You see, I am a women who needs sleep- uninterupted, restful, sleep. With two young kids, these peaceful nights are few and far between. Lately though, they've been waking me up several times a night and I've felt like a walking zombie. So that's my excuse for not being able to string together more than two coherent sentances. These little absenses will not be uncommon. And unless someone decides they want to pay me for these little mind burps, I won't feel too bad about the breaks!
So what have you been doing lately to simplify, organize, economize and minimize? I've managed to rip apart a couple of rooms, throwing away many bags of stuff I'll never miss. However, I haven't been so great at putting these rooms back together. When I was culling through our bookshelves and deciding what I never should have bothered to move into this house in the first place, I found a book titled "600 Simple Tips to Save You Money". So of course I needed to do a quick read. Really, who writes these things? It contained such inspirational ideas (note the sarcasm) as "don't grocery shop when hungry" and "sew your own clothing." I found one idea in the whole book that I hadn't heard before and that might actually be useful: "remove screens from southern facing windows in the winter to increase solar warmth." The best book I've ever read on the topic is "The Tightwad Gazette" by Amy Daczyyn. Some of her ideas might be considered extreme, but at least they aren't the same old, same old. So here are a few ideas. I hope you find one you can use!
Rethinking Dishwasher use. I've read conflicting reports on whether or not using your dishwasher saves water and/or money. And have come to the following conclusions. 1) Contrary to what I was taught, scrape but don't rinse dishes before putting them in the dishwasher 2) Use smaller dishes. My large kitchen glasses filled up the top rack rather quickly. By using smaller glasses, I run the dishwasher much less often saving water, electricity, and dish detergent. 3) Don't use the "heated dry" option. I used it for years, but the plastic stuff was still wet anyway. Now I run the dishwasher in the evening, open the door and pull out the racks before I go to bed, and in the morning, everything is dry.
Buying liquid soap. Do you like foamy soap for hand washing? Most kids (and many adults) prefer it. However, a bottle is usually rather pricey, considering it's more than half water. To get foamy soap without getting soaked (little pun there) reuse a pump bottle by filling it halfway with liquid soap, and filling the remaining half with water. (It works best after the soap has had a chance to be diluted by the water.) I go to a warehouse store and buy a huge bottle of liquid soap for $6.oo and it lasts for a year. This also wastes less plastic than buying and pitching multiple bottles. Of course, traditional bar soap is still the way to go on the environmental front.
Another one for the kids. Tired of picking up bath toys? I put a plastic colondar in the tub with my kids. They use it as a toy and then when bath time is done, all toys must be returned to the bowl. This lets the toys drain and dry, and the kids know that the toys go in the colondar or in the trash (ok, I've never thrown any away, but I've never needed to either).Be sure to send me your ideas!
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