Almostgotit.com

My twelve year old finds the most interesting internet sites. Over the weekend she found Sketch Star, and so of course I had to try it.

My daughter has her own version of my life, however. . .

This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Douglas Adams

And God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light, but the Electricity Board said He would have to wait until Thursday to be connected.
Spike Milligan

Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining.
Jeff Raskin

Good news!  The utility company has given us a couple months off its billing cycle.  The poor thing still can’t decide how to bill the Almostgotits, as our low meter readings always make it suspicious (we heat with wood).   

The only thing is, we got our woodstove a couple years too early to qualify for Obama’s 30% tax credit for energy efficiency.    Ah well, we ALMOST got it!!

Saving money and saving the planet make wonderful bedfellows, so here’s six ways you can do both, just for today:

1. Hang your laundry out to dry.  If you don’t have a clothes line, buy one or just tie a rope between a couple of trees.  Clothes dryers are one of the biggest consumers of a home’s total energy use.  And yes, you can even hang your clothes up indoors!
2. Skip Starbucks for a day and find an Earth Day event to do instead  (or)
3. Do a fun Earth Day project with your kids at home.
4. Plant a vegetable garden!  Tomatoes and beans are the easiest of all, grow practically anywhere, and your own, home-grown vegetable plants are so gorgeous and satisfying.  Plus also, you’ll have great tasting food for much less than what you’d pay at the store!
5. Stock your freezer.  You’ll save money and energy by reducing your trips to the grocery store.  You’ll also reduce the temptation to eat out (more car trips, more money spent) because you’ll have things to eat at home.  And finally, freezers use less energy when they’re full, too. 
6. Plug your TV into a power bar.  Many appliances draw electricity even when they are turned off, so using a power bar can make a real difference in energy savings.

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Related posts:

5 Ways to work greener & cheaper 

11 Ways to be cheap in honor of Earth Day

Laundry and spring break and blogging: oh my!

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So I got my check from Blogher yesterday — $29.28 for three months worth of ads, which makes it all worthwhile when those pop-up ones come up and bug the heck out of you, doesn’t it? 

(I’m so sorry.  I forgot to sign in and go do the thing that nixes those kinds of ads…)

Anyway, with all that money to spend, I felt a trip to the nursery was finally justified, so I went to Stanley’s Greenhouses and spent $149.47.

Welcome to my sick little world.

I bet Heather Armstrong never feels bad when *she* goes and spends $150 at one of her Salt Lake City nurseries.  She reportedly makes $40,000 a month on advertising for Dooce.com.   Yeah sure, go ahead and click through…  buy her another sagebrush or whatever she can actually grow in Salt Lake City. 

$40K vs. a chance to grow dahlias?  Oh yeah, I’m sure glad *I* didn’t move to Utah. 

Since it was the middle of a weekday when I went to Stanley’s, there weren’t many other people there except retirees and SAHM’s with kids in tow. 

And mostly-unemployed me.  

Most of the time, I’m glad I no longer have kids in tow everywhere I go, as I now can spend all the time I want agonizing over which color of astilbe I want.  But there was one very cute little girl trailing behind as her mother asked around and  hunted in vain for the part of the store that stocked wysteria vines. 

“Mommy,” the little girl called out, growing impatient.  “MOMMY!  So, WHERE’S THAT POSSTERIA?!?”

Right next to the asters, is my bet.

Get out your kleenex.

The Twelve Year Old Strikes Again!

No blogging today either, because I just finished my taxes. 

Plus also, my formerly-clean desk is now covered with multiple copies of every tax form plus several file folders full of Highly Important Additional Papers, and so I can barely reach the keyboard.

In other words, I need chocolate.

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(a few minutes later)

I just went out to get the mail, and look! Even better than chocolate! A friend has sent me a real live LETTER, plus also a bunch of gold stars!!

Did you finish your taxes today, too?

You DID?

Then this gold star is for YOU!

We spent Easter with dear friends, and we were put in charge of the ham.

It’s not difficult to find ham in Tennessee, but there’s plain old ham and there’s delicious, yummy, breathtakingly *good* ham.

So once a year or so, we have been in the habit of visiting a certain store which I shall not name here for legal reasons.

At Christmas and Easter, the lines are so long that the store moves its cash registers to a booth outside, and hires a police officer to manage the traffic going in and out of the small parking lot. I went a little earlier this year to get my ham, and had to stand in line anyway.

I shuffled past the displays of side dishes and flavored mustards, declined the free sample of smoked turkey breast, and finally arrived at the counter where I ordered a smallish half-ham. My mouth watered as the clerk presented me with the fragrant, foil-wrapped prize, which he opened for my inspection.

Ah.

“Yes, that will be fine,” I said, politely swallowing my drool. I only peeked at the price as I was walking to the teller. I had just selected a *FIFTY DOLLAR* ham.

$51.27, to be perfectly exact.

That’s 25 meals at a local homeless shelter. A week of groceries for some American families. Half a month’s wage in rural Russia. Two and a half flocks of ducks for Heifer project. A year’s worth of learning materials for 11.4 school children in Zimbabwe (or 5 school children in either Mozambique and Rwanda). Four complete sets of immunizations for children in Haiti.

And part of one wonderful, celebratory meal a year for eight good friends in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Do you struggle with things like this, too?

This one is just too much fun (I *love* Rube Goldberg machines!) This was an entry in Cadbury’s “Unleash The Goo” competition. Enjoy!