Octopus Overlords

dbt1949 wrote:It has happened in different washing machines and on different cycles. It happens using liquid or powder or them new little packages of soap.
There still could be a cycle we haven't tried yet. How about bi? More? Tri?
Maybe it's the harsh water we have. It's pretty bad. Never noticed this living in other locations.

Do you have a separate setting for the water level though?

For instance, on my machine, setting it for different cycles doesn't affect the water level at all. There is a separate button (or switch) for that.

It sounds like the detergent is not getting properly dispersed, and if that's the case, either raising the water level or reducing the amount of detergent should help.

One more thing: Some dryer sheets (like Bounce, but usually the generic brands) can cause spotting in the dryer as well. Not sure if you're using those, but if you are, try drying a load without them once and see what happens.

dbt1949 wrote: Maybe it's the harsh water we have. It's pretty bad. Never noticed this living in other locations.

Are you using well water?
I suppose that could cause it, but I have no personal experience with well water.
Do you have a water softener hooked up? The people I know that live in the country all have water softeners hooked up to the main water supply. They tell me it's a must (at least in our location), but I don't know exactly what it does that helps them.

I use well water and dont have that problem.

Mortgage drops to $75K and change! I've been in the house 3 years.

Yay me!

Default wrote:Mortgage drops to $75K and change! I've been in the house 3 years.

Yay me!

Congrats. I wish I was anywhere near that.

Skinypupy wrote:

Default wrote:Mortgage drops to $75K and change! I've been in the house 3 years.

Yay me!

Congrats. I wish I was anywhere near that.

That's because you have a life?

Or a house full of small children. I think we are on the brink of dropping to 5 digits on the mortgage (I looked and it will be 5 digits in May).

I closed on my house 22.5 months ago. I've managed to pay off $6,280 in principal.

I've owned my house 11 years and a few months. We're still well into 6 figures, and we'll be selling soon (hopefully within the next few months), so we'll get back on the hook for another 30 years.

I borrowed$134k, so my mortgage is small, comparatively. My kid totaled my Subie two years ago, so that put me down 20k where I should have been by now.

OTOH, I don't have anything in my savings account. :-/

Default wrote:Mortgage drops to $75K and change! I've been in the house 3 years.

Yay me!

Nice and congrats!

Of course mortgage rates are so low up here that it's smarter to do anything, including burning the cash in the fireplace to heat the house, than pay down the mortgage.

When we refinanced last year, I maintained my payments so that we'll pay down in 15 years. It's hard to retire when you still owe money.

I'm expecting to have the house paid off at 52, just in time to start paying for college for the oldest.

I think our initial loan 8 years ago was for $168k over 15 years. We refi'ed twice (once for no cost, thanks Obama) for significant rate improvements, but extending our term back to 15 each time. If Zillow is to be believed we are at about $308k in equity. That should help us retire somewhere, someday, maybe. I'd love ot move to a smaller house to save on property tax, but we don't want to change schools and nothing is really cheap in this area now (we bought at $70/sf and now we are at nearly $110/sf).

Ive needed to take a shower for over 4 hours now. Ive almost talked myself into it.....gotta stop putting it off so I can go get some food.

Imagining a scenario wherein you'll need to bathe prior to leaving the house in order to feed yourself leaves me wondering just how dirty you'll let yourself get before cleaning. I can go about three days and just put some deodorant and a hat on and still be presentable outside, though you don't necessarily want to sit too close to me.

If I didn't shower on a day, it's likely that I am bedridden with illness. Some days might be later than usual due to not leaving the house, but it's almost a guarantee. And it's a habit that my wife is grateful that I have.

The only time I leave the house without a shower is if I am leaving to go on a run. The shower follows pretty quickly after. I am not sure I have ever gone 3 days without a shower as an adult. Hell, many days the shower is the highlight of my day.

Filed under: Things I Learned When I Lived Alone For 6 Years

I also learned that I need to work. I took a couple months off between jobs and fell down a black hole that made the other people playing EverQuest who saw me playing for 17 hours a day, every day, get concerned for me. My family thought I was going to commit suicide, and I felt like the walking dead. I don't look forward to retirement.

coopasonic wrote:The only time I leave the house without a shower is

To grocery shop, knowing that I am coming home and doing nothing else that day.

A shower is the motivation to get up and be gone from the house.

It is not uncommon for me not shower over a weekend when I am stuck at home and it doesn't bother me other than the fact that I am less motivated to do anything without having showered. But on the weekends I don't always want to be motivated to do stuff. There are plenty weekends where I all I want to do is drink coffee and read or watch TV or play video games and it's damned fine weekend.

Unless it is in the heart of the summer, I shower every two to three days, with exceptions for exertion or getting ready to socialize. The idea of the mandatory daily shower is both extremely recent, and very American. Every two or three days is more common than daily in other modern nations. Unless you're doing something (working out, manual labor) that makes you particularly nasty, the daily shower isn't only unnecessary, it is bad for your skin and bad for your hair. It also doesn't help with odor, because as long as you're washing your pits and nasty bits and wearing deodorant, the rest of your body doesn't develop smells that fast (unless there is some other health issue.)

I could write a ton but Im tired hehe. A shower tires me out completely nearly. Ive used a PC for 22 years now. Over that time any work Ive done has diminished to nothing and Ive aged.

I used to take one a day every day. Now its days. I do the hat thing. But I just wanted a shower to refresh myself. Besides I dont want to be one of those 'people of Walmart'

And with my drivers side window busted I have to go in all the fast food places.

Blackhawk wrote:The idea of the mandatory daily shower is both extremely recent, and very American. Every two or three days is more common than daily in other modern nations. Unless you're doing something (working out, manual labor) that makes you particularly nasty, the daily shower isn't only unnecessary, it is bad for your skin and bad for your hair. It also doesn't help with odor, because as long as you're washing your pits and nasty bits and wearing deodorant, the rest of your body doesn't develop smells that fast (unless there is some other health issue.)

And bad for your body's biome. But that doesn't change the fact that a shower is the] associative motivator get a day actively started for me.

No doubt. For a lot of people the daily shower has become a psychological trigger, and traditions kicked off by advertising campaigns has created a sort of paranoia about body odor that isn't actually based in science, but still makes people nervous if they haven't had a shower in the past 24 hours.

If I don't shower, I feel gross. My hair is left dealing with over a day's oil plus whatever product is left over from yesterday. It's a lot easier to hop in the shower to wash it and the requisite parts than clear the kitchen sink for a back-straining hair-only wash.

I don't care for a shower. I like to bathe.

I prefer to do it every day but often skip it if I am just going to be glued to the PC all day, especially on a weekend.

I love to relax in the tub and daydream until my skin gets wrinkled....

Skinypupy wrote:

Default wrote:Mortgage drops to $75K and change! I've been in the house 3 years.

Yay me!

Congrats. I wish I was anywhere near that.

Ours is $62k after 28 years. There were a couple of refis in there, one of them adding $40k worth of credit card debt. Still expect to pay it off in six years, coinciding with retirement.

We have an adjustable-rate home equity line. I'm watching interest rates nervously.

Rip wrote:I don't care for a shower. I like to bathe.

Without getting too graphic, I rediscovered bathing a few weeks ago because I have to soak my fundament. I went through some painful times but it's finally healing up, and hot baths are helping a lot.

I usually shower just because it's a lot easier to wash my hair that way.

I just take of my clothes and let the dogs lick me all over.

Between that and Fabreez I'm all set to go.

I shower or bathe every day. If I go more than 36 hours without I can really feel the difference.

I also have an exquisitely sensitive nose. I often find myself in public near strangers who seem to believe that they can skip bathing/showering and just get away with it. Those people are wrong.

My wife also has a bloodhound's nose. But my brain wakes up in the shower and I feel less gross afterwards. My biome is exothermic and needs to be blasted by water daily.

Speaking of my excellent nose...

Earlier this week I thought I smelled gasoline in the car. I asked my carpool passengers for three days running, but none of them noticed anything. By day three it was a powerful odor to me, but everyone else thought I was just smelling exhaust from other vehicles.

Yesterday I took the car to a mechanic. It turns out it was a ruptured fuel pump leaking gas into the chassis. He said I was a lucky man, and that this condition was a leading cause of sudden vehicle fires.

Bathing is fantastic, but I have yet to live in a house with a bathtub that will actually fit me (and that's height, not girth.)

We have a short tub. To dunk my head I have to raise my knees, but it's better than the stand-up shower that was here when we moved in.

Used to love baths but after my hair was at my waist it made it too difficult. I switched to showers and have only had a regular bath maybe twice in 20+ years even after I was shaving my head. Now my hair is back to the top of my shoulder blades and Im not super happy.

I will say a bath is much better for restless legs than a shower

A giant tub to bathe in that I can almost swim in is on my list for when I hit the lottery.....

coopasonic wrote:I'm expecting to have the house paid off at 52, just in time to start paying for college for the oldest.

I think our initial loan 8 years ago was for $168k over 15 years. We refi'ed twice (once for no cost, thanks Obama) for significant rate improvements, but extending our term back to 15 each time. If Zillow is to be believed we are at about $308k in equity. That should help us retire somewhere, someday, maybe. I'd love ot move to a smaller house to save on property tax, but we don't want to change schools and nothing is really cheap in this area now (we bought at $70/sf and now we are at nearly $110/sf).

$110/sf IS cheap. My condo's last county assessment was at $335/sf.

Which is exactly why we moved out of the DC area.

Holman wrote:We have a short tub. To dunk my head I have to raise my knees, but it's better than the stand-up shower that was here when we moved in.

In our remodel, I've made sure to replace the tub which came with our unit with a deeper tub. Rather that 6-8 inches of water it should get 10-12. Still waiting for all the work to be done to find out of our water heater can handle it. May have to also move to a tankless water heater if it can't handle it.

I am so looking forward to it.

I have a pink bathtub.

I call it Red October.

I was going to soak in the tub last night, but I didn't have enough jello.


Sigh.