Dining room decor and…. Lent

How does lent influence dining room decor? Well, we all know I’m a bit crazy. I’ve been thinking though about several different aspects of our lives & I think I’ve found some ways to simplify.
1) Our electric & grocery bills are nuts. ( pun intended. blame dad.)
2) We use too much stuff.
3) I’m getting more independent and stubborn (is that possible?) in my old age (nearly 28).
4) The number of parenthesis in this post could be a drinking game… Oh wait…. Not officially party of the list
5) It’s lent.
6) We’re eco-hippies.

So what does this have to do with the dining room? Well, I’m “giving up” the clothes dryer for lent. Say whaaaa? It’s in quotes because I’m not giving it up entirely, just trying to use it way less. Instead of 50-55 minute cycles, I’m running 15 minute cycles to soften clothes & then hang drying them on the drying rack. That lives in the dining room, unless it’s sunny when it lives on the porch. Sorry neighbors. I’m going to try to get a clothes line up in the side yard so our porch doesn’t have our underthings drying out there for too long. I put those ob the back of the rack though.

In addition to hopefully saving a decent amount of electricity, I’m hoping to save some money & just basically sloooow down. I get to stay home with the girls, but it seems like we often rush through our day. Hanging the laundry forces me to have a bit if quiet.

We are also shifting things in other areas of our lives, too. More food made from scratch, like my granola bars, fewer cleaning concoctions & more elbow grease, and way less tv.

I know we sound pretty unmainstream middle class American with this stuff, but, well, I’ve never done “normal” very well. Anybody else hang dry clothes? Are you able to forgo the dryer entirely? Have a good recipe for homemade goodie from scratch?

Some light reading

This post is all about our new light bulbs. Get that hilarious title now? Only my dad again? Oh well. A girl always wants to make her daddy proud, even if it’s with terrible(ly funny) blog titles.

Heres the scoop on the new things lighting up our lives. Besides the obvious cute kids. We are still shooting for super eco hippy status around here. Two important aspects of this for us are energy efficiency & nontoxicity (did I just add a word to my own dictionary? I had one of those once… I wrote it in Ms. Tobin’s religion class where I was disagreeing with her about the meaning of the word “respect.”). That led us to the led. Super duper efficient & mercury free. After tons of reading & shopping, we picked the Phillips led bulb that is a 60 watt equivalent as our first leap into led land. It’s an odd looking bulb, but I’m really thrilled with it off the bat. The yellow color gives way to a nice warm white light once turned on. It is bright in most directions, not just forward, though that is where the majority of the light is focused. This may not be the perfect reading light in a lamp because of that, but it definitly could work. We bought 2 from home depot, taking advantage of ebates (referral link) & their free shipping. These guys weren’t cheap landing in the $25 range each, but the energy savings should more than make up for the initial price. Here are some (read: way too many) pictures of them.