Monthly Archives: February 2010

Chillin’ out

Are you paying to heat an empty building during the day?

When we leave for work in the morning on cold winter days, we push our thermostat down to 55° F, if not a little lower (depending on where you live and how cold it gets, turning the heat off entirely could lead to frozen pipes).  Since I don’t work on Fridays anymore, I experimented and discovered that 55° F works when I’m home during the day, too!  It’s best when I’m moving around cleaning and such, but I’m okay for medium-length periods sitting at the computer, too.

Think 55° F is extreme?  Check out this NYTimes article about people choosing to live with NO heat.  They inspire me to stick with the low temps around here.

However,  I take issue with the woman who lets her faucets continually drip to keep the pipes from freezing — saving energy by not heating, but wasting water.  Is the energy saved greater than the water wasted?  Is it more important to conserve one than the other?  How do you make that comparison?

Geared up

Helmet not pictured

All ready to rob a bank ride my bike.  Winter riding is not so bad with the right gear — the balaclava (not to be confused with baklava, the delicious pastry) is key for winter riding.  For extra warmth, I often wear an under-the-helmet cap in addition to my balaclava.  I ride with heavy mittens to keep my paws warm.  The biggest trick is the toes — I switched to boots, which means no clipless pedals.  On the upside, I can feel my toes!

Photo courtesy of our sad and dying digital camera — and the image above was one of the more successful shots.  Don’t believe me?  Here’s one of my other attempts:

Not digitally altered
Not digitally altered

I find this image rather freaky —  it brings to mind the Scream mask.

Snotty

Cheery
Cheery

Fortunately, I rarely succumb to illness, but I’ll make the best of my current head cold by posting about the color and quantity of my snot handkerchiefs (if you were curious about the other, you’ll just have to stay that way).  I married into a wonderful handkerchief collection, most of them homemade.

Before I discovered handkerchiefs, I used toilet paper, not because it was greener, but because it was cheaper than tissue/Kleenex.  Handkerchiefs achieve the dual goals of being green environmentally and economically — save the paper from the trees and the paper in your wallet!

As a side note, for the majority of the time, I use handkerchiefs for the little sniffles here and there, usually allergy related.  I launder them in cold water, as I do most everything.  Cold water works for most laundry, and you don’t even need to buy that special laundry soap they sell!

To make sure that my current germ-infested handkerchiefs get nice and clean, without using extra resources, I’m trying a little trick that I read about for cleaning cloth diapers.  Soak the diapers, or handkerchiefs, in this case, in the bathtub after you finish bathing.  You reuse the warm, slightly soapy bathwater to jump-start the cleaning process.  I’m not sure how I would feel about doing this with actual diapers, with poop residue and such on them, but it’s a great idea for the handkerchiefs.

Craving

Wild mushroom tamales with an adobo cream sauce

Oh, Fresh Gatherings, why must you tease me this way?

The Nutrition and Dietetics department at SLU runs Fresh Gatherings — they source much of their food locally and make delicious, healthy dishes.  In a past life, I could easily walk there for lunch.  Now, lunch there is pretty much out of the question, since they’re only open on weekdays.  I torment myself by continuing to receive their weekly menu emails.  Excuse me while I wipe the drool off of my keyboard.

Carbon pawprint – link correction

Howdy.  According to the little fairies that live inside the internet, someone tried to access the article that I linked to in my “Carbon Pawprint” posts, and the link was bad.  Here is a link to the same article on another website for your reading pleasure!  My apologies for the bad link — rest assured that I will punish it accordingly.