socks, road construction, coconut oil, laundry contamination, and long braids

Today I sort of learned to darn a sock, in that it didn't look that complicated, I didn't do any research at all, and that sock is going to die soon anyway. I just wanted to try it because when my in-laws downsized last month, I got a sock darner.

Now I can say I learned that, based on a fifteen second survey of the internet, other people have old sock darners, too, and ones in similar condition to mine go for about $10. I don't actually care how much it's worth. It's worth another month or two of this particular sock plus whatever other socks I choose to fiddle with in the future. Yay, socks?

In other news:

• The road construction stopped kicking up dust about two weeks ago, so I've been feeling like a human off and on, which is an improvement.
• The coconut-oil-in-the-hair trick got old fast, but with the contaminant mostly out of my hair, I went back to the way I'd been doing it before.
• I cleaned out one of the washing machines again, and from now on, any contaminated laundry I come across is getting tossed instead of mixed with other laundry in the hopes it will be diluted. The result from the last experiment was a whole load of contaminated laundry. 
• The laundry contaminant is oil-based, and I'm going to have to start tolerating detergents if I want to get it out. Two of my doctors were all on board with vinegar if I couldn't use ammonia anymore, and vinegar doesn't do a whole lot, contaminant-wise.

And, because I had a vague interest in growing my hair longer just to see what it did, I read that if your braid is too long, you have to wrap it around your neck in the bathroom if you want to keep it out of the toilet. I have scissors, so watch me never have that problem.