a peek inside the fishbowl

I bought a new cotton sheet set. I’ve been waiting to buy something for over a year because of our Shopping Embargo and the pledge we made not to buy anything deemed non-essential. As far as I was concerned, as long as our old sheets still had life in them, new sheets were not a necessary purchase.

My resolve was seriously tested back in the fall. I was hired to research and write an article for Costco Connection about their new Kirkland Supima cotton sheet sets and I learned a LOT about the whole process: from the fibres of cotton plant to what happens on the warehouse floor. I was particularly impressed by the buyer I interviewed for that article. She was so passionate about the company’s commitment to deliver a great product to their members that I swore our next purchase of a sheet set had to be those Exact Ones from Costco.

I am rather, er, particular about how our bed linens are laundered. I wash them, stick them in the dryer for five minutes, then smooth them out on the bed to dry. Sadly, that did not prevent permanent creases to form along the top hem of the flat sheet of the ones we have been using to date. PERMANENT. CREASES. They drive me a tiny bit batty. I think it must have happened that ONE TIME I left the sheets in the dryer too long when I first got them. Once the creases were there, I couldn’t do anything to fully get rid of them. No matter what I did, how much I pressed and prayed and cursed, heck, I even tried ironing out the creases and the shadows of creases but they never truly went away. And of course, as soon as we slept in the bed after laundry day the creases just went right back to their creasy old selves.

I swore that THIS time around, with our brand new 420 thread counts from Costco, was going to be different. I did my research, or at least, I tried. Before I washed them for the first time I searched “how to prevent creases in cotton sheets.” Unfortunately, this didn’t result in anything very helpful so I decided to go it on my own.

How to avoid creases in your gorgeous brand new cotton sheets

1) I put the sheets and pillowcases in the washer on a quick cycle on “warm” with a very small bit of detergent. Our washer has a “maximum extract” setting, which I turned off to minimize the spinning and wrinkling.

2) As soon as the wash cycle was done I hung them on the line (indoors) and smoothed out the wrinkles and the hems.

3) I left everything hanging for an hour or so and then brought them upstairs and smoothed them out on the bed.

4) I ironed the sheets, right on the bed, while they were still damp. I took extra time on the top part of the flat sheet where the worst of the creases tend to occur.

It worked! No creases! You know what, they look great, even after we’ve slept on them a bunch of times. Tey FEEL great too. This has nothing to do with my laundering process but it’s worth mentioning, although now that I think about it, trying to describe what our new sheets feel like is kind of like describing the texture of a cracker. They’re crisp but not too crisp. Smooth, but not slippery. They have the right texture, and they’re surprisingly toasty. I will say this, it feels like sleeping in a hotel bed… which is my ultimate goal when it comes to sheets. Clearly, I’m willing to put in a bit of elbow grease in order to achieve the bed of my dreams. (No pun intended.)

Now if I could only figure out the pillow side of this equation! I find pillows so hard to buy. It’s not like you can really try them in the store. And as a side sleeper and bedtime reader I have been finding it hard to make my pillows work for me. Is there a brand or type of pillow you can’t live without? If so I’d love to hear about it!

Oh, this is good >> https://t.co/DwG83Qjtbi .. via @YoniFreedhoff

— andrea tomkins (@missfish) March 17, 2017

• Into the woods: how one man survived alone in the wilderness for 27 years, theguardian.com
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• Scientists Brace for a Lost Generation in American Research, theatlantic.com
• A court’s decision in a Maine labor dispute hinged on the absence of an Oxford comma, qz.com
• Why ‘The Outsiders’ Lives On: A Teenage Novel Turns 50, nytimes.com
• Margaret Atwood on What ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Means in the Age of Trump, nytimes.com

On the nightstand: The Fifth Heart: A Novel.

Did anyone else out there buy a copy of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing? I did, annnnnnd I never read it. In fact, it’s sitting in a pile of books by my bed, just staring at me. I get that it’s a best-seller but I just can’t bring myself to read a book about cleaning and organizing the house. I feel like I should (a) figure it all out on my own and (b) just get to it already.

I have, however, adopted a new habit that has been a huge help. I don’t know if Marie Kondo, the author of that book, will agree at all, but for the past while I’ve been getting rid of stuff one day at a time, one item at a time.

For the record I should state that I am not generally the kind of person who relishes taking on big chores around the house. I wish I was the kind who does, who dons the rubber gloves and digs in with glee, but I am not. As a result, things can pile up and get worse with every passing day (think junk drawers, closets, pantries etc). I have thought a lot about this and the kind of person I am. I know I don’t want to put in hours of dusty, monotonous sorting and purging, but I certainly CAN throw out one thing a day, right? That will take me 2.5 seconds! Or even less!

It may sound ridiculous to the domestic engineers out there, but that’s what I’ve been doing for the past few months. One thing gets thrown out or tossed in a donation pile every day. Here’s the thing, it’s been making a difference over time and it has been SO. TOTALLY. LIBERATING.

A lot of my purging happens in the bathroom while I’m poking around the drawers for something I need. I spot something and my internal conversation goes something like this: Hey, it’s a lotion I picked up a few years ago! Hmm, I don’t use it anymore. The bottle is almost empty. WHY AM I KEEPING THIS. Then, OUT IT GOES.

Of course, it’s not always something in the bathroom. Sometimes it’s the stub of a candle in a candle holder, an itchy pair of socks, expired sunscreen, an old magazine… the list of things I can get rid of around here is endless. It is overwhelming. Sigh.

I admit it can be VERY satisfying to swoop in and dump out the junk drawer and spend an afternoon purging and organizing one whole area but it’s not something I have the time or inclination to do every day. Slow and steady CAN win the decluttering race, right?