor, which dried dishes and did not endlessly recycle the same water.  Contrary to the instructions from the manufacturer, I do rinse dishes before putting them into the dishwasher. I take reasonable precautions to ensure that items that go into the dishwasher come out cleaner, or at least not needing to be washed again.

Yet each time the dishwasher is opened dark spots make fresh-from-the-dishwasher items look dirty. I have dark spots on flatware. If I do nothing, this leads to pitting. I have dark spots on my Corelle, which leads me to wash the dishes again, heat water to boiling, and pour it over the dishes, which I then let air dry. I scrub glasses with abrasive cleaners and pour boiling water over them. I'm rewashing just about everything I put into the dishwasher, the energy-saving, water conserving, convenient, healthy dishwasher.

It's not all that convenient. Dark spots imply it isn't healthy.

I'm beginning to think that my so called dishwasher would be of more use if I used it only as a dish drying rack. That's the ticket. What I really need is a roll out multi-tier rack stationed over a drain.  Low tech. Almost no tech. 

Bosch 500 Series 24-in Built-In Dishwasher (Stainless) ENERGY STAR
This is the latest incarnation of the dishwasher I do battle with daily.

Yard Sign

"Who doesn't love a free yard sign?" the email wanted to know.  

I don't love yard signs. It never occurred to me that yard signs were lovable.  If the yard sign is for a yard sale, I'm interested, but hardly in love. 

When I grew up, the only yard signs I saw were crosses burned into lawns, and those are fairly unlovable symbols of hate. Where I grew up, near the alphabet agencies, people didn't advertise their affiliations for fear of losing employment opportunities. We handed over cash rather than write checks to political parties, we quietly marched off and voted on the appropriate days, and rarely discussed national politics in groups of more than three. "Who doesn't love a free yard sign" tells me more about the age of the writer than it does about the candidate they want me to volunteer to help.

Some yards are veritable thickets of names, supporting every candidate from president to city council. Some yards sport a new biblical quotation each week. Some advertise niche festivals, love for a specific breed of dog, the fact that a child has graduated from high school, joined the Marines or has a birthday. Every contractor who works on a house, from roofing to installing vinyl flooring, wants to put out a yard sign. Houses for sale have additional yard signs proclaiming open houses on Sundays. What this really means is that traffic will be very slow because cars will line both sides of the street, which is not really able to accommodate 3 lanes.

Yard signs are like Facebook. People can't take time for personal interaction, so they put up yard signs, some of which are 6 feet tall and have guy wires on each side.  They're like small scale billboards, and they stay up for MONTHS. You know the ones, they're printed in red on screaming yellow plastic and they have streamers at first, until ripped of by the wind or children.

The wire frame from the yard sign has its uses. Several of them support chicken wire to protect a garden from grabby pests. A single one supports bloom-heavy flowering plants. When imagination fails, the frames can go in the recycling bin.

Monday Morning Grumbles

Last Monday night I took a friend to the emergency room, from which we were released 3 1/2 hours later. The friend is healing well with only bruises. She appears more shaken by the knowledge that she cannot, at 70-something, simply keep forging ahead  full tilt until the job is done. She has to take breaks; she has to learn to stop when tired.

This is something I learned at 40.  Last week's  lesson is harder. I cannot go near emergency rooms. I've spent parts of  the past week flat on my back, feverish, depressed, lacking energy, foggy-brained. I cough up green phlegm. 90 minutes in the garden wipes me out. The cats said  a walk around the block was out of the question and herded me back to my own yard. When I'm tired, I'm waspish and judgmental and spend too much time reading Facebook.

Which is how I discovered that Facebook had been hiding posts even from folks designated Close Friends, and substituting posts from companies I had indicated I liked. When Trending Articles appeared in my feed, it was too much. I don't want to see anything from the Huffington Post. Did FB assume that because I occasionally followed links to articles from the NYTimes and the Manchester Guardian, I wanted predigested pap delivered in a smug, sly, confiding tone? To get Trending Articles removed from my feed I had to click Hide on 3 articles before I was offered the choice of removing Huff Post from my feed. Stupid.

I spent time indicating companies that I do like in order to get FB to stop feeding me ads from singles companies and death merchants. Now I get ads from bead and craft suppliers, furniture stores, and targeted clothing ads. This is an improvement, but I do not want their merchandise updates in my FB feed, and especially do not want them taking the place of random thoughts by friends. Usually, the Hide option offers permanent removal.

Some ads are offensive. I do not believe that wearing a charm bracelet and tucking my hand in my back pocket will make my rear end any smaller, and I do not care for companies that routinely refer to lady parts as boobs and butts. It feels like a slap in the face. I know that using certain words decreases their shock value, but I don't want those words in my vocabulary. Bottom, behind, rump, posterior, backside -- those are all acceptable. I prefer the term breasts to all other slang and nonslang terms. I prefer to be treated with courtesy by companies I don't know. A "hey girlfriend" followed by terms I find nasty? I don't care what is being sold. Perhaps the target audience is 14-year-olds with disposable income and foul mouths. I'm over 15, living on the edge, and while I may be familiar with slang and curse words, they are not the first things out of my mouth.

While I'm complaining, why is it that I develop an urgent need for sponges and scouring pads at the end of the month, when I'd prefer not to spend any money?

She Really Liked It

PHOTO BY MARTHA HARDCASTLE GUTHRIE

I've been the strange one for so long that when someone DOES share my taste, it's a shock. I figured I'd have this flower brooch around forever, as a mascot at shows. It was a little bit of home to  look at when  I felt swamped by tides of humanity. I was floored when a woman picked it up, didn't read the price sticker, and insisted she had to have it no matter what. I gave her a "flattery will get you somewhere" discount.

The multi-flower pin is sort of bead embroidery, stiffened felt with spikes of seed beads occasionally topped by pressed glass flowers. There's a tiny circle of cardboard topped by another bit of felt with the pinback. I had read about metal mesh circle brooch bases, had no way to get one, and  was consumed with a desire to  bead. The two brooches at the bottom are on mesh bases. The bracelet is freeform peyote, part of my attempts to blast myself out of drab colors. Yes, it IS rather small, but so are my wrists.

PHOTO BY MARTHA HARDCASTLE GUTHRIE

I'll be doing more freeform bracelets and pins because I like them. If people should want to buy them, I guess I'll let them. As long as I get to enjoy the colors, the slick silk touch of glass beads, and a visible result, I'm relatively happy. Really, it's a good thing I'm not trying to sell these because my words are so humdrum.

As I was performing small repairs on merchandise, I felt the cyclops eye of a inhuman thing on me. I looked up to see a young photographer happily focusing. She was quite taken aback by my growl that yes, I DO mind if she takes my photo. There are people who have no photo graciousness in them, and I am one.

Testing, Testing

Newsprint necklaces

I've been sorting and consolidating my jewelry supplies, taking short breaks to test  things to see if I should keep them or toss them.

 

A Creativity for Kids paper bead rolling kit was a keep, if only for the nifty little bead rolling tool. It is so much easier than rolling the paper around a toothpick. OTOH, my hand cut strips from the newspaper made better beads than the kit's machine cut scrapbooking paper. We won't even talk about the plastic beads that came with the kit, okay? I had to substitute beads from my toss pile. It also had stretchy gel beading thread, which needs no needle. A boon.  

Creativity for Kids necklaces

The internet is full of  projects using resin or Dimensional Magic from Mod Podge on paper stuck to wooden forms. You get a lovely high gloss item with Dimensional Magic. I put images on wooden nickels and stuck pin forms to the back. I'm less than thrilled with the images I had to use, but Dimensional Magic stays.

A stash of soutache braid will be very useful when I attempt a soutache braid and bead creation real soon now. I've used bead tips and soutache as necklaces to hold small charms.

By Annetta Valious, mylovelybeads.com

My entire collection of felt fits in a copy paper box, but there's oodles of red. For awhile, I bought it up whenever I saw it at Goodwill. When life gives you red felt, make felt flowers. I've got a Pinterest board full of different flowers to try.

Most of my beads are in one place, but there are escapees in every room of the house. There are bead findings in the thread box. There are beads in the box that contains my MIL's worn copy of The Settlement Cookbook. There's a matchbox of bead findings from jewelry that fell apart 20 years ago, tucked into a box of buttons. Many years ago, I rescued vintage beads from a cashmere sweater that moths riddled, and tucked the bag of vintage beads into a box of sewing supplies. I also bought necklaces from thrift stores, just to deconstruct. I could never find the box when I wanted it, so I bought findings and beads.

It will be such a delight to go to one place for jump rings and jewelry findings rather than pawing through 6 boxes. I recognized each tiny bag as it appeared. Nothing sneaked in while I wasn't looking. It's not that I blithely bought huge quantities. It's that I would bead madly for awhile, put things away, then not be able to find what I wanted during the next beading spurt. First all the jewelry findings got put in one place, then types of things separated out. Seeing the variety of my findings makes me feel wealthy. 

Speaking of wealth, I modified a quilted bag from Goodwill, giving it features Vera Bradley puts in her quilted bags. There are two pockets inside the purse, a pocket on the outside, and a strap for the housekey. I put vintage red rickrack on it, too.

Paper Bead Mania

Currently I am obsessed by paper beads. I can't make just one. All I have to do is mark two edges of a sheet of paper off in 1/2 inch increments and make triangles. The triangles get rolled around cocktail skewers and dotted periodically with glue. I use Elmer's. Some people use glue sticks. In any case, it can be done while on the phone, reading Facebook, waiting for the water to boil.

I've marked them off in something called a watercolor pencil. When the pencil color gets wet, say, with glue, it smears nicely. It gives excellent soft stripes on a bead. On my fingers, it is less excellent. My triangles don't come out even. I have a feeling that even if I just made long rectangles, I'd manage to make mistakes.

Beads made of printer paper colored on the edge with watercolor pencils.

These stripes are addictive. I love seeing how each bead turns out. And  I'm using paper I would have thrown away. I drew on the backs of coupons I printed out and did not use. I drew on the back of a community flyer. This is politically correct time wasting, and I am using a box of toothpicks I bought many many years ago when it was only possible to buy 1000 toothpicks at a time. The box disintegrated.

In a video of a young woman making beads, we are warned to keep the strip centered on the toothpick. "If you do this," she opines, "your beads will come out perfect, every time." She obviously does not work with my handicaps.

There is a video by a tattooed young man who sneers at the thought of making beads one by one. He covers a cocktail skewer in foil, takes 6-inch wide pieces of newspaper, and begins rolling. First off, I'd like to say that his beads are obedient because they are afraid of him. In my hands, paper does not roll up obediently. It crumples, uncoils, lies flat and laughs. In the event that a sheet of paper agrees to be coiled around a skewer, it makes a flabby roll. I will make one bead at a time, thank you.

I'd far rather have a written tutorial with photos than a video. Too many videos show you the technique and babble without a script. Apparently going back and editing out pauses, repetitions and inaudible bits is considered cheating, even when the video is linked to a website that sells supplies.

Any paper can be used for beads. Glossy magazines  and catalogs don't come to my house. The ad inserts that come with the local paper are shiny and have pretty colors, but the paper is fairly flimsy. A single length produces a skimpy bead, if you use a single sheet. You can make a longer triangular strip by going across two pages for a fatter bead. I think I will make a batch of cylinder beads and then roll triangles around them-- just for sanity's sake.

Beads made from a newspaper insert.

Scrapbooking paper is conveniently sold in books of long skinny strips, so I can test lots of colors. It's thicker than printer paper and newsprint. My half-inch wide triangles produce a pleasingly plump bead.

Rolled paper beads awaiting coats of Mod Podge sealant.

Now that I have little bowls of finished beads, I will have to do something sensible with them. I could string them into necklaces, put them on eyepins to make dangles for earrings, string them on wire in a metal frame for pendants or bracelets.

Shorts /Adjusted Expectations

Planning before sewing is probably a good thing, but leaving room for adjustment is more important. I have acquired the habit of buying less fabric than the pattern calls for when I have a specific pattern in mind (I'm short and can do that), and more than is needed for generic things. For instance, 1 1/2 yards is enough for  a skirt or pair of shorts for folks up to size 14. I bought 4 yards of a pant weight that I didn't really care for, figuring I'd make a couple pairs of shorts alike. The price was right, and mucking about in the garden would ruin most fabrics.

I bought fabrics intending to use them in the next 18 months, and lo and behold, it was 18 years before I used some of them. I acquired an unhealthy fear of pants patterns. Not wanting to waste fabric, I held new patterns up against clothing that fit and could not understand how anything that shape could turn into the shape of the finished  garment. I tested 6 different sizes of similarly designed patterns up against each other and found no discernible difference in size. I concluded that none would fit.

The solution is simple, but took me years to arrive at: avoid tailored pants. I should make pajama pants, yoga pants, pants with elastic waists. When there is oodles of fabric at the sides, the crotch length is less important. I avoided this for many years. Elastic is wrapped in polyester, and I was sensitive to polyester, particularly at the waist. Again, the solution is simple: make the waist larger.

This year, I bought Simplicity 0328 more for its t-shirt than its elastic waist shorts, and traced the shorts pattern a size larger than the pattern indicated. I added to back crotch length and subtracted from the front. When I got them to the try-on point, I noticed that the bits of fabric I had left for a waistband would have to be pieced and that the irregular stripe would not match. I looked at the 2 pairs of shorts I had made from the same fabric last year, and commenced deconstructing. Tedious, and it took 3 days to get enough thread bits out of the fabric. I had the fabric I needed, it matched perfectly, and I felt vindicated.

I did not use the Simplicity waistband with its cute sash ties. Sash ties would add several thicknesses of fabric at the waist, not to be considered in the current heatwave.  I made a casing to hold the elastic, a folded ring. I put a ring of elastic inside, folded the fabric down, and sewed. Every so often I pulled on the elastic to get it past a ruffle of fabric. Then I sewed the encased elastic to the shorts. 

In this way, I avoided having to thread elastic through a tunnel, a process I find to be hard on my finger tips and fraught with opportunities for disaster. If I used bodkins, I had to make the tunnel wider than I wanted just so the bodkin would go through. Sometimes I had to unpick seams because the tip of the bodkin got hung in them. If I used safety pins, there was always the chance that the pushing would cause the pin to open. I have been stabbed by open safety pins, I have had to open the tunnels. If there was a way for threading things through casings to go wrong, I managed it. And of course I assumed that all failures were my own fault, as opposed to normal differences in metals,plastics, elastic, fabrics, and humans.

In sewing, willingness to make adjustments is the key to success. At least, for me it is.

My sewing experience is that the only thing that matters is to be sure to cut everything too big, slam the thing together, and adjust, adjust, adjust. The garment is finished when I am tired of adjusting.