Originally published on Lightening Online.

We recently received notification from our electricity supplier that charges are about to increase. No surprises there. The cost of living is really putting the squeeze on the average household. BUT, we are not powerless (hee, hee - excuse the pun). Now more than ever is a great time to work hard on reducing our usage so that we can reduce the overall impact on such increases.

1. Build Healthy Habits

One of the biggest wastages of power is the habit of not turning things off when not in use. Cultivate the habit of turning out lights when you leave a room and turning off appliance (if you can reach the power point) when not in use.

Image via Wikimedia/Copyright © 2005 David Monniaux

2. Make Use of What Nature Has to Offer

In winter you want to open up the curtains (window coverings) on a sunny day and make sure you close them again BEFORE the sun goes down to trap warmth inside and not allow the night chill to enter the house through the glass.

In summer, it’s more important to keep the sun OUT during the day and open up the house at night to take advantage of the cooler night air.

{Originally posted on Kelby Carr}

When I decided to work at home most days, a major MAJOR factor was having more time to make good food for my family. I wanted to use more fresh ingredients, and make more things from scratch. Oh, in my mind, I would be the uber foodie mom, baking and creating and freezing and canning and doing various fun food things. I should totally have a sustainable kitchen.

In my kitchen, I have gadgets for making yogurt, juice, pasta, even sausage. I have a bread maker missing just one piece. Besides that, I have the knowledge (or the ability to Google and find out) to make any number of things from scratch. I have plenty of land to grow my own stuff, and I live in Asheville, NC where it is super easy to find cool locally grown produce.

Yet, my gadgets and cookbooks are gathering dust. I still hit the Super-Walmart so I can super consume. I spend $200-plus at least once a week on groceries. And I do still, sometimes (although definitely less and less often as I am at home more), give my children processed, packaged crap. OK, I said it. I may be a foodie mom, but I am a real mom. I am buying things in extra packaging for extra money and being totally non-green when I could just make and store things at home. Criticize away, if you must.

I blame life and having lots of work and having three kids and all of that. But when my twins were babies, I was working full-time and making homemade baby food and pumping milk for them to have at daycare. It wasn’t easy, and I was pretty much psychotically exhausted. But it should be even easier now, much easier. So I clearly CAN do it.

So I’ve decided I will create this public Sustainable Kitchen Project as a way to motivate myself, to keep myself honest, to connect with other moms who want a more self-sustaining kitchen, and to track my progress. I’ve already started in a few ways, and I’ll post about these very soon. For example, we are starting an organic vegetable garden. Here is a lettuce seedling I’ve started:

{Originally published on I am Bossy}

After fourteen seasons and twenty-two Emmys, the popular medical drama E.R. is planning its final episodes which will air next February, prompting Bossy to say, “Wait—E.R. is still on?”

It’s been many years since Bossy watched this show—but in case you’ve never seen it, here is everything you need to know:

Originally posted on Mommy’s Martini.

One of my most vivid childhood memories is sitting in the dark, on the screened-in porch of my next-door-neighbor’s house, and listening to the grown-ups talking. In the moist, heavy heat of a Georgia summer, the little ceiling fan on the porch would force a breeze, and the crickets would begin to chirp as night fell. The puffs of wind beyond the screens carried the faint scent of magnolia blossoms, and the asphalt twinkled with embedded sparkles in the pools of golden streetlamp light where hard-shelled Junebugs gathered. There was no light on the porch, so as to avoid attracting insects, and as the darkness gathered closer and enclosed our little room, I felt cocooned in an almost magical place.

We lived in a house on a horseshoe shaped block of homes that had been built for returning GIs after WWII. Every single house on our street had the same front bathroom (what had once been the only bathroom), with the identical pattern of black-and-white tile on the floor and walls. You know the pattern; it’s very like the “retro” one you can buy at big box home DIY stores now, except there is something different, a bit glossier, and better, about the original. We all had the original.

These were small houses — two front rooms, a kitchen, bath, two bedrooms — that had been added onto over time so that by the time we lived there in the early 1980s, they all had a slightly different footprint. Except for three things: that central black-and-white bathroom, the wide front stoop, and the porch. Some houses (like ours) had enclosed the porch. But not next door.

{Originally published on Soy is the New Black}

It amazes me again each year that from the humblest beginnings, little dry seeds and tiny seedlings can grow with such fury. Reaching toward the sky. Rambling out of their beds. Stretching twining tendrils. Completing life’s cycle as Mother Nature intended.

Originally posted on Diary of a Modern Matriarch.

I’m sure you have all heard on the news and media about the safety of the plastics we use, specifically in baby bottles, sippy cups, bowls, etc., especially regarding the chemical Bisphenol-A. In case you’ve been living in a cave, here is what it is:

From the Green Guide:

“Depending on whom you talk to, BPA is either perfectly safe or a dangerous health risk. The plastics industry says it is harmless, but a growing number of scientists are concluding, from some animal tests, that exposure to BPA in the womb raises the risk of certain cancers, hampers fertility and could contribute to childhood behavioral problems such as hyperactivity.

According to its critics, BPA mimics naturally occurring estrogen, a hormone that is part of the endocrine system, the body’s finely tuned messaging service. “These hormones control the development of the brain, the reproductive system and many other systems in the developing fetus,” says Frederick Saal, Ph.D., a developmental biologist at the University of Missouri. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals can duplicate, block or exaggerate hormonal responses. “The most harm is to the unborn or newborn child,” Saal says.

Originally posted on At Home Redesigns

In my line of work, I help people beautify their homes by using, mostly, what they already own. My feeling is this: Many of us have plenty of stuff, plenty of stuff we really like, we just don’t know how to pull it all together to create pleasing, comfortable, organized spaces. In fact, sometimes too much stuff is what keeps us from creating those pleasing, comfortable, organized spaces.

If that is the case in your home, listen to this: It’s OK to get rid of things.

Originally published on I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus

Mom and Dad were industrious types, like their Irish-English ancestors before them. (Unfortunately, they became the end of the family line in that trait.) So it didn’t surprise me that they spent half a day picking grapes at a pick-your-own-grapes place shortly before I arrived for a visit. It didn’t even surprise me that they had picked a few 5-gallon buckets full, even though it was just the two of them at home then. Ten cents a pound! What more do you need to know?

Clearly, though, something had to be done with all those grapes before they went bad. So Dad and I embarked on our Make Your Own Raisins In the Back Yard project. The back yard in question was in Arizona, where it was well over 100 degrees, dry and sunny, so that was in our favor. All we had to do was figure out where we were going to put all the grapes while they turned into raisins.

Originally published on craftykeg.

I love twice baked potatoes. If they weren’t food, I would marry twice baked potatoes. So, when my sister and I were talking about a side dish to make for a party at her house (during the weekend of our brother’s college graduation!), we were sad that twice baked potatoes would be too much work for 27 people. So, we decided to turn it into a casserole! It was a hit, and was all gone by the end of the night! The recipe is below.

Originally published on Thursday Drive.

Yesterday , I promised you a look at the list of players I would choose for my fantasy poker table.

If you click on the image below, you’ll get a better look at it (you’ll want one). In fact, when you get to the image on Photobucket, you can click it once more for the largest possible image.

Then come back here, and I’ll tell you my reasons for choosing each of them. Though, really, they hardly need explaining. (My only technical requirement was that they already know how to play poker.)

All photos borrowed from Google Images

The Lineup, by seat #

(click title for more)