Its the Principal of the matter

A few weeks ago,  P was paying our energy bill and noticed something odd, a minimum usage charge.

Looking over it, I started to get a bit frustrated, because P and I are vigilant about turing off lights when we leave a room, running the washer and dryer during off peak hours, and using our heat and a/c sparingly. We have even talked about installing solar panels on our home in order to produce our own electricity, and then sell it back to the energy company.

I ended up calling the energy company 2 times the next day, and both times, the customer service representatives were extremely rude and completely unhelpful.  When I asked for an explanation for the charge, I was told that it was only $9.95, which was not much money, so I should just deal with it.

True, $9.95 is not much money, but for me, its the principal of the matter. The fact is that we work really hard, and will even be a bit uncomfortable in order to save energy. We will bundle up in the winter under blankets and jackets, and in the summer, we keep it warmer than we like in order to save energy.

The 2nd customer service rep I spoke with told me to "use more energy so we don't have to pay that charge."

After speaking with these reps, I was more and more frustrated. It baffles me that we would be charged a fee for using too little energy, and that it is almost like being penalized for being good stewards of our resources.

The bottom line, yes, the charge is minimal, yet it does not encourage me to save, conserve, and reduce my consumption. In fact, I am charged a fee for doing so.

Luckily for us, we live in a state that deregulated energy, so P and I are shopping the market and looking for a plan with a better rate, and a company that encourages and rewards its clients for reducing consumption.

Do you read the fine print on any of your bills? Or, do you do like I normally do and just pay them without looking to closely?

Natures Bounty

Having a black thumb is not a good thing, especially when you are married to a former farmer. P grew up on a farm, and can grow pretty much anything. Before getting married the only think I ever grew was leg hair. One guess as to who had the better skill set.

Since marrying P however, I have become quite the urban gardner. We decided to make this year's garden the tester. This is our first spring in our home, and we were not sure what the soil would be like, and how the plants would respond to this environment. So far, things have turned out really well.
We currently have squash, broccoli, spinach, bell peppers, jalapenos, several types of tomatoes, onions and tons of herbs growing.

This year's garden. We did a mix of mounds, a small raised bed, and rows.

This is the cauliflower. Its taken this guy a long time to grow, but he is lookin' yummy!

All the onions picked right out of the ground.

Onions after an extreme home makeover.

Lots of different kinds of tomatoes.

Lots of herbs. I cut them, gave 'um a rough chop, and the froze them in oil to have fresh herbs to use in our meals. Thank you Pinterest for the idea.

 

For such a small space, the garden is looking really good. We have been blessed with so much rain this year. We are in a major drought down here, so the rain is much needed and greatly appreciated. I think we have had more rain so far this year than we have had in the past 2 years combined. No joke on that one.

 

My mom told me El Nino moved or started dating La Nina or something. Sometimes she lies to get me off her back. Growing up, I found out about the starving kids in Africa, so I often offered to send them my left overs after dinner, usually when it was something I didn't like. She told me every night that she would pack it up and ship it off, though I don't recall a nightly visit from the UPS man. Strangely enough, I never realized I was eating the same meal 3 nights in a row either. I don't know which is worse, her lying, or my third grade self being super dumb. So you see why I am skeptical of her explanation.

 

Given the rain, our garden is looking great. I decided that I want to make tomato sauce and can it later this summer once the tomatoes are ready for picking. That could turn out really fun, or me sitting in the middle of the kitchen crying while P tries to salvage my project. He is pretty cool like that.

 

Talk to me: How does your garden grow, Mary?

Yard Update

This past weekend was glorious. Saturday morning P and I looked at each other, and I think we just knew it was going to be one of those weekends that we turned off the t.v. and basically lived outside.
We tended the garden, planted some roses, added some pavers, and tended the grass. At 6pm on Sunday, I realized I had not gone to the store, I had not cleaned the house, and I still had a ton of laundry to do, but friends, I didn't even care.

Grow grow grow!!

                                                                 This is the herb garden I
                                                                 planted a few months ago,
                                                                 and it is exploding!!!

                                                          This is the grass we planted back
                                                          in February, and it is growing
                                                          so well. I love that we replaced the
                                                          dirt and pebbles with this grass.

                                                        P wanted to start a rose garden
                                                        and I think they look beautiful!

                                                        Tomatoes for canning

                                                         Looking good, just grow grow grow

                                                         Veggies to eat!!

                                                         Another herb garden

A panoramic view of the yard.

 

How is your garden doing this year? 

Growing grass, just not the smoking kind

 

Just call P and I the Yard Dawgs, whoof whoof.

 

For the second weekend in a row, P and I have been out in the back yard working out buns off.

 

This little patch of land has been the bane of my existence since we moved into our house last summer. This patch of our yard is ugly, dirty, and every time it rains, the dirt spreads to our driveway. We also have two dogs who seem to revel in that area of our yard, especially when it rains, or right after I mop the kitchen floor.

 

P and I decided we were going to do something about it this past weekend.

 

For less than $100.00 and a lot of sweat equity, we transformed this part of the yard.

Dirty Dirt Dirty

We were fortunate that we decided to plant the grass on a day when a major rainstorm was moving through town. It took about four hours total to buy the grass, pick up some compost/manure mixture, and lay the grass. Those four hours flew.

We finished up the last 1/2 of the project in the rain, but we didn't care. We wanted it done, and we wanted it to look good, and I think it does!

While P was finishing up the final touches, I reworked the stone garden around the base of the tree, and I think it looks so much better than it did before.

The best part of all these projects that P and I are doing is that its money we have been setting aside all year long. Each month we budget some money to our house fund or improvements and projects.

It is so much fun to do work at a home that is yours. We lived in an apartment for two years, and we always talked about how much fun it would be to work on our own home, to do improvements and to fix the house just the way we wanted.

How was your weekend?

Mary Mary Quite Contrary

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockleshells

And pretty maids all in a row.

I have no clue what that means, do you?

This past weekend P and I decided to plant our first garden in 3 years. Back when we lived in central Texas, we had a huge garden. We had 3 9X9 plots that we fertilized with goat poo from our neighbors. The soil was amazing.

Now that we live in the middle of Dallas, those 9x9 plots at our small house in the country are gone, but that does not mean we can't bring some country into the city.

We started out Saturday morning with a small plot of land that looked like this.

 We started out cleaning up the plot. We removed the trash, the dog poo, and leaves. We tilled the soil by hand for a bit, then realized we needed some help.

 I went to Home Depot and rented this guy for a few hours. This tiller was fast.

 (Vroom, Vroom, Vroom, I love using powerful machines.)

 After cleaning everything up, tilling the land, and leveling the space, we started planting. We planted spinach, ice burg lettuce, onions, tomatoes, squash, jalapenos, and bell peppers.

 The final product.

 The thing that I loved about the entire process was not necessarily the planting, it was being outside with P, it was starting a project, and finishing it. It was the dirt under my nails, the sun on my skin, and the satisfaction that I accomplished something that I started.

It was a break from the norm. It was something different than usual. So much of my weekends are spent "prepping" for the next week. I run the the store, I spend hours in the kitchen chopping, dicing, and sauteing. I do the laundry, clean the house, clip my coupons. This weekend, I did some of that, but not everything. We ate out 4 times this weekend because we were too busy doing the garden to cook. I did not prep a single meal for the week. Sunday night at 7:00, my floors were dirty, the laundry was not done, and I was scrambling to figure out what to eat for lunch on Monday.

And guess what, I figured out what to eat, I did a few loads of laundry so far this week, my floors are filthy, but the world did not end because everything in the house is not perfect. In fact, its been a pretty good week so far.

I started thinking that I really need to give my to do lists a break, especially on the weekends. Its ok for me to unwind, enjoy my time off, and not spend half of my 48 hours off thinking about the week ahead.

It felt great to spend all day outside. It was so nice to turn off the t.v. We blasted Zac Brown on the radio, and worked.

This was one of the best weekends I have had in ages.

When was last time you took a break from the norm?

Are you a gardener?

DARTing Around Town

Since moving to our house, it has been pretty inconvenient driving to work. We are a bit further North than we used to be, and we are near a really packed highway.

The solution--the Dart light rail! The DART is our local mass transit system and its awesome! The train station is about 5 minutes away and it drops me off a block away from my office. I have to leave about 20 minutes earlier to get to work on time, but I get home at least 30 minutes earlier than I would if I drove.

Everyday I pop in my ipod, grab my book and read for the half hour. We have been saving on our gas bill, and I used to spend around 120.00 a month on tolls driving back and forth to work.

I have never been able to take mass transit before, and I like it. There are some hiccups every now and then that make for some pretty interesting stories. For example, I got yelled at by a crazy person the other day as I walked past him at the depot. I sat across from a woman my grandmothers age reading the book "Naked Dragon." I have run a little late and had to sprint through downtown Dallas, darting around other commuters, and running through traffic.

Do you have a good mass transit system where you live? Do you take mass transit to work? Any commuting tips?

Green Gone Bad

I am green. I do all the small things--turn off the lights, use reusable bags, I rarley buy water in placitc bottles, I use my bike to run errands, and some other small things. Go me--kind of! Nothing revolutionary, I know, but it is something small that will add up to a big impact.

I am always on the look out for ways to continue to "green up" our lives. Last month, I was reading in the Whole Foods flyer that one way to save water is to use the water from boiling pasta or rinsing beans in our plants. Wow!! That is a great idea that I had never even thought of.

Last Thursday, I made some pasta and veggies for dinner, and it was fab! (Fab in the gluten free pasta that I got for free at Whole foods with a coupon so naturally it is going to taste super yummy way!)

P got home right as I finished dinner, and he was getting changed, putting out the plates, and getting the drinks ready. While he was doing that, I kept walking out to the porch with a measuring cup. Finally, after about 5 trips, he asked me what I was doing. I explained what I was doing, and how smart and green I was, blah blah blah.

Once explained, he walked out to the porch and looked at my plants. He then looked at the stove where I was pulling more water from the pasta pot. He looked at me, shook his head, and the following conversation ensued.
He: You just killed the plants.
Me: (in shock) No I didn't....how did I do that?
He: look at the water, its boiling
Me: No it's not
He: Ok, its not boiling, but it is really hot
Me: So
He: Hot water kills the roots of plants
Me: Oh
He: Yea--think about it
Me: But its cold outside
He: That does not matter
Me: But the flyer didnt say anything about that
He: Well, you cant learn everything from reading
Me: Crap

Lesson learned. Before using the water from rinsing beans or cooking pasta, be sure to let it cool, before you put it on your plants.
Good intentions, bad ending.
RIP plants, RIP