Almostgotit.com

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.

The Twelve Year Old Strikes Again!

This is what happens when your kid steals the digital camera:

Martha Stewart I am not, but for weeks I’ve been occupied with rearranging or throwing out everything in my house that isn’t bolted down.  Pathological or no, it has been an empowering experience.

We’ve been exploring power a lot in our house lately.  My 12-year-old was tickled to no end to discover a website that proves how lame her parents are.  First it was the reading glasses, and now she knows I’m losing my hearing, too. 

Mr. Almostgotit and I have been discussing and rearranging the household chores, too, in light of his increasing hours, my decreasing ones, and certain, less-measurable feelings about who has to wear the apron in the family vs. who gets to wear the pants.

Even the dog is getting in on the action, having suddenly decided that his beloved minion, Wubby, no longer deserved to have either a nose or eyes.  Wubby intends to sue. 

Genuine Rhodesian FridgeSnack, age 2 yrs. Excellent time management tool: esp. adept at waking family at Good-God-O’clock on freezing Feb. Monday mornings with loud vomiting sounds, forcing prompt action as well as hurried making of fires and coffee. 

Effective: collects & contains all fleas within 5 mile radius, 12 mos/yr, further assuring early am wakefulness as family has been kept alert all night due to great deal of loud scratching.

Helpful: Will clean out your litter boxes, sort through your garbage, and assist in controlling your caloric intake by stealing and eating the egg breakfast you didn’t need this morning, anyway. 

Efficient: once family is thoroughly activated at Good-God-O’Thirty, will then rest up for the rest of the day to better serve again the next morning.

Because I only have a very boring To Do List today, I thought I’d borrow a more interesting one from my daughter who tends to write and post such things on her bedroom door. 

Ten Useless Things To Do

1.  Paint your room black.  Say that this is so you can hide from Them more easily.  Refuse to further discuss the matter.

2.  Decide to speak in German all day.  Extra points if you don’t actually know German.

3.  Call a real estate agent and see if you can have a house delivered to you that evening.  When he/she refuses, complain that if you can do it with pizza, you should be able to get houses that way too.

4.  Sign your name as “Pooh Bear IV” on your homework from now on.

5.  Tell your teacher that you are going to be a caveman when you grow up and therefore do not need to learn math.

6.  Declare a new holiday.  Name it after yourself.

7.  Turn the thermostat down low and pour a few gallons of water on the floor.  Attach metal blades to your sneakers with duct tape.  See if you can ice-skate.

8.  Say your bed sprained its ankle.  Sleep on the floor for a couple of weeks.

9.  Read all the cookbooks you can find.  See if any of them have a recipe for a knuckle sandwich.

10.  Call 911.  Explain that you are bored, and ask if you could go for a ride in one of the fire trucks.

When I found my 2006 Christmas cards in my current “to do” pile recently, something inside me finally snapped. 

In a good way though, I think. 

So the other day, while still too stuffed up and blech to do anything else, I made 100,000 Valentines and sent them all out. 

Happy Valentine’s Day, أعياد سعيدة , Joyeuses Fêtes, Merry Christmas, Chag Sameach, and Happy Solstice to you and yours from Almostgotit.com!!

I am so glad January is over.

First I was sick, then my daughter was sick, then my husband was sick, then I got sick AGAIN.  Our house was like a giant TB ward with hacking, miserable bodies laying around everywhere, including the floor. 

In the midst of which I had two enormous deadlines.  I never have deadlines.  Why would I? Unemployed people don’t have deadlines!

Except when they are on their death beds, apparently.

I also had these terrible dreams, like the one where I had two hours to pack my entire house into a few suitcases and NO ONE would help me.  Or the other one where I was late for work but I had NO IDEA where my job was or what I was supposed to do once I got there–even if I COULD ever get my house packed into those suitcases.

I was so glad when my husband finally got sick.  Not because he was sick, but because (if you follow me here) it meant I’d really been sick, too.  

Fortunately though, I was a great comfort to him in his time of trial.  For instance, I looked at him one day when he was coughing his lungs out and clearly dying, and said brightly:  ”Wow, I really feel validated now.  You are really SICK.  I guess I was not just a MALINGERER last week after all!!” 

Overcome by my great sensitivity and understanding, he was immediately healed.  He then jumped up and made me a cup of tea, rubbed my back for several hours, brought me chocolate and made reservations for the two of us to have a romantic recuperation in Hawaii.   

Ha.

Hey. You blog for your reasons.  I’ll blog for mine.

Now I ask you.  Is this any way to treat a poor, stoned dog? 

I leave the helpless animal alone with my 12-year-old daughter for ten minutes, and this is what happens. 

This is why mothers have such mixed feelings about childcare. 

Where was my Nanny-Cam when I needed it?