Captain Crunch

Yes, I've gone way crunchy the past few months. I guess once you start, you just feel a need to follow through. Though I've never been able to do something just a little bit. I'm an all or nothing type of gal.

I'm trying to not use the car as much as possible. I live in an unwalkable area. Check out how walkable your area is. The score on that thing should be over 75 but alas my walk score is a sad, sad 12. Other than schools, nothing is close by. And the transit system is great, if I want to go to Richland. I've written the Ben Franklin Transit customer service. They've assured me that there are NO plans for expanding service in our area, it really sucks. Anyway, I am walking the kids home every day from school and today I even rode the bike with Ainsley and Nic in the trailer to Nic's gym class 3 miles away (uphill). The roads are so far out of the way and dangerous, with little or no shoulders to be on. So, for that, I wrote our mayor and complained a bit. I asked him when they're going to make our roads safer for pedestrians and if they're ever going to put Chapel Hill Blvd. through to rd. 68. Hopefully I'll get a response soon. I really would like to know.

I've stopped using our clothes dryer after learning that the dryer accounts for 10% of home energy use. We live in such a dry area, and our south facing back yard gets full sun all day long. It's silly for me to use a dryer. Actually, I find it saves me a little time too. I pull the clothes right out of the washer and hang them on hangers to dry. When they're all done, I just collect the clothing (already hung on the hangers) and move them to the closets. The kids are fascinated by it. Ainsley has drawn many pictures of clothes hanging in our backyard and Chloe wrote in her journal about it. Nic is completely on board and on his laundry he's so excited to help me hang up his clothes either in our laundry room or outside. I'm one of the few mom's out there that would think a clothes line would be cool to get for mothers day. It seems a movement has begun for hanging clothes out laudrylist.org April is even national line drying awareness month.

I finally bought recycling containers, I've only been saying I'd do so for over a year now. But, I suppose that now that my laundry room seems to be clean all the time I finally have room for a recycling area. The kids helped label them and are excited about using them.

No, my garden isn't in yet. It is a bit frustrating, but I can't start until the fence/trellis's are finished and the irrigation is set up. I have water to the garden now... Just have to finish the individual lines to each vegetable bed. The fence is mostly up... just have to get the trellis up for the vertical growth.

I'm making some efforts, though most of them are half attempts, I am trying.