............just like the one I had last week. Okay, it hasn't really been a whole week. Three days, though. The cold water pipes froze. The ones that travel through the ceiling to our bathroom. We have hot water. Scalding hot water. Trying to count my blessings.
I still have cold water in the kitchen and I can brush my teeth. I have a bucket and I can flush the toilet ........... with hot water. The flushing with hot water makes the toilet warm and cozy. I don't need to go anywhere, so I won't offend anyone with my lack of hygiene.
Got me thinking. How often did they bathe and launder their clothing when they had to haul water in from a well. Would I even brush my teeth if I had to bring in a bucket of snow and melt it over a wood stove? I would no doubt treasure that bit of water that I worked so hard to get. Is this great progress? It is progress that water is delivered right to us, but it has made us wasteful. We all take this luxury for granted until we are denied it. I consider myself to be aware of waste. I try to be conservative with my water usage. I have a rain barrel and I try to think of ways to reuse water from "gray" (not sewer) sources. But, I must confess that one of my guilty pleasures is a very long, very hot shower. You can believe that when the cold water returns I will be in there until my skin puckers!!!!!!
14 comments:
Okay, this might too 'out there', but you could carry in cold water from the kitchen and have a bath instead of a shower.
Or, is there no tub?
When we shovelled out $5000 to have running water put into our barn a couple of year ago, I thought about this A LOT. We have a well - but without power we can't draw from it. There's plenty of water here, but no running creek - we'd be stuck bailing from our dugout I guess. Hope that never happens.
We were without water for a short while during Christmas. I really thought I was conservative but I sure did try to use the water a lot knowing full well we did not have any!
Hope it won't be long til you can enjoy that long, hot shower!
yikes. at least some progress and yeah i bet we would not wasted it if we had to work that hard to get it...
Growing up we had well water so when we lost power we lost water. It made me cognizant of how much I really depend on water. I'm not one of those gals that looks good without a shower-I've got greasy genes. I, too, try not to be wasteful with water, but I know there's definite room for improvement.
I'm thinking they didn't bathe very often. I'm going to hope you get your water back soon. I'm sure you will enjoy that shower!
I grew up in a house that had a cistern. We took a bath every other day with us sharing the water in the tub between the six kids (unless it was really dirty then we were allowd to drain some of the water add some clean water to it). When we brushed our teeth we turned the water off and only turned it on when we rinsed our mouth out. Brothers learned to shave with water that was held in the sink until they were done. We didn't rinse dishes until all were washed. Oh the list could go on and on. But then I married my hubby whose house had 'city' water. He was, and still is, one of the biggest waster of water there ever was. I still get after him about turning the water off when he's in the bathroom.
We're very conservative in our water use but like you, my big luxury is a long hot shower.
Oh, and I was gonna say, having to lug it from a well probably explains why they only bathed once a week (or that's how the stories go).
Hope you get your wish soon!!!
Have fun & stay warm
{{{HUGS}}}
Donna
You know--I was raised in a house that had a wood heater, and had no running water or indoor plumbing! (Yeah-we DID have electricity, but Mama cooked on the wood stove!) I can tell you--you learn to heat your water on the wood stove and take a sponge bath alot, and get into a huge galvanized tub on a Saturday night to "get clean"! Summertime-we set the tub out in the sun, and enjoyed more (and more necessary !)baths at early evening. We had a pump out side--if it froze, Daddy shot down it with a rifle to thaw it, or he primed it with warm water, I guess.
I guess that is why I sometimes still feel comfortable with "sponge bath" at my bathroom sink at night before bed. It still is saving water!;)
The outhouse, and the "chamber pots" were worse than the bathing problems! Makes me thankful for my little GI house with the one bathroom I've shared with my hubby (and for a long time--our 2 children) for 44 years now. And to know-=-if it doesn't freeze, or we don't loose electricity-I CAN take a hot bath when I want to. I'm 61 and it feels good---but it also makes me think of those who don't have pure drinking water, much less bathing water, too.Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
our 2nd bathroom (when i was growing up) was an outhouse. 1 seater... this was in kcmo.
we also had a cistern and had 1,000 gallons of water hauled in each week (at $6 per load; in the 1960s, that was a lot of money for water). it didn't go too far with 9 people in the house. we learned how to get by on sponge baths during the week.
my dad's cousins house (in springfield, tn) didn't have a bathroom, but it did have running water in the kitchen. it burned down in the 70s and he rebuilt it - again without a bathroom. said it was fine without it before, why put one in then. lol - we visited once so i experienced chamber pots. ewww...
hope you get your hot shower soon.
Oh no! I am so sorry about the water situation! I am darned glad to have my hot showers every day.
I like to shower at least twice a day, and if I can fit it in I'll throw in a nice relaxing bath between showers.
You really are roughing it.
I'll tack on another 5 minutes to my water wasting orgy tonight, just for you
Thank you for the great post
Your water is turned off in the bath house? Just wondering why you couldn't shower there.
Hope your water problems get solved soon. Plumbing is certainly not your friend lately!
BTW - Lily loves her sock monkey - she opened up her birthday presents on 1/14. Unfortunately, the dogs are lusting after the monkey, too, so my daughter has to keep a good watch out for it!
I know how you feel...when we lost our heater in November it really made me think how others did it ...oh so long ago. You never fully appreciate the "small luxuries" in life until they are removed. Good luck in getting your water flowing again!
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