Domestic Differences

Somehow it seems to fall on me to comment on the small details of life, namely the domestic ones.  Is that because I end up being responsible for the bulk of these things?  I don't think so, we've certainly all done our share of the washing up (sort of like being back at the cabin with no dishwasher).  Anyway, last night I decided it was time to tackle the laundry.  Our flat is equipped with a nice little washing machine/dryer combo unit.  Gio had given me a quick run through and there were four pages of explanation from the manual posted inside the cupboard - how difficult could this be?  Apparently a little more difficult than I thought.  There are three different dials with multiple settings.  The cycle selector had numbers from 1 - 13 with categories like White Preclean, Flash Clean, Special Shoes.  I think it's the drying temperature dial with little pictures including an ironing board - does that mean your clothes will come out ironed, or do you have to iron them after?  In the end, I went with Gio's recommendation and didn't change anything, basic settings would be good enough.  On the one hand, it seems to be a wonderful invention to have one machine that will wash and then dry your clothes.  The downside is, at least with this particular machine, it doesn't have much capacity - it took 2 1/2 hours to process about six t-shirts, 5 pairs of underwear and 3 pairs of socks (sorry kids for publicly talking about our laundry).  This morning I overloaded the machine and it just sat there - didn't flash lights or anything, just refused to do anything until we took half of the clothes out.  Oh well, this is probably another lesson to me to slow down and enjoy life, have another cup of tea : )