Always owned top-loaders with a standard agitator. I use the 'perma-press' setting (regular wash speed/gentle spin) on all but towels, using fast spin for them. My machine also has gentle wash/gentle spin as an option. Clothes are clean/fresh/not tattered. I lightly dry, then hang most clothes to finish. We are just two adults, but did the same with three kids. I did use a front loader for six months in temporary living until a new home was built... HATED IT! Yes, I am yelling. Wrinkles galore, NOISE, huge vibrations even on a tiled/concrete floor, maintenance (leaving door open, smell, gunk on the gasket, undissolved detergent in dispenser) and length of time to complete a load. But, I say to each his own. If you have one and love it, good deal! We are all different in our needs and choices. However, I do have a question regarding the 'high-efficiency' aspect. Unless someone lives on well water that is slow to recover, or lives in a water challenged area, what is the justification for most users to save water, yet use the extra electricity that 1-1/2 hours to complete a load of wash requires??? I do not condone waste of resources, but this seems like an either/or situation. Comments?

We always open 1 gift on Christmas Eve....a new pair of pajamas...in fact the boxes are marked Pajamas so we know which package to open. Another tradition we have is we fix a Low Country Boil with shrimp, red potatoes and corn on the cob. After dinner we go riding around to see the Christmas lights. Get back read the story of Jesus' birth from the Bible. Sing Christmas carols (only time Molly and I get to sing) open our new pajamas and go to bed..Right before Tony goes to bed he puts our ham on to cook(really just warm up) So when we get up EARLY Christmas morning the smell of the ham fills the house...YUMMY!! After we have Santa and open the presents I cook a pan of biscuits and we have ham & biscuits for breakfast then I really don't cook the rest of the day.. That is what we do for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day...btw we usually stay in new pajamas all day and just laze around..

We started our late fall early winter with taking down about 5 black walnut trees, cutting them up and stacking them for seasoning. We are trying to clear the back .25 acres of our land to get better visual and get some sun to shine through there. We were doing good until the snow and cold weather hit. Now that's on hold until snow clears. I'm doing indoor projects now, organizing, cleaning, decluttering etc. Next month I'll clean the carpets and we're getting a dumpster to rid ourselves of anything we haven't used in 1 year, can't wait to get that done. In late March early April we will build two 4 x 16 beds that will be used for veggies. I had 8 smaller ones in the lower garden area but they have become obsolete. Our neighbor has planted black walnut trees and every bit of juglone travels down hill to my beds. Killed 16 heirloom tomatoes last year and nothing else really did that well. We will make those beds into perrenial beds and the beds far enough away from the juglone river will be for blueberry bushes and rhubarb. For now I'm bored. I am thinking about taking up crocheting. I'd like to learn to make small gifts for family and friends. I'm doing some research on where to start with that. If I don't find something to do I'll drive hubby crazy.

Yuletide Eureka What my son wanted most for Christmas that year was a pool table. They were not inexpensive, but we reasoned that a pool table would be a good incentive for a fourteen-year old to have his friends come in, and keep him at home. How do you hide a pool table until Christmas? Many of our friends had used our attic to stash their gifts until Old Santa could make his rounds, but nobody could handle a pool table for us. The store would not deliver on Christmas eve so we had to agree to have the table brought to our house a few days before Christmas. It was put into a room in the basement that was unheated and never used in the winter. A day or two before Christmas I heard someone open the door leading down to the basement. I looked to see my son starting down the steps. Surely he must be going to get something from the garage, but I went to the door to listen. If I told him not to go into the back room, it would be a giveaway, so I crossed my fingers and waited. I heard his footsteps go down the hall. He was not going to the garage, probably just out the back door. But no, I heard a door open, and then a very quiet voice say "oops!" His "oops" reminded me of my own little "oops" many years ago. I was probably about eight at the time. Being the youngest in the family, my sisters and brothers did what they could to keep me in the camp with believers. I never had this explained to me, but that Christmas eve, I heard a voice coming down the chimney, telling me I better go to bed, or Santa Claus wouldn't come. My sisters who were in the room at the time told me it must have been Santa Claus or one of his elves. I had never heard of anyone who had heard Santa Clause's voice coming down from the chimney, but I was afraid to take a chance. On my way to bed, and just as my son did many years later, I opened the door to a room I should not have. There on the bed lay many things. One thing I could not miss...black, shiny and obviously my size. The patent leather shoes I wanted so badly and had asked Santa Claus for. What did this mean? I hadn't gone to bed yet; Santa could not have come. And if he had, he would have put everything under the tree, and besides, they weren't even wrapped up. I stared at the bed like it was Santa's sleigh. I stepped back, closed the door, and crossed that invisible barrier, and I knew.