Wrap Rage

I went to Amazon.com today and found a messgae from Jeff Bezos right there on the front screen addressing "wrap rage". I was so excited to see that they have acknowledged this is a problem and are doing something about it. I hate these clamshell plastic packaging. I always end up cutting myself trying to get them open. It also really sucks to try to get a kid's toy out of the packaging while they are standing next to you harassing you and you have 50 million little do-dads to unravel. Not to mention the useless waste from this packaging. Now COSTCO needs to just follow suit. They are really the worst offendor.

Wow, Again

I just got back from voting. It took me about an hour and a half. I have never seen anything like it in the past 10 years when I've been at this voting location. It was just so great to see so many people out there exercising their right to vote.

And FYI... If you were wondering, my excited support for Sara Palin did not last long. I have put together a line chart to express it.

A Lesson and Hope in These Tough Times

"Somewhere along the way, we, as a society, got lost. We thought that having it all would lead to happiness. Truth is, having it all only erodes the value of having. It leaves you with less. Less satisfaction. Less understanding. Less meaning. And less joy." - Green Bean

I just read this quote over at The Green Phone Booth. It really struck a chord with me. I can see this so much in children. The more toys they have, the more they seem to destroy them and treat them poorly. they do not find value in their toys. They are not "special".

The more we have, the more we want. It becomes an unquenchable thirst for things. I remember growing up the wonder and excitement of going through the Sears Wish Book, daydreaming about the toys I might have and what I might do with them. But, it was the dreaming and fantasizing that was the great thing. It reminds me of another quote. This one is from the kids movie "Escape to Witch Mountian". The older sister (what's her name?) tells her brother: "If we have everything we could ever want, we would have nothing left to wish for." Okay, I'm paraphrasing here. That always stuck with me.

Having things comes with a price. You have to manage these things and worry about them. Things tie you down. You give up a little piece of freedom and a little piece of time with each possession.

Choosing to have fewer things this year and choosing to buy more food locally and make more food from scratch has truly been a wonderful experience for us as a family and for me in particular. I appreciate my raspberry much more knowing that I can have it fresh only within a certain season. I appreciate my basil spice, fresh from my own garden. I am more sensitive to where these things come from and the cost to the society to create them.

Lord knows, I have so much further to go. By most standards, I don't live simply. It is only in comparison with the way I used to live. But with the little steps I have taken, with each thing I let go of, the more full my life feels.

WOW!

I am just filled for hope and optimism for the country right now. McCain's pick of Sarah Palin for Vice President just put me over the top. For the first time in my life, I feel like we have two presidential candidates that I feel good about. I agree with each of them on some issues and disagree on other issues, but with regards to their character and their passion for making this country better - have we ever seen an election which such great options? Usually at this point in an election I am deciding which of two evils I am voting against. Now, I have to decide which of these two good options am I going to support.

But, if I had any doubt, McCain did just seal the deal with me. I did not even know Sarah Palin's name. I had heard some news stories about this reformer overtaking the incumbent in the Alaska governor race, but I did not pay much heed. However, the more I hear about her, the more I like her. Mother, strong woman, feminist for life, reformer, energetic - all these words describe her. I would choose her for president let alone VP.

However this election turns out, it will be MONUMENTALLY historic. However this election turns out, I feel this country will be headed in a more hopeful direction.

34.4

That is the average number of kWH of electricity usage for the month of August. I was floored by the energy bill this month. That is way below the usage at any season over the past 3 years. I’m giddy with excitement.

So, I thought I’d list the specific things we have done to cut back on our energy usage. We must have been so wasteful before.

• Temperature. First and foremost, was using the heat and AC less. We lived with a temperature of 78 F instead of 76 F this summer. It was totally bearable.


• Thermostat. Bought a programmable thermostat and scheduled it to adjust the temperature of the house when no one is there and in the middle of the night.


• Fans. Opened the windows on cool nights and used a fan. If the temp was below 78 F at night, we opened the windows and turned on some fans to circulate the cool air. This week has been a great example. It got in the mid 80s during the day, but went to the low 70s at night. The kids actually wanted blankets at the breakfast table in the middle of August!


• Timers. We put many devices that are constantly draining energy (such as cable boxes, digital picture frames, wireless router) on timers. These things don’t need to be on in the middle of the night or the middle of the day when we’re not home. So, we used our Christmas Light timers to manage them. It’s been working really well and we never have to think about them.


• Clothesline. We installed a clothesline to run the dryer less (dryer is a huge energy hog). I especially like it for sheets and stuff that take a long time to dry.


• Lights. Turn them off. It is so basic, but I have always been the worst at this. I am 33 yo and still scared of the dark (especially a dark basement). But I have been MUCH more diligent about this.


• Bulbs. Switch to compact fluorescent (CFL). We just have to make sure that we dispose of them properly as they do contain mercury.


• Weather Stripping. We’ve been making sure the weather stripping around the doors is in place. Next step will be to revisit the insulation.

I think winter is still going to be a challenge. The HVAC cools much more efficiently than it heats. We have a whole slew of other ideas to try out for the winter, but hopefully our efforts will continue to pay off.

We've Got Worms!

... and this is the good kind of worms! In our "year of improvement", DH and I have really started composting. We've had a composting bin for years, but we didn't know what we were doing with it. We had it next to the shed in the shade and we only put yard clippings in it.

So, as our gardening was going so well for us, we thought we were ready for the next step of composting. We moved our bin to the sunlight. We started collecting kitchen scraps, old cardboard boxes, along with the yard waste to balance out the bin. DH religiously waters and turns the compost. At first, it was a pile of garbage (surprisingly, not too smelly). Now, it is a beautiful pile of rich topsoil that we can use for next year's planting. Yeah.

And, we've got worms. I think this is the holy grail of composting. Many people will purchase worms to help make their composting successful, but ours came of their own accord to feast on the glorious coffee grinds, banana peels, and junk mail. Oh, glorious day!

Composting gets two thumbs up from me. Here's my top ten list for why composting is great.

10. Lots of free pet worms!

9. A chore little kids love - adding their banana peels to the composter.

8. Makes it fun to clean out the refrigerator. The moldier the better for the compost.

7. Switch to fewer garbage pickups and save money.

6. Organic fertilizeer for your landscaping.
5. Less waste has to go to waste processing facilities which saves energy.

4. Use fewer plastic trash bags.

3. Great free topsoil for the garden.

2. How often can you get excited about dirt?

1. No stinky food trash smelling up the garage.

Interested in composting? Here are some good resources:
Nature.org
HowToCompost.org

So...

So, we got our next electric bill and it was our lowest usage to date! Even as the weather has gotten hotter. I think it may have something to do with the fact that the kids are in day care rather than being watched in the home, but I'll celbrate anyway!

Some Truly Geeky Anticipation…

My husband and I are eagerly awaiting the delivery of our latest energy bill from Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE). We don’t have a gas line, so all of our energy usage is found in our electric bill. I literally keep clicking on the site to see if it is available (today they will release it).

“What is so exciting about our electric bill?” you may be asking yourself. Well, under the fearless leadership of my husband, we have been seriously trying to minimize our energy consumption (as many American families seem to be these days). It’s actually turned into a fun game for us - putting power strips on timers, finding our absolute tolerance for heat and humidity, measuring the wattage of all of our appliances...

As you can see from the pretty line/bar graph below, our 2008 daily usage (in blue) is down from our 2006-2007 daily usages by ~20kwH a day (with the exception of January when our heater was not working correctly). So, naturally, you can see why it is with eager anticipation that we await the delivery of our July electric bill. Is our trend continuing? Will we have our lowest energy usage ever?! We’ll have to wait to find out.

Getting Kids In Touch with Nature

Having 3 little boys and witnessing the effect that television can have on them, I have become pretty gung-ho about making sure they experience nature and gain an appreciation from the natural world. I find that if you spend two hours exploring the outdoors (be it in my back yard, at a park, or camping) they are much happier kids than after the same two hours of being inside watching TV or even just playing with toys.

Unlike previous generations when you went outside to play at the first chance and came inside "when the streetlights came on", it is an effort to get these kids to spend time outside. I found a great new resource that is just starting out called "Nature for Kids". It is a blog and a discussion forum and additional resources all about just activities to do with kids in Nature. I just love the concept and I hope that it gets much more participation!

May I Have Your Weeds, Please?

I don’t know whether it is my quest for a simpler life or the pain of the economy, but I have become very fascinated with the idea of foraging for food in my own back yard – or other people’s back yards as the case may be. I have discovered that all kinds of yard “weeds” are edible and also have a lot of nutritional benefits. There are even organizations that are just dedicated to promoting this as a practice good for the environment.

For example, naturalist “Wildman” Steve Brill has a whole website dedicated to it. He includes tons of information on identifying plants that are edible and is working on a book for foraging with kids. An organization called Plants for a Future has a searchable database of edible plants with all kinds of information on uses of the plants and any hazards or warnings about their usage. It is an excellent free resource.

Some of the weeds I’ve tried so far…

• Purslane – This is an exceptional weed. I love the taste of it (it is juicy and citrus-like). The leaves are high in Omega-3 Fatty acids and the stem is high in Vitamin C. I spotted some Purslane in a friend’s yard and transplanted it to my herb garden (as pictured). I would be very excited if it took off in my own yard! I’ve eaten this right off the stem and put it into my “Garden Weed Pesto”.


• Dandelions- Everything about the dandelion is edible. The greens are even sold in stores like “Whole Foods” for use in salads or to be cooked like spinach. The flowers can be eaten in a salad or used to make wine. I also used the greens in my “Garden Weed Pesto”.


• Wild Blackberry – We have some of this in the back yard (as well as the local park). The kids gathered some black berries and we tried to eat them with whipped cream. The flavor actually wasn’t that great. Maybe they weren’t ripe enough. I’m going to see if they are better cooked or in a fruit smoothie.

Things I’m going to try soon include clovers and oxalis. We have a ton of this and I’ve read you can cook it up the clover as you would spinach (oxalis should only be eaten in small quantities). Maybe I could make a nice weed quiche.

Some words of caution… There was just a story on the news today about a whole family that got sent to the hospital from poisoning due to insecticide on their mint leaves.

1. Don’t eat any foraged food that is from an area that may be exposed to insecticides, road salt (from snow), or any foreign chemical substances that you don’t know about.


2. Make sure to clean anything that you pluck from your yard thoroughly.


3. Make sure you can absolutely, positively identify something before you eat it. Many plants in your yard are poisonous.

I’m not sure that my neighbors appreciate the encouragement of clovers and dandelions in the yard. Good thing we don’t have a home owner’s association!

I Don't Like Structure & Cinderella

So, I guess I don't like structure. I've been very reluctant to blog and then had blog guilt. This phenomenon was also described by Laura at Shortcake Stamps. So, I thought instead I will just write what I please when I please.

Anyway, I had to post about something that caught my eye. As I was making the 5th or 6th pass through my closet to continue the decluttering of my life I was thinking what can I do with these bridesmaid dresses? Many of them cost 100's of dollars and are very nice dresses, but just not my taste. So, in my research, I came across this organization called the Glass Slipper Project (http://www.glassslipperproject.org/). They take donations of gently used formal dresses and try to match them with prom-going high school students in Chicago who may not be able to afford them. I think I'll give that a try...

Take a Time Out

One of the funniest video shorts I have seen in a long time is called "Time Out" by Robbie Chafitz. It was premiered at Sundance.

Did-You-Know the Best-Selling Personal Computer of All Time?

As many computer geeks of my generation probably assume, it was the Commodore 64. This was the first introduction to computers that most GenXers had in their childhood. While it was a great vehicle for playing video games, the "Sony Playstation" of its time, it was also a good vehicle to program BASIC on or to run word processing software.

The C64, as it is called by the inner circle, is not the best computer for hacking into government defense systems. Instead, that would be the IMSAI 8080 microcomputer, as featured in the geek hero movie, War Games, starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy.

Geeky Things: A Cubicle Playset for Adults

I know when I am very bored at work, I have always wanted to have a little cubicle playset of my very own to pass the time. In the spirit of Dilbert cartoons and Office Space, "The Cubes - Cubicle Playset" available at ThinkGeek. lets you enter the fantasy land that might be your very own job. Maybe you are not the "Unix" guy, maybe you have always been the "Windows" guy and you've just always wanted to be the "Unix" guy. Well, now you can PRETEND TO BE THAT GUY with your very own Cubicle Playset.

Did-You-Know What Company Filed the Largest Tax Return in History?

It is almost February. Tax documents are arriving in the mail on a daily basis. If you feel overwhelmed by completing your taxes, imagine how it was for General Electric (GE) in 2006. They e-filed a tax return that, if printed, would have been 24,000 pages! According to the Tech Republic, this was the largest tax return ever filed. Talk about overwhelming.

Source: TechRepublic, Geek Trivia: A Tax to Grind

P.S. Can you believe there is a "Geek Trivia" newsletter? Lucky for me!

Structure

I've spent this last year delving into the blogging world a little bit more and seeing how good ones work and organize themselves. I don't expect this one to be a "good one" - I mean it is just for fun for me, it really has no point other than my stream-of-conscious ramblings. My main goal with it right now is to get myself to write more and to write more freely - just in case something useful pops out while I'm not paying attention.

So, in that spirit of getting myself to write more, I think I may add some structure to the site as an experiment. I'm thinking about:

• Know-It-All Mondays - Where I impart unsolicited advice to anyone who happens to stumble by about some random topic that I think I know everything about.
• Did-You-Know Wednesdays- this would just be useless geeky trivial facts that I unearth and propagate
• Geeky Things Fridays - This would be geeky things I've done, heard, or seen that make me smile and appreciate the geekiness in life.

So, I'm going to try this for a month or so and see how it goes.

One More Thing - A Book Thing

This one is in the spirit of life simplification. As I have been trying to find good home for books I am ready to let go of, I came across this organization in Baltimore, MD: A Book Thing. It seems that the main point of their organization is to give books away for free to people who want them. What a great idea! They need book donations, especially children's books. They also need plastic grocery bags - and I'm always looking for a new home for those as well (although I have started using BAGGUs for grocery shopping to cut down on the use of plastic grocery bags).

So Cute.... Had to Share

I came across the followin blog that I had to share for those of you who love working with Yarn. It is called the Mochimo Blog. This is a yarn artist who knits and crochets toys - lots of innovative work I had never seen before.

Also, she has incredible pictures of her MIL's yarn stash which is uunbelievable. As much as I would love to own that yarn - it is totally contrary to my "live simply" mantra for this year.