Buying Used Blankets and Comforters - Washing

If you find a great blanket, quilt or down comforter at a garage sale or thrift shop, you can probably get it quite clean once you get home.

I would use a cold wash to remove any possible previous protein-based spills or stains (heat might ’set’ them). You can follow up with a warm or hot wash afterward, if you are still paranoid about getting the item really clean. Wash your bedding on a delicate setting (never agitate - they might rip).

It’s best to line-dry blankets or cotton-batting comforters, or you can run them in a large dryer on low or no heat.

For down comforters, you need to decide if you want to clean it yourself or take it for dry-cleaning. I don’t like dry-cleaning - it puts toxic chemicals into bedding that I might be breathing in all night.

To hand wash a down comforter, place the item in a bathtub filled with cold water and a TINY amount of liquid detergent - something like 1/8 or even 1/16 of a cup. Otherwise you will never get the soap out. Gently hand-agitate the comforter for five or ten minutes and drain the water. Refill with clean cold water to remove the suds and drain again.

Do not wring! You can squeeze water out (like a toothpaste tube, from one end to the other), and place your wet comforter over the backs of chairs until dry. It will be heavy. Be careful to protect the down batting while drying, so it doesn’t all collect at one end (which will render your comforter useless).

For handmade quilts that you intend to use, you can follow the same instructions as for down comforters, being careful to protect the stitchery. You can probably tell if the quilt has been washed before. For really delicate quilts, or ones where you fear the colors will run, contact a dry-cleaners and get their opinion on whether it can be washed at all.

I would not wash used afghans if you wish to preserve their “newness” - ie, ones for display. Many nice thrift shop afghans have only been set out as a sofa throw. For afghans that have obviously been around the block, you can try a delicate cycle with cold water and line dry. Try using a Woolite-type detergent, which is more gentle with fabrics than most detergents.

Buying Used Comforters and Blankets - Shopping

I love finding a cozy, clean, quality blanket or comforter to take home for snuggling. You can find some excellent used ones if you keep your eyes open.

The best prices for used comforters are at garage sales, where you can usually snag one for under $5. At the thrift shops, prices usually start at $7, and are more often found between $10-20 for the better ones.

When I shop the colored tag sale days at Goodwill, the Salvation Army or Savers, I always head right to the blankets. If you are persistant, you can find gorgeous down comforters, handmade quilts, colorful afghans and soft, thick blankets for a song.

Always start by using your fingers to feel the ‘hand’ - the heft and texture - of the cloth. Does the blanet feel good to the touch? Look for the tag - you want to see high or all cotton fabrics. Cotton wears well and won’t be scratchy or pill (like polyester and some wool/acrylic blends do).

Next, smell the fabric. It should smell laundered, or, at least, have no smell at all. If you are satisfied on these counts, then take the blanket off the hanger or shelf, unfold, and examine both sides. Don’t be afraid to spread it all out right where you are. How else are you going to see the whole thing?

You are looking for rips and stains. Don’t buy stained or ripped bedding unless you are A. sure you can get the stain out, or B. willing to fix a ripped seam or mend a tiny hole.

I feel there are so many nice blankets to hunt for and find that I don’t need one needing any extra cleaning or sewing…unless you LOVE the blanket in question. In that case, you can usually talk the price down by showing the stain or rip to the seller, and asking if they can come down on the price. Always be very courteous when asking. No one HAS to give you a better price, although it might be in everyone’s best interests to do so.

Once you are home, you can clean your ‘new’ used bedding, and spread your nice finds in your guest or master bedroom!

Buying Used Sheets and Pillowcases - Washing

If you are like me, you get a thrill from discovering used luxury-level bedding and linens. I have a whole linen closet bursting with Egyptian cotton sheets, combed Pima cotton pillowcases, and the like. They feel luxurious with their superior cotton blends and higher thread counts.

And while they don’t match exactly, they each have that look of faded roses that intermingles so well on my bed. I love looking at and touching each and every sheet, sham, duvet and pillowcase I find.

Of course, buying used linens comes with its own set of potential hazards. While you can outfit your bed on a bare-bones budget, you want to make sure the new-to-you linens are clean.

First, in the thrift store, or at the yard sale, give the sheets (or whatever) the Sniff Test. Do the sheets smell bad? Do they smell like urine? You don’t want anything offensive for YOUR bed, but be aware a simple dirty sheet can be washed.

Then open the sheets and eyeball them. Are there any stains? Dirt or food stains can come right out, but you won’t want to buy anything used with blood stains on them, for sanitary reasons.

Once bought, take a good look at your finds. A good cold soak and subsequent cold wash will remove any chance of setting a stain from biological components like urine, vomit or blood. Presoak with laundry detergent before running the cycle. Use a tiny bit of bleach in your cold wash (remember, these are used sheets, and a small amount of bleach isn’t going to harm them).

If you are worried about getting the sheets really clean, then follow up your cold wash with a good hot wash. The cold wash will help remove protein stains and the hot wash will assist with removing various forms of dirt and body oils that sheets can pick up. Hot washes make your bedding as sanitary as they can get.

If the sheets have a very high thread count, like 280 or over, you can decrease the amount of agitation they will undergo by using a delicate cycle option, and drying the sheets with low or no heat. This will prolong their life.

If you have run the sheets through both washes, you will end up with really clean luxury bedding that you do not have to fear to use.

Become a Personal Shopper

ike to shop? Wish you could do it for a living? Don’t let your talents go to waste - learn to earn by shopping for others. How to Become a Personal Shopper, an e-book by Fabjob.com, makes it seem easy to fine-tune your shopping savvy into making the grade as a professional.

Interesting chapters discuss how to spot fashion trends, how to present yourself, how to find clients and help them define their needs.

Clientele can vary, depending on your local demographic and personal inclinations. Grocery shopping for the elderly, picking up school supplies for harried mothers, and buying holiday gifts for busy CEOs are all options you can consider, according to author Laura Harrison McBride.

Some tips from the book:

• If you go into business for yourself, the name you choose helps determine the client demographic you can attract.
• A catchy, professional phone message, on a dedicated phone line, will help your home business show a classy image.
• As a personal shopper, you need to present the image you want your clients to admire. This means wearing fashionable outfits are part of your job description
• There are endless niches in this business. You could specialize in helping professionals aquire a power wardrobe, shop for people planning vacations (and other concierge-type services), buying corporate gifts or selecting a week’s worth of gourmet foods.
• Window shopping is crucial to success in this career. You need to know what’s available, what’s on sale, and where to find what potential clients might need on a moment’s notice.

One thing I like about the Fabjob books are the depth of information they provide to making a change to new careers. They provide actual samples you can use as templates, including -

• Sample resume
• Sample of what to say when talking to a prospective client
• Sample list of questions to ask vendors
• Sample list of questions to ask new clients
• Sample client information
• Sample invoice
• Sample contract

Their website also offers tons of free content about job changing in our current economy. This article outlines questions to ask yourself if you are considering a career change.

The e-book costs $29.95. You pay online and the book arrives at your email address a just few minutes later. Not a bad deal in this world of instant gratification.

FabJob.com publishes e-books (and a number of books in print) that can help you break into a “fab” job. Visit Fabjob.com for information or to purchase a copy of the aforementioned book.

Book Review - The Scented Garden

This unusual workbook is a pleasure to browse, sure to get gardenphiles excited about planning pleasing aromas for their flower beds. Gorgeous photos by Jonathan Buckley entice the reader to plan out projects both alluring and diverse: projects include Herb Path, Scented Wall, Carpet of Thyme, Catmint Walk, Sweet Pea Obelisk and Chamomile Seat. Are you drooling, yet?

Good, clear information instructs the gardener to avoid clashes of scent to make each walk around the garden an “olfactory safari”. Bird also advises spreading out the seasonal flowerings so you’ll have scents to enjoy each month of the growing season. A plant directory in the back of the book tells you what plants smell the best and provides tips on how to grow them.

Using the fold-out instruction pages, I laid out my own Honeysuckle Porch. It was easier than I thought. By the end of the season I expect my sweet clingy vine to cover my entire patio with leaves, flowers and scent.

Some good tips from the book:

• Place an outdoor seat near your garden displays so you can actually SMELL the fruits of your labor.
• Keep mint well-pruned so it doesn’t run rampmant (unless you like that)
• fragrant flowers tend to have subdued hues, so mix in colorful annuals with your rosemary and lavender.
• It’s possible to make a night-scented border, using white flowers pollinated by moths. Plants in the Nicotania genus are a good start for a dusky garden.
• While “knot gardens” are among the earliest forms of decorative planting, they are also among the most long-lived features in any planned garden. Keep them well-trimmed while they mature.
• You don’t have room for a garden at all? Even containers and window boxes can host scent-sory delights. Stick with narcissus, pelargoniums, hyacinths and primulas, in their scented varieties. Culinary herbs work too.

  The Scented Garden: A Step-by-Step Project Workbook, by Richard Bird, 2000, Ryland Peters and Small, ISBN: 1841724335

Buying Used Sheets and Pillowcases - Shopping

I have the best linens. The best sheets, nicest pillowcases. Great weaves, wonderful hand, a luxury to touch and sleep on. And I got them all used. You can too.

When you buy used, you can afford to be a linen snob, buying only the best for your bed.

Thread count is all the rage these days, and you can buy new sheets for absurdly high thread counts, for absurdly high fees. And while a high thread count does ensure a good feel (if finer cottons are used), you won’t make a long-term bargain out of the expense. The higher thread counts rip very easily and don’t have the washable longevity of the mid-range thread counts.

A thread count over 180 is called percale, and used to be THE luxury bedding. It’s still a good thread count for all-cotton sheets, especially for combed cotton. Any used sheets in the 200s-300s for thread count is a steal. Most sheets will not bother listing thread counts, but they will tell you about the cotton type if it’s worth mentioning. And that’s the main secret to picking up luxury linens for pennies.

The key to the best bedding is locating the best cotton. I always pick up sheets that read Pima Cotton, Supima Cotton, and most especially the desirable Egyptian Cotton. A 100% Combed Cotton is also worth grabbing - combed cotton has such a soft hand and luxurious feel.

I seldom buy cotton/polyester blends. Polyester pills, and usually imparts a scratchy, plastic-like feel to the bedding.

I would consider picking up a blend for children’s beds, or for dressing day beds that see occassional use. I would still look for a quality blend, with a high cotton content - at least 60%. Any blend made by Ralph Lauren, Martha Stewart Everyday or JC Penney will be a good buy, with great colors and classy patterns.

I also pick up muslin sheets when I find them - the older, more vintage ones will have a wonderful feel from decades of use and washings…and good muslin lasts and lasts. I don’t think you can even find new muslin sheets any more.

I frequent the Goodwills, mostly, although you can also grab fine linens for a song at garage sales. Everyone else is so busy hunting down collectibles that sheets and pillowcases are mostly passed over. I can tell a fine cotton just by feeling the sheets - eventually, you will develop a touch for this as well.

Keep in mind that you will have a hard time finding matching sheet and pillowcase sets. This never bothers me - with today’s unique styles you can mix and match.

My mixed style of choice is the Shabby Chic look of gently fading red and pink roses. The mixed prints on my pillows and sheets looks delicious!

Other styles that lend themselves to mixing:

1. solids and stripes that match your rooms main colors and accents
2. all-white…mixing eggshell, navajo and taupe looks nice
3. blue-on-white, pink-on-white or toile-type patterns
4. anything with a country design, or ginghams

While I like roses exclusively for my bed, I also see many pillowcases with other floral themes for you to collect - tulips, daisies, mums and mixed bouquets.

Make sure you give your “new” linens a good, hot washing before you use them to sanitize.

JCEarrings.com Supports Spay and Neuter for Adopted Stray Cats

Through the kind donation of Charleen Larson at JCEarrings.com, Faramir (the mom), and her little boys William (grey) and John (orange) are on their way to healthy, long lives at their forever home with the HippyGeek!

Thank You, Charleen!

TV Shows Loved: Past and Future

DH and I watch TV shows in serial order together as our main shared activity. We usually download an entire series and work our way through them. When we finish a series, we grieve briefly and move on to the next on our list. It’s fun to plan out which series comes next.

The hardest part is waiting for a new series to get its groove on - usually shows don’t start out great.  Buffy, Angel, Xena, X-Files, Torchwood, DS9, B5 and Farscape all had rather rough starts. Every iteration of Star Trek took a few seasons to find its way. I expect most shows take a while to get good.

Only Firefly and BSG were great right out of the gate. And maybe Heroes, even though it is now unwatchable.

I am merely documenting what we’ve seen here and what we are looking forward to next:

Currently Viewing

• Torchwood
• House
• Burn Notice

What We’ve Seen Together (in no especial order)

• Xena
• Firefly
• Buffy
• Angel
• Veronica Mars
• Deep Space 9
• Farscape
• Battlestar Galactica
• X-Files
• The Lone Gunmen
• Northern Exposure
• Enterprise
• Dollhouse
• Sara Conner Chronicles
• Bionic Woman (but gave up on it before it was cancelled due to boringness - current iteration)
• Reaper
• 30 Rock
• New Amsterdam
• Robotech (Macross)
• Heroes until it began to utterly suck
• V Miniseries (1980s)
• Cleopatra 2525
• Jack of all Trades
• Dune Miniseries

What is on the List to See Next (also in no especial order)

• Babylon 5 (we started it and stopped after a few eps since it was so boring. But we hear it gets excellent so we intend to try again)
• Alias
• Castle
• Stargate
• Fringe
• Caprica
• V (current iteration)
• How I Met your Mother
• Voyager
• Sanctuary
• Special Unit 2
• Dresden Files
• True Blood (I am a little nervous about the violence though)
• Pushing Daisies
• Eureka
• Bones
• Profiler
• CSI
• Dark Angel
• Big Bang Theory (maybe)
• Jericho
• Dexter
• Doctor Who (current iteration and maybe past)
• Knight Rider (current iteration)
• The Lost World
• The Vampire Diaries (maybe)
• Chuck
• Andromeda (maybe)
• Hercules (maybe)
• Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

What might we be missing? You can gather we enjoy Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Supernatural, Medical and Forensic, and also shows with a slightly Gothic or Steampunk bent. Should youth-based shows like Roswell, Supernatural and Smallville be on our list?

We prefer a show to have clever dialogue and long tern story arcs that don’t become too ridiculous (which is why we gave up on Heroes and why we are afraid to watch Lost). We are also on the fence about Flashforward, The Office, Mad Men, Boston Legal, Parks and Recreation, Ugly Betty, Arrested Development, Monk and Mentalist. Shows about mafia gangsters are NOT on any list I am interested in. I’ve heard good things about Glee.

So - what are we missing? And Is there anything on our “to watch’ list that is unbearably lame?

House Buying - the signing papers phase

When you buy a home all by your lonesome, there are many papers to sign. And you have to run all over town to do everything - the realtor needs another signature. The title company needs you. The insurance company. The water company wants to see you in person, for some reason, unlike the electric company or my cable internet provider. My phone is ringing and ringing with different things I need to do RIGHT AWAY, every day, before escrow is fulfilled and I hand over a large check to get house keys in return.

Now it’s the last weekend before the close of escrow on Thursday. I hope that by Monday I will know exactly how large a cashier’s check will be needed.

Since I have my water and electric already on, it feels real. I spent a few hours watering the trees, bushes, yuccas and bamboo in the yard. I can’t have my plants dying before I even more in.

One dead pine will have to come down - but a small one. And it’s removal will improve my already wonderful view. The dead pine will give me firewood. It’s all good.

I am already looking into chickens. I can get three laying hens at any time. All I will need is some kind of dog house for a roost and some chicken wire fencing.

I’ve been looking into organic heirloom seeds for my garden. I know it’s starting late, but I can still get some tomatoes and radishes going.

Too many dreams going already for my eco-home, but I can’t officially get started until enough papers change hands.

Living Simply quoted on CNN.com

Living Simply quoted on CNN.com

Guest Author - Jill Florio

Living Simply got a bit of a boost over the Thanksgiving Holiday, traditionally the start of the Christmas shopping season - we got interviewed by CNN.com! Reporter Christy Oglesby called to ask about ways to shop sanely (ie, stay out of the mall). We discussed the value of buying high-quality used gifts, and the article is here - Gift buying? Think outside the mall - as a CNN.com special report on Christmas shopping.

Here is the Living Simply article she found interesting enough to contact me about: A Recycled Christmas - Reused Gifts Are Better

And the description: There are plenty of reasons to buy used for Christmas presents, and only one reason not to: you probably think it looks bad. Here´s why you should buy used gifts and encourage the same from others.

Needless to say, it’s very exciting that even CNN is getting into the act of the green, or recycled Christmas. Whether people shop used to save money, stay out of the mall, or just have fun in the hunt, it’s all better for the environment, eh?

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