Environmental Tip for the Day

On the radio today, I heard that if your washer has a "2nd spin" cycle, it's most energy efficient to use that cycle each time you wash. Although it seems that it would use more energy, it actually takes more moisture out of the clothes so that the dryer can run for a shorter time to dry the clothes. Ella's winter coat is in the washer, and I put it on the 2nd spin cycle for the first time. Whatever we can do to conserve energy is important, hope that if you have a 2nd spin cycle, you try it, too.

"Gardening"

In an effort to minimize the work that we have to do on our yard (neither of us are big yard people, heck, we don't even own a lawn mower since ours got stolen), we chose to put down mulch in front of our house with a few shrubs in it. However, the mulch looked increasingly horrid as little green plants sprouted up all over it. Our yard was beginning to look a little trashy.

So, Ella and I spent a few hours today out in the yard weeding. Boy does that take a long time. It led me to several questions 1) Why do people like yard work? 2) How do people who do lots of yard work know what they're doing? 3) How much energy do I want to put into my own yard? We don't even have much grass.

I keep trying to bribe our parents to come and set our yard up, and then I will take care of it, but that doesn't seem to be working out very well. Perhaps I need to learn to do some things myself. Anyone want to teach me?

Tyranny of the Urgent

I am not much of a planner, although I do like to have some idea of what is going to happen on any given day. But I have found that in my life lately, no day ever goes how I plan it to go. I will have a list of things to do at work, but a phone call comes in and I find that I have another project for the day. Or, I will be at home trying to fix dinner or clean, and Ella wants to be held, or eat, or for me to read a book to her and I never get to the cleaning or the cooking. Does life ever come to the point that you can plan out your day and actually have it work that way? How do you stop living in the urgent and get to the everyday parts of life? Am I just not good at getting done what needs to go done? Do I need to be more rigid with my schedule?

But, tonight was an example of when it's a good time to set aside your plans. Tonight, I wanted to clean up from dinner, but Ella wouldn't stop tugging at my pants legs. So, I set aside the cleaning and sat with her. We read books, sang together, laughed and talked with MaMaw on the phone. These are the moments that you wish would last forever. And it is then that you realize that your plans are not always the best ones.