Can you be more green?

I keep hearing all over the news and Internet that we really need to start doing something about the amount of energy we consume and waste we create. Simple Living has challenged herself to reduce her emissions to 90% of the national average. She is also challenging her readers to reduce their emissions - not by 90% but just reduce. I personally feel that if we all do a little it will help a lot. So after reading her blog I have decided what I can work on.

Gas for the car - The national average is to consume 41.6 gallons of gasoline per person per month. After some math I believe that Joe and I consume about 70 gallons total, which puts us at about 35 gallons per person per month.
Right now I am trying to ride my bike to work every day. I am going to keep riding my bike to work as much as possible. Also on the weekends I already try to do all of my errands at one time in order to reduce time and gas.
So my goal will be to only put in 40 gallons of gas per month or 20 gallons per person per month. I will keep track of this by keeping a gas receipt for every gas purchase.

Electricity - The national average is 900 kwh per household per month. I have no idea what we consume and not too sure how to reduce our electricity usage. I need to buy the energy efficient light bulbs and a clothes line to dry out clothes outside. After I receive our electric bill early next month I will address this issue.

Garbage - This is another tough one for me. The average person generate 4.5 lbs of garbage per person per day. So we are generating 13.5 lbs per day. On average on a weekly basis we put 2.5 cans of garbage at the curb for pickup. I already recycle what I can and since I live in a small town it is not much. Mikayla is still in diapers but we are working on potty training and since we are almost done with diapers I am not going to switch to cloth for a few months. I am thinking about creating a compost pile. I would have to buy something that is enclosed so the dogs do not get into it. I am also going to buy re-usable lunch bags for Mikayla and myself. Right now I put our lunches in a plastic bag from the grocery store and toss the plastic bag when it gets too old. I am also going to buy more canvas bags so when I go to the grocery store I will have re-usable bags instead of plastic bags. I have cut down on paper towels by using cloth towels but I need to get Joe to do the same. The next time I buy toilet paper it will be recycled.
This goal might take a little while but I am going to aim for 1.5 cans of garbage per week.

That is all that I am going to tackle for now. Are you up to the challenge? What would you like to do to help reduce your emissions. Here are some great blogs that address these issues and really open your eyes to what needs to be done. Also remember small steps are better than none at all and most the these links that I am sending you to have been doing this for a while so don't think you have to do what they are doing.

Simple Living

The Green Mommy

No Impact Man

Walk Slowly Live Wildly

From all of these blogs you can find other green blogs as well.

Did you buy gas today?

Today was the Gas Out. On May 1st I posted this. It was an email I received about not buying gas today. So - did you buy gas? All I know is that it is getting way to expensive. I am also biking to work more in order to not waste gas.

Birthday Pictures at Last

Sorry this has taken so long. I do not have the software at work to put the pictures up there and in the evening I don't have a chance normally to sit down and relax until after Mikayla is in bed and dinner is done, normally after 9pm - and everyone knows that I like to head to bed around 9:30!! Joe's parents, Grandma Linda O'Connell and Grandpa Big Joe came in for Mikayla's birthday. They arrived on Saturday and the big party was on Sunday. We invited lots of people and quite a few came. The weekend before her party it was super beautiful outside and of course the weekend of her party we had snow! It snowed Saturday and Sunday - off and on mixed with rain. These are the few pictures were the sun came outside. Here we are sitting outside enjoying the beautiful day.



Is Joe telling Sean how to grill the chicken or vice versa?

More people enjoying the little bit of sun we head.



We are opening presents. Grandma is in blue taking pictures.


More presents. Mikayla's friends, Sienna, Rory, Conor and Annabell are in the watching.

This is now called her dolly. Cake Time!


Mikayla and Cooper enjoying some of the yummy food at the party.

The day after the party it was beautiful - of course. Joe, Mikayla, Grandma and Grandpa went to the lake while Mommy had to work. As Mikayla says Mommy, bring home bacon! Someone has to.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures. For mother's day we headed to Grand Junction to get some much needed shopping done. One thing I hate about living so far from the city is having to drive 2 1/2 hours to go shopping, so therefore we only go once or twice a year. Mikayla had fun. she kept saying going shopping all the way there. She also loved running all around the store with Mommy following her and trying to shop at the same time. I thought shopping use to tire me out but with a 2 year old it really does!! Oh well we had fun and we also got a lot of great clothes.

Potty Training

Well I have a job this weekend, it is potty training! After Mikayla takes a bath she normally runs around the house naked for a while. The past few times she asked to be changed pretty quickly so I put her clothes on and a diaper. This evening I was cleaning up the kitchen and she said she wanted to be changed and she was grabbing herself so I told her to go use her potty and she did!! and she went pee!! I was shocked. She has sat on her potty before but never long enough to use it.

Little Wool Gatherings

I am trying something new. I am reviewing a post put up by Little Wool Gatherings. I get paid to review her blog by Pay Per Post. I have no idea if I am doing this right but I am going to give it a try. Melissa is a 29 year old stay at home mom to three kids. I am 28 and I only have one child - I cannot image having three at my age. The post that I am reviewing is about wanting to go back to college and graduate. I image most moms that never finished college think about this all of the time, but right now she is too busy being a mom to try and finish college. Even if she did finish college what would she do with the degree, find a part time job. There is no way Melissa would want to work full time and be away from her kids - she enjoys staying at home too much. I would highly recommend her blog - it is an excellent mommy blog.

Mikayla is 2

Mikayla turned two on Monday and on Sunday we had a huge birthday party. I invited about 40 people and I really did not except all of them to show up - well not everyone came but we still had about 30 to 35 people with at least 10 of them being kids. We had so much fun. Joe tried to do a rubber ducky race in our creek it started off great but then a neighbor dog came over jumped in the creek and tried to eat all of the ducks. Mikayla received plenty of nice presents. She really loves the baby stroller and the grocery cart with groceries that Grandma got for her. She will say she is going shopping - at the age of 2!! The Grandparents left today and they had tons of fun with Mikayla. It was Grandma's job to give Mikayla a bath each night. But Grandma would not clean her - Grandma said that is not the point of bath time!!! I would hear hooting and hollering from the bath while Grandma was in there. I am going to try and post pictures tonight!!

DO NOT BUY GAS ON MAY 15

DO NOT BUY GAS ON MAY 15TH

in April 1997, there was a "gas out" conducted nationwide in protest of gas prices. Gasoline prices dropped 30 cents a gallon overnight. On May 15th 2007, all internet users are to not go to a gas station in protest of high gas prices. Gas is now over $3.00 a gallon in most places. There are 73,000,000+ American members currently on the internet network, and the average car takes about 30 to 50 dollars to fill up. If all users did not go to the pump on the 15th, it would take $2,292,000,000.00 (that's almost 3 BILLION) out of the oil companys pockets for just one day, so please do not go to the gas station on May 15th and lets try to put a dent in the Middle Eastern oil industry for at least one day. With it saying, ''Don't pump gas on May 15th"