On a more positive note...

OK, after last week, I'm going to try to be a little more *up*. Well, we'll try. see how it goes.

Since moving into a house, after living in apartments for years and years, and now having the water bills, etc, right there in our faces, under our control, we have gotten creative. Those first bills can be a little shocking when you are used to someone else picking up that tab. Now we have our gas bill, electric, water, sewage bills... we got our baseline for the first month and pretty much said, "OK, wow, how can we bring these down?"

We brought them all down. Well, not so much the electricity  we are kind of always plugged in, but we managed to keep the house freezing to drop the gas, and we cut our water by a lot. We'll cut it even more over summer with my awesome rain barrels. But for every day usage, we made a few changes, and there it is.

Making a few small changes to save water and make your bill go down - easy stuff. This has got to be one of the easier ways to green around the house. These are things that, as mentioned in the previous post, are said again and again. I hadn't done them before because there was not really the incentive of SEEING what we actually use. It takes a bit of time for the hot water to get up to our shower. That's some water wastage. The husband found a bucket in the basement, and boom, now we run the water as it gets hot into the bucket, and use that water to flush the toilet. I was skeptical, but it's really just so easy. One of those things that becomes second nature once you do it a few times... the "why haven't I done this before" that happens. We save 3-5 gallons right off the top there. Bill immediately drops.

Some thing with the washer. We got a few 5-gallon buckets, and we simply get the water hose and fill the buckets as the washer empties. That water, of course, isn't going to be sparkling, so you have to be careful where you use it. We use soap nuts, so we can use this water for my new baby trees. That way, I won't be increasing my water bill for anything in my yard.

My rain barrels will be much more labor-intensive, what with attaching the spigots and connecting them to the downspouts... and my barrels are sitting there waiting for that... but this was almost nothing to get to do. Sure, I have to heft a few heavy buckets at times, but that's good exercise. Use the core.

So... while we're all about saying the same old thing and the same ideas over the years, let's add this on. Water-saving... how novel. I guess everything is new to those who never tried it before.

A kinder, gentler tone. How's it workin' out for you? Next time - how I overcame the composting fear.