Enviromom's Tricks of the (clothesline) Trade

Renee over at Enviromom has an awesome post up today, demonstrating her clothesline technique (it involves bungee cords) and giving us a live look at her clothesline in action as it was featured (along with her adorable family) on Portland-area television.

Thanks, Renee!!

Green Horn

Pttt, pttt, is this thing on? In the St. Nick of time I bit the bullet and bought my MacBook. It's so...cute! And quiet. I was not aware that my poor HP was a major source of noise pollution. Heck, I could even take my MacBook into bed with me!! NO! (Maybe). Kidding. (Not.) Yes. (No.) And with my external hard drive humming away backing up every .37 seconds I am feeling oh so superior. That is if it weren't for the fact that I am still not out of the woods with my old(er) PC. In fact, it's sitting here glaring at me as I type this, so I'm sure smoke will start billowing out of its hard drive at any moment.

[Oh dagnabbit! Note to self...control c followed by control v on a Mac equals the letter v. Must. learn. about. command. keys.]

So I'm glad to be back - the next week or so has me catching up on your comments, my favorite blogs, a SusieJ meme and DC Metro Moms posts. As for Gift of Green, let's start where we left off, shall we? And that would be with Crunchy Chicken's Freeze Yer Buns challenge.

First, let me say that I am always cold, I hate to be cold, and I will curl up on the couch like a cat creating an oasis of warmth from which I will not move. My co-workers tales of her heated *mattress pad* makes me want to cry tears of joy (and envy). I sometimes hop in bed with all my clothes on because...heck, it's COLD! Do I live in Massachusetts? Maine? The Yukon? No. Virginia. Doesn't Virginia just conjure up images of frosty window panes and 6 foot snow drifts? Negatory. I admit that since my upbringing in Massachusetts I have become a weather wimp.

So let's just say I was shocked, nay, horrified, by the average day and night temps in which these fellow Freeze Your Buns off participants were managing to...exist.

But enough of my blathering. Let's do the numbers (Cue "Stormy Weather"):

[Hold please...checking automatic thermostat for night temp in the Gift of Green household]

OH MY JEEZ 72 degrees! I'm so ashamed!

But for some reason that's only on weekday nights. Saturday and Sunday nights I've set the thermostat for 62 degrees starting at 10:00 p.m. (with 70 from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.) - as well as during the weekdays. Looks like my thermostat might need some fine tuning...but maybe not tonight.

Greening Your Thermostat

I am not getting any [more] sympathy from Green Husband about my home computer (now dead as a doorknob (where did that expression come from anyway? Dead as a doorknob? Or is it doornail? But I digress) since I'd been belly-aching about it for eons and had done nothing about it and so this is just a means to gain *your* sympathy, dear reader, and to tell you that after this Tuesday posts should be back up and running.

So here I am typing at work, albeit on a break, but at work nonetheless, which I think is highly prohibited, so I'll make it short because shortly I will need to pay off a new computer and having a job makes that slightly easier.

So, to keep a long story short (too late) here is a great tidbit I want to share, and to give props where props are do, I must say that I was directed to Crunchy Chicken's site from Geggie's site (thank you, Geggie) and even though I'm a bit late in starting the Freeze Yer Buns challenge, there is still plenty o' time to jump on the bandwagon.

More deets on our strategy in one of those Post-Tuesday posts I alluded too...