Lint's Favorite Candy for Christmas?

Maybe I like lint so much because we both like Lindt candy so much. I only buy this delicious treat once in a great while because I'd just eat it. It's so delicious, creamy and smooth and so tasty.

What is your favorite Christmas candy? Or other candy for that matter?

Merry Christmas to all.

A Man and His Navel Lint...

Yes, you read right. An Australian librarian has been collecting the "navel fluff," as he calls it, from his belly button since 1984.Thanks go to my niece, Trista, for sharing this tale with me to share with you.

Collecting navel lint.

Saving belly button fuzz.

What a gross hobby, you may say. Yep, I'd say. But Graham Barker has picked himself the honor of a Guinness World Record. How much navel lint has he collected in 26 years? Just 22.1 grams, that's .77 ounce. Not even 1 measly ounce. Graham may not be the only person to have had this much navel lint, but he is the one who saved it for all to see. And he was brave enough to admit he saved it. And from what I understand, admitting you have a problem is the first step....

Check out the jars by decade of his navel fluff here. 

What I thought of when I first saw the three jars lined up was did he wear the same shirt the entire time? I mean look at the colors. Weird. And here is picture of the Navel Lint King and his jars.

Do you have belly button lint? Do you save it? We'll have our own poll and see who among us plays on Barker's team.

Lint in Air Filters

Baby, it's hot outside. I'm sure it is where you are, and it sure is where I am here in Phoenix. A high of 103 degrees Fahrenheit here today. Ugh. I hate it, but I mostly stay in but that means my air conditioner is running almost nonstop some days. It's a necessity here though, for me anyway. Otherwise I would be a lethargic puddle, so I bite the bullet and run the AC.

And since it runs so much, I try to be diligent about changing my air filter. I bought one of the 3-month air filters last time and put the little reminder label on my calender here by my desk. But, it's dusty here in the desert and I have a cat and I'm not a great housekeeper (I vacuum every week or so whether it needs it or not), so I decided to take a gander at the air filter the other day. It was gray. See? It's supposed to be white.

So, I checked the measurements, wrote them down, and went to the hardware store for a replacement even though I was 3 weeks early from the 90-day target. Maybe it'll reduce the utility bill by a buck or so, I reasoned. I asked the clerk where I could find furnace filters (old habits die hard). She directed me to the wall where they are stacked in boxes without correcting. Furnaces? We don't need no stinking furnaces.

Well, I found a coupon at the store for buy one get one free, so I bought two air filters. The wrong size. I had written down the right size, but they didn't have that size so since I had the coupon, I guess I just had buy some filters so I could use that coupon! The two air filters are both 2 inches too wide. Oh well. I've done it before; I cut off 2 inches and shoved it in with the little arrow pointing the right way and everything. Works fine and I didn't want to return the suckers.

So, on the paper label for the new air filter, it says that it traps animal dander, LINT!, plant spores, dust, and pollen. And instead of 90 days, I'll probably change it after 60 days or so again.

Have you changed your air filter lately?

Lint in Literature -- The Feast of Love

Lint shows up from time to time in books, and I always love it. I just finished reading The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter and was tickled pink to find this lint toward the end of the book:

"Wittgenstein regarded metaphysics as the lint on a suit. However, after he picked off the lint, the suit itself vanished."

Pretty deep, as were some parts of this book when one of the characters, Harry Ginsberg, a philosophy professor, spoke of Kierkegaard and other philosophers I know nothing about. But don't let that stop you; I'd recommend The Feast of Love to anyone who loves language, a good story, and is in the mood for a little lint.

Skully Darkmoon Lint Clay Art Doll

Okay, here's a new one to me. Lint clay art! Who knew? Not me. This guy (it's actually a gal!) was created by Etsy artist DarkMoonDoll. And here she is:

The Etsy description follows:

Skully was created by making clay lint. Clay lint is a type of clay that can be made using dryer lint,and glue. I formed the shape of the body and head all in one mass. I let it dry for a week. After the form dried I applied acrylic paints on to create the creepy face, striped skull shirt, black pants shirt, and white streaked hair. Skully is very sturdy and and as hard as concrete so she is not extremely fragile. She stands 7 inches tall

Check out DarkMoonDoll's Etsy shop.

So cool! I never ever thought of combining lint and glue to make clay, but then again, why not?

The Lint Feeder

Lint lint lint. It's something we don't think about much other than when we occasionally remember to scrape a wad out of the lint filter to make room for more, but I stumbled across this cute little lint feeder.

Cathi makes these lint feeders and sells them on Etsy. Here is the description of her handmade lint feeders from her Etsy store, The Square Peg:

Its always seemed a bit of a waste to me to just toss the lint from our dryer into the trash.

Problem solved with this little lint feeder! Hang it on an exterior wall, fence post, tree or anywhere birds gather in spring, and let the birds feather their nests with your dryer lint!

Stoneware clay with Shino and Ohata glazes, it measures about 6 inches across and 3" deep.

Comes with natural Manzanita perch (actual perch may vary)

I'd like to caution you NOT to use lint from clothes dried with a dryer sheet, as its not good for birdies!
Its also best if you don't use dryer lint until after your area's rainy season is done, as wet lint can compromise the integrity of a nest's structure.
~~~
Cute, huh? And what a good idea, letting lint go to the birds.

Lint as Fire Starter

Lint. It really is useful stuff. I post links to my blogs and online articles to RedGage to get more exposure for my writing. Another RedGage user, Kinderhook, recently commented on one of my earlier lint blog entries. She said that lint is great as a fire starter. Well, I guess it would be! Lint is, after all, little bits of fabric that flies off our clothes in the drier and gets caught in the lint filter.And fabric, especially little bits of it, will burn so it makes sense that lint would too.

So, here's what my current wad of lint would look in a campfire setting:

So... the dog sniffed out the campsite, the donkey hauled the lint and vittles, the singing pickle provides the entertainment, Cookie the chef is ready to make dinner once the poodle gets the fire started, with the lint, of course.

Going to start collecting your lint now, aren't you?

Bedpan or Lint Filter? You Decide.

I took a picture of my lint filter and decided it looks like a bedpan. See?

What shape is your lint filter?

What did the Lint Filter give up for Lent?

dryer sheets

This Socks

Sock lint. It's the worst. 

I have two pair of socks that always accumulate little bits of sock lint when I wash and dry them. Inside. By my toes. And do I remember? Yeah, after I put them on then I can feel the little wads of lint and I have to peel off my socks, turn them inside out, and pick it out.

I swear, I would be able to feel the pea under the 20 mattresses or however many the princess slept on. Delicate? No. Finicky? Yep.

What lint gets in your craw? 

Newspaper Lint

I just, seconds ago, finished watching the movie State of Play. Well, it was a movie full of intrigue and secrets and murder! But my favorite part came at the end of the movie right before the credits rolled:  the headline story was shown going to press.

The negative was shot, the PMT made, the plate made and inked, the paper wheel rolled out, the press readied, the paper run and collated.

I could almost smell the ink and feel the paper lint that is left after the pages are cut and stacked and made into a newspaper. A newspaper!

Great ending.

Put That Lint to Use Already!

I'm always on the lookout for new ways to use lint. This is a perfect one!

Mosaicmom, a writer on eHow, has an article called How to Make Filler for Stuffed Toys that intrigued me. Check out Step 2 of this article and before you know it, lazy Mr. Lint will soon be off the couch working, like he should be. Yes, most lint is male.

Lint in Literature -- Under the Dome

Okay, I might be stretching it to call Stephen King's new book Under the Dome literature, but you can't beat the alliteration:  Lint in Literature. Oh yeah.

I'm in the home stretch of this huge book, fewer than 50 pages to go. But last night as I was reading, this jewel jumped off page 1027:

"Big Jim, his back now to Carter sighed. 'But I'll be eating roast beef at the Lord's table in a minute or two, so that's all right.' He raised a pudgy finger and pressed it high on the back of his neck. 'Right here. The brain stem. All right?'

Carter swallowed what felt like a large dry ball of lint. 'Yes, sir.'"

Priceless!

To check my blog about books, click A Good Book is Awaiting.You never know when more lint's going to roll through.

Are you a Cootie Queen or a Lint Licker?

Just saw that Orbit gum commercial again. You know the one. The two women are fighting over a man. One woman calls the other a Cootie Queen then the Cootie Queen calls the other a Lint Linter.

Who, I ask, licks lint?

Guest Lint -- Coin Laundry No. 1

I was out riding my bike today (yes, really... the high here in Phoenix today is 72 degrees F), and I rode through a parking lot to get off a busy street.

I smelled it before I saw it--laundry soap and fabric softener fumes. The air was scented nicely, not of flowering trees or fruit, but of good old laundry. I looked up and saw the sign:  Coin Laundry. To keep the nice smell a bit longer, I rode around the back and snapped this picture. Lint was trapped against the side of the building, in the grass, just about anywhere leaves would accumulate.

All of the lint I saw was this color--gray. Isn't that amazing that with all the colors of clothes, most lint devolves to gray?

Composting Lint

Did you know you could compost lint? I didn't until this week when my friend Barb wrote in an email:  "Did you know that lint is a perfect addition to your compost bin?  Seems weird, I know."

So, I looked it up and found this wonderful red worm site that talks about how the worm dude put a lint ball in the worm bin. I used to raise worms for the castings (worm poop), which is great fertilizer. And that's what compost is, great fertilizer. 

Beware! The site has graphic images of red worms feasting away on lint and other organic crap. Fascinating!

I'd say you can probably add lint directly to the compost pile too, if you have one of those going. Lint is after all mostly flecks of cotton, which is a plant fiber. Just be sure to tear it into small pieces, spread it out, water it, turn it, basically all the good stuff you do to your other composting material. 

Let me know if YOU use lint in your compost.

I got a nice picture to add to this post from Liz. She composts lint! Thanks, Liz!

 

Hoarding Lint

I watch the TV show Hoarders each Monday evening. I think it's fascinating to watch these people who live like pigs scream and whine and gripe to paid professionals about not throwing away that Wendy's cup because, you know, where can they ever get another Wendy's cup?

But after the first show of the new season, maybe a month or two ago, I went through my dishwasher and pitched a good quantity of glass jars, plastic tubs, paper towel rolls--all crap I was saving for crafts or you know, just in case. And yes, you read that right.The dishwasher. I don't use my dishwasher. I store junk food and hoarding supplies in it instead.

And sometimes I find wads of lint tucked away (usually it gets tucked away when someone's coming over and I have to move it off the coffee table or something) in a drawer or some other weird place it doesn't belong. I usually keep my lint in a plastic bag but still.

I guess I hoard lint.

What do you hoard?