ST. PATRICK'S DAY The Real St. Patrick
"Tis the season for parades, green beer, shamrocks, and articles talking about why St. Patrick's day isn't all about parades, green beer, and shamrocks.
First, a few misconceptions about Patrick:
Patrick isn't really a Saint with a capital S, having never been officially canonized by Rome. And Patrick couldn't have driven the snakes out of Ireland because there were never any snakes there to begin with. He wasn't even the first evangelist to Ireland (Palladius had been sent in 431,about five years before Patrick went). Patrick isn't even Irish. He's from what's now Dumbarton, Scotland (just northwest of Glasgow).
Patrick was 16 years old in about the year 405, when he was captured in a raid and became a slave in what was still radically pagan Ireland. Far from home, he clung to the religion he had ignored as a teenager. Even though his grandfather had been a priest, and his father a town councilor, Patrick "knew not the true God." But forced to tend his master's sheep in Ireland, he spent his six years of bondage mainly in prayer. He escaped at the suggestion of a dream and returned home.
Patrick was in his mid-40s when he returned to Ireland.Palladius had not been very successful in his mission, and the returning former slave replaced him. Intimately familiar with the Irish clan system (his former master, Milchu, had been a chieftain), Patrick's strategy was to convert chiefs first, who would then convert their clans through their influence. Reportedly, Milchu was one of his earliest converts.
Though he was not solely responsible for converting the island, Patrick was quite successful. He made missionary journeys all over Ireland, and it soon became known as one of Europe's Christian centers. This, of course, was very important to fifth-century Christians, for whom Ireland was one of the "ends of the earth.""
From: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/news/2004/stpatricks.html
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RV Laundry: Washing and Drying Clothes While RVing
"RV laundry. Dirty clothes accumulate while RVing just like they do any other time. If you are on a camping trip. Here are the laundry options for RVers:
~~ Take your dirty laundry to the Laundromat. This option works best for most full-time RVers. It doesn’t require special equipment. It doesn’t require permanent, non-flexible storage space. There’s no big up front cost. It’s pretty simple and straightforward. You let your laundry accumulate for a while, then gather it all up, and haul it to the laundry facility.
You use as many machines as you need to wash it all at one time. Likewise, you can dry it all at once. You fold, haul it back to the RV, and put it away. You spend a few hours, $10 - $20, and you are done for another week or so. While you are waiting at the Laundromat, you read, visit, make phone calls, or plan the next leg of your trip, so you really don’t waste much time just waiting.
~~ Laundry facilities at truck stops, travel plazas, and campgrounds are similar to public Laundromats. The biggest difference is that they have fewer machines. You may need to do your loads consecutively, instead of all at once. If you are spending the night at one of these places anyway, it can be convenient. You are there – the facility is there.
These laundries are most useful for doing only a load or two of laundry. They are particularly helpful if you want to stretch the time between doing your full laundry. They are also good if you have a washer and dryer in your RV and need to do a load of bigger or heavier items.
~~ Yes, some RVs do have washers and dryer. However, the washer and dryer you find in an RV is seldom the same as what you have in a traditional home. These RV appliances use 110-volt electricity. They have a small load capacity. It takes a long time for clothes to dry in an RV clothes dryer. The biggest disadvantage is that they take up a great deal of room – the equivalent of an entire closet.
If you spend much of your RVing time in a campground with water, sewer, and electrical hookups, you may love these appliances. You do a load or two of laundry every day. You don’t need to wash your things in a machine someone else uses.
~~ There is another type of machine or device marketed for doing laundry. The apparatus is a small keg type container. It has a crank handle you turn to agitate the clothes. I’ve heard trying to do laundry in them is a sure way to make a mess. I’ve also heard these hand machines don’t get clothes any cleaner than simply soaking the clothes.
~~ If you want to do your laundry by hand, there are several methods.
Some RVers put water, detergent, and clothes into a five-gallon bucker, put the lid on the bucket, and drive. The motion is supposed to be akin to an agitating machine. Most likely, the long soaking does the most cleaning.
Others use their bathtub as a large laundry sink. I’ve also heard of RVers carrying along a child’s inflatable wading pool to use for doing laundry.
Some soak, swish, and rinse. Some agitate the clothes with a toilet plunger. Others, I’m told, use old-fashioned washboards.
All of these hand methods wash only. You need to twist the clothes by hand to get out some of the water. Then, you haul them to a laundry facility to dry, hang them outside, or hang them around in your RV. Depending on the temperature and humidity, heavy laundry that has not gone through a fast spin cycle may have to hang in the RV for literally days for to dry.
If you are going to be somewhere for an entire season, consider a regular clothes washer and dryer. We’ve done this several times during extended stays where we had both the utilities and the space to use them. Sometimes, we had just a washer and hung the clothes to dry on outdoor clotheslines. We bought inexpensive used machines. The money saved from the weekly Laundromat trips quickly paid for them. "
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RV Tips:
Before heading out to do your Laundromat, pour your liquid detergent onto a towel or other item in the laundry. That way, you don't need to carry the jug of detergent there and back.
Some businesses also have an arm bar across the entrance to keep taller vehicles out. Put an antenna on the cab that is the height of the camper. As long as the antenna clears, you know the camper will too.
Use a small magazine rack or file folder wall pocket for local information. Use it as a central place to store tourist attraction brochures, the campground sitemap and rules, coupons for local restaurants, a local map, area travel guides, etc.
Collect tote bags and use them in your RV for… storing extra shoes, trips to the shower house, as a beach bag, collecting dirty laundry, portable file boxes, tool bags, carrying your groceries, shopping at flea markets and farmers markets, keeping your table settings together that you take to pot-lucks, and corralling magazines and books.
Hang a small basket on your RV galley wall to hold napkins. It keeps them within easy reach. And, they aren't taking up space in a drawer.
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Today:
Prime is wandering around the house looking for Patches, who was adopted yesterday. Little timid, scaredy-cat Patches is on a 14 day trial with her new 'parents'. The folks who are trying out Patches seem very patient, and knowingly took her as a "Special Needs Cat". I don't miss her so much, more being very worried about the poor little thing.
I hope, no I have been praying, that she is not too terrified, and will settle down.
I have to leave early this morning to take Jay to the next town for an 8.00 AM doctor's appointment.
So that is it for today.
1 comment:
I guess we are lucky. We were able to remove the top part of our linen closet, in our RV. The bottom half was already empty and had the washer/dryer hook-ups installed. We went to sears and bought an appartment sized stack pack, and are very satisfied with it. It is just like mine at home was, only a little smaller. They are also 110. Work like a charm.
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