Thursday, May 17, 2007

Going Green - Update

  • ## With us being out of the house continuously from about 7:45 am to 5 pm each day (and with daytime outside temps hitting triple digits), we're now turning the thermostat up to 86 during the day. The A/C hardly comes on during the day and it's fairly easy to get it down in temp when we get home.

  • ## We made our first grocery shopping trip in which we exclusively used our canvas bags (instead of plastic). We've had about 4 or 5 of them for awhile but we always forget about taking them. The clerks at Fry's looked at us kinda funny but obliged by bagging the groceries in them. If we were at Sprouts, it wouldn't have been odd ... but at Fry's, I'm sure we were probably the first customers that had asked for that. Of course, they could have been looking at us funny because we looked like stereotypical liberals with me in my Rage shirt and the wife in her Amnesty International one. Oh well.

7 comments:

Laura said...

Good for you! We don't have canvas bags, but we reuse the store shopping bags (with handles) with us shopping when we go. This was necessary when we used to walk to the store and back. Now that we have a car, we still use them.

You? A liberal tree-hugging hippy?? surely not.

Sadie Lou said...

A couple of great ideas here. My house (which I am in most of the time) stays pretty cool all day if I leave the windows open at night and then shut everything up early morning. I also close the blinds in the bedrooms to keep the warmth of the miday sun out. My air doesn't come on at all unless it's like almost 90.

dbackdad said...

Laura,

I wish we had a grocery store within walking distance. They're supposed to be putting one up just about 3/4 mile away within a year or so. That'll be nice. I guess we were boneheads and never thought of reusing the store bags. Nice idea. We've accumulated these canvas bags from a couple of different sources : Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, or some other "save the cute little furry critter" organization.

Thanks Sadie. We try to do that as much as possible but about mid-May, it becomes fairly unbearable at night. I've seen pictures of where you are. You're in God's country up there and next to cooling pine trees. We're just a little South of Heaven ... probably a little closer to the man downstairs. lol.

dbackdad said...

Speaking of canvas bags ... funny stuff from Kvatch at blognonymous:

Environmentalism on your Arm

shrimplate said...

Your tote bag collection sounds like it looks like a lot like ours.

Thatsa lotta likes.

Laura said...

The one thing that sucks about not having central air is that once we put in the window units (we need two), we only have one window left that can open. So once the temps reach the point where we need to have them, we pretty much have to have them on constantly otherwise it gets stifling inside - esp in the room with all John's computer crap.

I can't wait until we buy a place and can improve on its efficiency ourselves. Sigh

dbackdad said...

"... I can't wait until we buy a place and can improve on its efficiency ourselves ..." - That's the big kicker right there. One doesn't want to be part of urban sprawl but also doesn't want to be part of gentrification. So, I applaud anyone that can buy existing places and retrofit them to be more efficient. That's probably the ideal.