National Hanging Out Day

April 19th is National Hanging Out Day. Can you believe it, a whole day dedicated to hanging out your laundry to dry! I love it!

Bill and I have engaged in a friendly argument since 2002 (when we bought our first house together) about line drying laundry. Before we had the house I hung laundry to dry in our garage. Then Mulligan came along and he tore all clothing down from the laundry line ... which kinda defeats the purpose, ya know. So for about a 1.5 years I used the dryer exclusively. Then we moved and I rebelled. I bought a drying rack and used that, but it quickly broke and created nice little creases that drove us nuts. So finally we agreed to hang up a discrete laundry line. He hated it, but I loved it. AND we ended up saving about $35 a month on electricity. (I was washing and drying cloth diapers then, so LOTS of laundry!) It is hard to argue with that much savings!

Of course, that was in CA, where the sun is always shining. Not so much in MI. For some reason I have not fought for the laundry line here. I was a little concerned that the Home Owners Association would have issues about it, but hey, I'm on the board so I can nix any complaints! I think this day might be just motivation I need to set up a laundry line here in MI. It might be inside, due to rain, but something portable is a possibility too. I will begin my research and thought process!!

In the meantime - hang out your laundry!

• Electric dryers use five to ten percent of residential electricity in the United States
• There are 88 million dryers in America, and if everyone converted to lines 1/2 the year it could reduce residential output of CO2 by 3.3%.
• Clothes last longer when air dried
• Indoor racks can humidify your home in dry winter weather
• Clothes dryer fires account for about 15,600 structure fires, 15 deaths, and 400 injuries annually

(Facts came from Crunchy Chicken, I cannot vouch for 100% accuracy. But they sound good!)

Failure #3 & 4, and Kinda 5

Sigh, I confess I bought new stuff again!

So the first round, blunder #2, was a birthday gift for Kelsey. But it was a small Only Hearts Club Animal that cost about $4. Kelsey was not having a party, but we wanted to give her a token gift because we are trying to nuture this relationship.

Then the mother said she was going to throw together a small party. So off we went back to the store and purchased some craft items for Kelsey. So, yet another purchase of non-necessary items.

Diapers for my almost 5yr old and 6 1/2yr old. Do you think they will ever have a dry night? Annika might actually wake up dry, but I'll never know because you would think that I am asking her to remove her own arms and legs when I ask her to take off her diaper each morning. Good Gracious! And I have seriously considered having her sleep in undies, but she still ends up in our bed 3 or 4 nights a week. Usually around 5am, but I do not want pee on my new matress!!!

And for the big failure, #5
Bill, however, made the king-daddy purchase today. (He did not sign up for this challenge, and I try not to get around this challenge by having him make purchases. So I count his purchases as mine too. Unless I totally dissagree with them. Which so far I have not.) So today Bill bought a new car, a 2008 Honda Accord. His was 11yrs old and had almost 200,000 miles on it. And lately wierd little things kept going wrong - like windows would go down on their own, passenger door would not open from the outside. So yea, it was time. But we have been looking and negotiating since November. Naturally he waits until April to buy a new car!

Ahhhhh! Lovely Spring Weather

Oh what a glorious weekend it has been! The weather was sunny and warm all weekend, and we were outside all weekend enjoying it all. Sat we went to the Detlings to work on the Community Garden project. It was great to get my hands in some dirt on a larger scale. Although, most of what was done was tear down old stuff and get ready for expansion. But it is the idea that I had fun with. I am so excieted about this project and having a larger garden to pick from. I think the girls will really enjoy the experience too.

Today we just worked on our yard, trimming and cleaning out fall leaves and such. We have three crocus flowers up already - see photo here. The girls must have ridden 20 miles in our driveway today. And now, I am sunburnt and Bill is sore. And at only 8:15 both girls were sound asleep. Good fresh air and LOTS of outside excersice makes them tired.

It was a great weekend!

Failure #1 & 2 in my No Purchase Challenge

I must confess, I lasted just short of 24 hours without purchasing something new! Pretty sad, huh? Well, I really did try to not purchase something, but it got complicated.

Lauren is invited to a birthday party on Sat. I thought long and hard about what we could do that did not involve purchasing something new, but really did not come up with any good ideas, especially for a 7yr old. Don't get me wrong, Lauren is actually pretty good with creating and making hand made items. But we only had two days to make something, and really, what could she do in those two days? We had no new toys lying around to regift, and I am not so sure that a used item would have gone over too well. So off to Target we went to choose a birthday gift. (This brought up yet another issue I have, ok two issues. But maybe I'll delve into birthday parties and crappy toys another time.)

Also, I had talked to her about purchasing a small gift for Kelsey, her best friend. I really like Kelsey, as does Lauren, and want to help nuture that relationship. (Unfortunatly we are not doing too well in that department just due to busy schedules and my wierd anti-social tendancies in comparsion to the rest of suburbia. But that is also another post.) So, there we were in the toy isle at Target purchasing yet another toy. Well, two toys, one trip; it still adds up to two failures in my month long challenge.

And it is only April 2nd. 28 more days to go before I can purchase something else!

Crunchy Chicken's April Challenge - No Purchases!!!

OK, so I have decided to sign up for the April challenge at Chrunchy Chickens's blog. This site (which I have recently found and love - it is SO up my alley!!) has varrious environmental challenges that you can choose to participate in. This is my first official foray into her challenges, mostly because I recently stumbled upon her blog or I'd be in most of her challenges. I am excieted and terrified both - I want to be good, but sometimes you just need to buy something.

So what exactly is this challenge? For the entire month of April she challenges you to purchase NOTHING -- well she does say food and items necessary for food preperations (and gardening food) are allowed, but anything else must be "begged, borrowed, or bought used." I might even go beyond bought used, and try to do nothing bought.

I'll keep ya posted on my progress.

I hate puke

Good golly we have yet another case of the pukes in our house. I wonder if my mother hated the pukes as much as I do. While I feel sorry for the poor kid who is sick, I really hate the endless loads of laundry I end up doing. I do not remember puking all over my bed. Not even once, let alone the three or four times my kids manage to do it. Cant they get their GPS system up and working and get out of bed and head for the toilet QUICKLY!? Sigh - well, its not as if I have nothing better to do than add 4 or 5 loads of laundry to my already large pile.

The absolutly worst part ... I was supposed to go to a Pistons game tommorow, but I do not think the babysitter would like to hang out with pukey girl and then have to clean it all up afterwards. Heck, *I* dont want to, and I'm the mom!

Wild Women Weekend 2

Oh what a fun weekend it was in Chicago! The five of us (yes, I know the photo only has 4 Wild Women -- Poor Suzanne's Chrones was acting up) laughed, drank, ate (and ate and ate) and had a great time. Proof once again that we need to keep up this tradition. More to come so keep checking back with this entry .... I am slowly entering my fun stuff.