2. The one thing that makes me want to wash dishes is lavender detergent. Fortunately I have some, and it's organic as well.
3. Broke in my crockpot. Clearly this needs thought, because four hours on high does a nice job on the chicken but barely renders the carrots chewable. This one has a twelve hour option and then goes automatically to 'warm', which they don't recommend leaving on for longer than an additional four hours. I am not one to cook in the morning, so clearly I need to start the thing at 9 pm, let it go all night, and turn it off whenever I get up. This lets out the 'warm meal' feature but that's what microwaves are for.
4. Took M out to tea. She's still young enough (turning 13) to be more than satisfied with Starbucks but old enough to be entertainingly conversable. Must do this again when she gets back from what sounds like Home Ec camp. They teach them to sew, evidently, and cut out patterns and other useful things the nuns never succeeded in teaching me.
5. Laundry mystery: 'In winter, the socks.' And the shirts, actually. In winter I wind up doing two dark washes a week because I go through one pair of socks and usually one long-sleeved shirt a day. (Black shows the muck- little hands grabbing you at snack, rubbing their noses on you, etc etc.) Why do I never run out of socks in summer? Granted there's two days fewer because I don't often wear them on weekends. But the tank tops. I wear those every day in winter too and don't seem to run out, but I run out every week in summer. I think maybe attrition, because I've been mending my remaining white tops to make them last another year, and a couple must have given up the ghost. If only I could find the robust tank tops of last decade; I still have one from ten years back, much embroidered, but *still* more intact than the dreck ones I got three years ago.
