Archive for May, 2006
May 31st, 2006 - Incentives
Last week, since we aren’t moving, I bought the incentive I promised myself for keeping up with my exercise for 3 months (two books, although I actually bought 3 to save on shipping). My next goal’s incentive will be a set of 4 microfiber cleaning cloths from the Online Clean Team Catalog. I’ve been wanting these (along with the mf dustmop and wet mop) for quite a while. I almost bought them yesterday and then I realized they’d be a good incentive.
I’m working on what my goals for the summer are. Once I’m sure of them (hopefully today), I’ll post them.
May 30th, 2006 - This guy is amazing
Michael still remembers a research paper I did in college on how square bubbles aren’t mathematically possible*. However, Tom Noddy disproves this, at least non-mathematically speaking. The video is just amazing. I wish I could do that with bubbles! (Minus the cigarette smoking, although this is the first possibly good use of a cigarette I have ever heard of. Not that I condone or approve any uses of cigarette smoking whatsoever.)
*I was a math major.
May 26th, 2006 - Worms (Vermicomposting)
I’m thinking again about having a worm bin. Eric said he’d make me one, but I’ve discovered the wooden ones are more complicated and expensive than a fairly simple two or three plastic storage bin setup (PDF)). You can order redworms online (and pay high shipping since you have to buy at least 1 pound) or go to a bait shop. Living in NE Wisconsin, the bait shops are VERY easy to find (usually found along with a gun shop or a bar, two other popular places around here). Luckily, Eric is willing to go in and buy them for me. I don’t think I could stand to enter a bait shop.
May 26th, 2006 - Thanks to mulch!
I’m so glad Mom and Dad taught me about mulch! We had a torrential downpour for about 30 minutes yesterday at 1:10 (I was eating lunch in the Union and got stuck). Everyone with a garden said they figured they would have to replant as all their seeds would have been washed away. Not me–I was pretty confident that they wouldn’t. Indeed, when I got home, I found that just one line of mulch had been washed around. Everything else looks fine. Luckily, I had put my tomato and pepper plants along the west side of the garden, next to the bushes. The rain mostly came from the west, so they were protected. They didn’t even get knocked over!
My parents use grass clippings for mulch. My brother Michael had allergies so he usually didn’t have to mulch the garden. He also had this little problem…. We used newspapers underneath the mulch (a fantastic addition to keeping weeds at bay) and he would always get interested in articles and especially the comics and stop mulching and sit there and read! I was thinking about these times as I mulched and paper over the weekend. (Hi, Michael! Please don’t shut down my blog due to little embarassing stories from childhood…..)
Unfortunately, we don’t have grass clippings here. Three-fold problem. 1) The backyard is where the dogs poop and we can’t ever manage to find every bit of it. I do not want to handle such grass clippings. 2) We bought a mulching lawnmower that chomps the grass fine enough to leave it on the yard. 3) Our yard isn’t big enough to provide enough clippings anyway.
(If this sounds familiar, I wrote about mulch last year, too. It’s s thing of mine….I just don’t understand why more people don’t mulch! One addition: I’ve found that shredded newsprint and phonebooks work the best. Regular paper stays very bright white, which reflects sunlight needed to warm the soil (and later on, the reflected light could hurt the plants). The newspaper and phonebooks are a darker, thinner paper than darkens and degrades more quickly. I didn’t remember this over the winter so didn’t shred much newspaper. I’m making up for it now. I also realized that a mix of the two kinds of paper might work nicely. I was going to layer newspaper on the top, but that’s a pain. I will use my first mix tonight I hope and see how it compares to the two beds I have in that used just office papers. Another great mulch materials is weeds. Two of my beds have been mluched this way. I collected weeds and grass from the areas we spread wood chips as well as grass in the beds. As the summer goes on, I also use the weeds from the garden to mulch. Just lay them right back down where you pull them up.)
May 25th, 2006 - A different, hopeful view of Walmart
In The Non-Toxic Times Newsletter from Seventh Generation, the president describes his recent visit to Wal*Mart. An interesting article. I’ll give away the ending: He still won’t sell their products with them.
May 25th, 2006 - Did I really say this felt good?
Yesterday, I revised my opinion “it feels [good] to be tired at the end of the day due to physical work”. But that might be because after two evenings of work, I overdid it yesterday morning. I did take the day off, but t-storms were forecast and it kept looking like they’d happen. They finally arrived at 8pm. Not knowing this, I pushed myself hard in the morning, working steadily from 6-10am except for a 15 minute break. I finished three more bed. One of them was horrid–clay-ey soil and tons of roots. It was one of the smaller beds but took the longest to do! The other two were like the ones I’d done before. Eric came out to help at 9, but he twisted his ankle on the stairs and just couldn’t do it. (We are digging up each bed with a pitchfork.) I ached all over all day (and still do) and took an hour nap midday. I had no energy to work in the evening.
In the afternoon, we puchased tomatoes and peppers at Stein’s. Eric mentioned to the neighbors on Tuesday that I hoped to buy heirloom tomatoes, but they hadn’t seen any. Then Dave stopped at Steins to get cherry tomatoes and ran into heirlooms. He stopped over just after my nap to tell me about them. I am so thrilled. They were expensive–about $3 each–but larger plants than I normally buy. I was so excited I forgot to buy a cherry tomato plant; Eric might go back to pick up a hot pepper to grow and he’ll find one for me then.
Through Freecycle, I’m getting rid of a bunch of metal pipes we had sitting around. Most are from chain link fences we removed. A guy on the list asks periodically for scrap metal. I’m happy to let him take it, even if he gets money for it. (We have a scrap metal recycling facility in town. But the hassle of figuring it out isn’t worth it to us. At least not right now.) He said he uses some of it and recycles the rest. Last night, Eric and Dave started taking down the old clothesline poles. Dave has a sawzall, which helped with the cross pieces. The supports, unfortunately, are in cement; not sure if the Freecycler will take them, or if we can take them to Block Iron ourselves. We’re nervous about putting them in the SUV as our back gate doesn’t lift up (it opens like a regular door). Bit by bit our backyard is shaping up! woohoo!
May 23rd, 2006 - Nevermind on the comments
Turns out turning off comments only turns them off for future posts. So my past 250+ posts still have comment areas that can be spammed. So I turned them back on. The spam slowed down over the last couple hours so maybe it was just a brief thing…..
May 23rd, 2006 - Comments turned off
I’ve gotten over 25 spammed comments in the last 25 minutes, so I have turned off comments until we see if we can get a better spam filter. If you’d like to comment, please send me an email: p a u l u k o n @ y a h o o . c o m (sorry for the spaces….)
May 23rd, 2006 - Biking and other exercise
I’m riding my bike to work again! Now that the rain stopped, it’s still a bit chilly in the mornings but it is nice enough to ride. I am wearing my knee brace when riding. (I injured my knee riding last September and had to stop riding earlier than planned in the fall. It hurts now and again when doing heavy exercise, so I am nervous about reinjuring it.)
Speaking of exercise, at the end of the month I will be starting at least two exercise classes through the university. Due to the Healthy Titans 2010 program*, half the normal registration cost is covered. This brings it to $25 (for any/all classes), which is very affordable. T/Th 6:30-7:15 is Pilates. Wed 11:45-12:30 is Yoga. (I wish Yoga were twice a week instead.) They also have a structured lunchtime walking program that I might join on M/F, but I’m not sure. I really like my lunch times–usually I read but in the summer I often bike home. However, I don’t walk much now since I bike instead so it might be nice. I also like the idea of having some socializing time with others, since I don’t do that much. I’ve been very interested in pilates and yoga classes, but they typically cost $2 or $3 per class, which always seemed too expensive to me. You also paid per class (you could buy a punch card or just pay when you came); I was afraid that would deter me from attending. A one-time fee is more likely to get me to attend because the fee per class goes down each time I show up!
* I thought I’d written about this, but I can’t find the posts. Our university is working on a healthy living project that might ultimately reduce our insurance premiums. It started with a health assessment for up to 200 people. I was one of the first to sign up! (Eric joked that maybe I should wait and only be in the second group in a year where they’ll start doing comparisons since I’m probably likely to score quite well.) It included BMI, cholestoral, and other tests I can’t recall. This was done through a local healthcare group. We were also offered a physical fitness assessment–which was done by students in the kinesiology and health department (which I think is totally cool to invovle them in projects like this!). For participating in that, we also got a free pedometer (which also has a radio and ear phones). This next step is to offer half price registration for the exercise classes and weight room. Also, supervisors are supposed to allow their workers time off work to have the assessments done or attend classes (I’m certain on the former but less sure on the latter).
May 23rd, 2006 - Garden/yard update
Last night I was reminded of how good it feels to be tired at the end of the day due to physical work. I rarely have that feeling in the wintertime. A large part of it is the feeling of accomplishment of getting the yard and garden looking so nice. We finished mulching the garden and alongside the house (ancient wood chips there, now refreshed!), and did a second layer along the garage and on most of the tulip garden (didn’t realize I didn’t have enough and Eric cleaned up while I was out there so will finish tonight). The garden makes a great playpen for Maggie (as Eric said, “The world’s largest”) while we worked. To my surprise, she didn’t play much with the mulch or the dirt. She just wandered around, having fun walking on the different surfaces, watching MomMom and Dad, and the dogs (outside in the rest of the yard). This is the only time she’ll be able to wander in there unsupervised, as I intend to plant the potatoes and the lettuce tonight.
Alongside the garage and driveway is an ~3″ strip of grass/weeds/dirt before the neighbor’s fence. It was nice grass until our dogs got to it. Now it’s usually pretty messy and quickly turns to mud in the spring. Over the weekend, I weeded the part by the garage which we mulched. This morning, I tackled the rest of it up to the gate. The back part was long weeds/grass (hadn’t been mowed) which were easily pulled after last week’s rain. The front part has been mowed and trampled by dogs so it was difficult to pull. I attacked with a hoe and within an hour, the weeds/grass were gone and the area was mulched. Woohoo! I came in to work late this morning (working late) but I got it all done by the time I normally have breakfast anyway. This gives me hope of doing other work early in the morning and still getting to work on time.
The biggest problem is having to change my clothes–what a hassle! I’ve been wondering if a pair of coveralls would be a good idea. Then I’d only have to take them off and change my shoes. Sounds easier to me than a whole wardrobe change.
May 22nd, 2006 - fibermom’s favorite places to shop
I really resonated with fibermom’s post about shopping at the farmer’s market and other local places. I don’t have quite as much connection with my local places, except my pharmacy. But I wish I did and as I visit them more, perhaps that will happen.
Wait, as I think more about it…I do have this relationship at the Red Radish (natural foods store) as well, and I’m working on it at the children’s consignment shop. (I don’t consign, but I buy there about once a month.) Most of our shopping is done at the grocery stores, Target, and Menards. None of them lend themselves to “getting to know you.” (Except for Target, however, they are regional stores, which is nice. And I just learned my favorite cheese brand is also a local brand. By both of these terms I mean owned by people in NorthEast WI or WI in general. I know the grocery store and the cheese are NEW. I think Menard’s is a bit farther afield.)
May 22nd, 2006 - Frugalest $1000 lost + garden news
We made the most frugal decision we might ever make last week: We’re not buying the house. We made the decision essentially 2 weeks ago. I couldn’t post about it because I don’t think it’s right to write about ongoing contract negotiations. It all finally came through on Sunday morning–signed and delivered to our agent that they agreed to let us out of the contract and they kept our earnest money. It was quite a stressful two weeks trying to get them to agree. 10 days in I finally called a lawyer (the one who did our wills turns out to be real estate attorney as well to our luck) and she said we wouldn’t be in too much trouble if we simply walked away. The worst they could do was sue us to buy the house anyway. And that was unlikely because they had to keep trying to sell it. (This, by the way, is NOT something I found out online. Everything there said “You signed the contract. You have to buy the house. No other option.”) And suing us would be very expensive in terms of legal fees. We were betting they would agree–especially since it was an estate sale and they wouldn’t want to tie up the estate for months or years over it.
So, we lost the $1000 plus the money we spent on the house and the storage unit. And, I get to look forward to months of unpacking. On the positive side of that, we’d already decided we’d carefully go through everything for consideration of getting rid of it. We’ve been able to live quite nicely without everything so far. (We can’t get rid of all of it–it includes things like winter clothes, books, the power cord for my keyboard, and the mini chopper–things we don’t use often but still want around!) I’ve already started piling up things that weren’t even boxed yet to get rid of. We really like the openness of the house–and it wasn’t cluttered before.
I cried over the decision–I should note it was Eric who insisted on it. But I immediately felt relieved that the decision was made. I, too, had been worrying about it. For a while, we thought we might have to go through with it anyway. And I realized I would prefer to lose $10,000 or so reselling it because I’d have more sleepless nights and worries about money in that house than I would if we lost the money and stayed where we are.
So I got a late start on the garden this weekend. (It rained and rained and rained for the last two weeks, so I couldn’t have done all that much sooner, although we would have tilled earlier.) Friday I ordered 5 yards of shredded wood mulch which was delivered Sat morning. Eric tilled up the grass on Saturday. I had a lovely vision of dark earth appearing after he tilled, just like our neighbor’s garden looks after tilling. We were sorely disappointed, although recognized our mistake immediately. Their garden is years if not decades old. It’s all lovely, lovely earth. Ours is still mostly grass!
Yesterday, I laid out the beds and started on the aisles (with Eric’s help). The middle aisle is still to be done–hopefully after work today. Then I’ll slowly start planting and mulching the beds. It’s a bit overwhelming, but I’m telling my self I don’t have to plant everything all at once, even though I want to! A little bit each night after work or after Maggie goes to bed and I’ll be done by the end of the week. I have 10 beds, plus some planting in the back garden. (The back garden was going to be raspberries and strawberries but that will wait another year. So I’ll put in some flowers and popcorn instead.) I think I need to buy a pitchfork; I’ve wanted one for years and keep looking at garage sales to no avail. I’m certain I could put it to good use turning the dirt in the new garden to make things easier to plant. So I’m going to go ahead and pay full price.
We also have the rest of the mulch to spread. So this morning before work I weeded the back part of the tulip bed–no tulips there because I thought it wouldn’t get enough sun. Was going to plant with lillies from the neighboor; another thing that will await next spring. Had to weed so that we can put mulch there. 5 yards is a lot; we’ll use about half on the garden aisles, which leaves quite a bit for other areas of the yard.
I’m really looking forward to fresh veggies! So I ground up almost all of what was left of last season’s dried veggies. (For Maggie’s crackers and sprinkling on her meals.) I know I won’t have anything from my garden for a while, but the farmer’s market starts up June 3 so I can get fresh veggies in just 2 weeks!
May 22nd, 2006 - Commenting
Effectve immediately, you must register and login in order to post comments. I had over 1300 spammed comments over the weekend… If you posted a legitimate one, please see if you can rewrite it. I did NOT look at all of them to make sure none were for real LOL I do appreciate and enjoy your comments!
May 9th, 2006 - Dolphins have NAMES!
BBC NEWS: Dolphins ‘have their own names’
This has absolutely nothing to do with simple living or frugality. But I adore dolphins (right up there with elephants) and this is just plain amazing and I wanted to share it.
May 8th, 2006 - Gas-saving tips tested by Edmunds
Thanks to my brother for this article: Edmund’s tests top “gas saving” tips–do they really work or not?
May 5th, 2006 - Simply bikes
My brother asked me to give him some tips on bike-buying. I decided to post them here instead of emailing him. (Then he went and called me anyway so I told him all of this over the phone this morning.) Two summers ago, Eric and I bought bikes. We went looking for him and then I found a cute 1 speed with foot brakes. I fell in love. (It actually has snowflakes on it! And we bought a bell, too. It could only be better if it were green.) And this morning, I rode to work for the first time since last Sept (when I injured my knee riding home).
My tips and ideas
* Shop at thrift stores. For starters, you might buy the wrong bike the first time. 10 years ago, I bought a $350 mountain bike with great ideas of biking to campus and around town. I rode it less 100 miles in the 8 years I owned it. I never rode it here in WI although I moved it twice. The problem? The bike was too big for me and I don’t like hand brakes. I sure wish I’d learned this with a $15 thrift store bike instead. Although I love my current bike, I easily could have found an old 1-speed much cheaper at the thrift store. But I didn’t even think of it when we were at the bike store. If you find you love the bike style and it’s falling apart, you can always spend $350 later on (and maybe find it on sale instead). Better to have learned (good or bad) on a $15 bike than wasting $350.
* Fenders are a good buy. I’d add them to a thrift store bike, too. If you ever plan to bike to/from work, they are great in the rain. Even if you plan to never ride in the rain, you never know what might happen! (Nylon pants would be good, too, for those times. I haven’t bought any however.) My fenders were a pain to install. I wish we’d paid the pros at the shop to do it.
* Kickstands are great. Eric and I both have them. They are mostly used in the garage, but are also handy the couple times we’ve gone to the grocery store, which doesn’t have bike racks. My new dentist doesn’t have them either so they’ll be handy once or twice a year there, too. :) [We intentially chose a dentist who is close to work/home this time. The round trip from home will probably be a 10-minute ride, but it’s also close enough to walk. Our prior dentist was a long bike ride, and not a walk at all.]
* A good lock goes without saying. I have a Kryptonite U-Lok that has worked well since I had the first mountain bike. However, due to the bike’s design, I can’t have both it and a water bottle holder. I don’t need the water to/from work, so I got an over-the-shoulder water carrier which has worked nicely on longer trips. [Not many. I’m not a good biker. And it’s only a 1-speed afterall. I’ve never been out more than an hour. If even that.]
I’m sure I said more to Michael on the phone but that’s all I remember for now!
May 5th, 2006 - Losing weight
My weight loss wasn’t going very well until we decided to buy the house and move and my father-in-law got much sicker and then died. I hate to recommend these two life events as weight-loss plans, but they are working for me. I’ve skipped dinner a number of times. The last two weeks, except on meal of pasta, all I’ve had for dinner is two slices of toast and a glass of milk, and twice a bowl of ice cream later on. I haven’t felt as hungry at work either and have done nicely with smaller snacks for the most part. I’m down about 8 pounds already. My goal was 10 pounds for the year.
I can’t recall if I posted about this before. I made a deal with myself that when I lost 3 pounds, I could buy Mary Bell’s The Dehydrator Cookbook. Since things were slowly–I had lost about one pound in three months–I modified the deal that if I kept up with the exercise for 3 months, I could buy the book. Well, the 3 months passed and we decided to buy a house so I don’t want to buy a new book now that I’d just have to pack up again! I also had a second deal for the next 3 pounds for another book. I guess I can get both of them once we move! I’m not going to have much produce to dry this summer, since my garden will be small to non-existent. June is pretty late for planting, even in Wisconsin. I hope I can get a few things going, however. I will buy from the farmer’s market, too.
Maybe I should modify the deal again to make sure that when I get to buying them, I have kept the weight off. Don’t want to do it if I’ve gained it back someone in the next two months.
May 5th, 2006 - House updates
Today, our house went up for sale! I can’t particularly say much on being frugal in selling one’s house, that’s for sure. We’re spending/have spent money on a storage unit, painting, eating out because we’re tired or, hoefully soon, someone’s looking at the house during dinner time, buying fix-it things full price, buying special cleaning supplies, etc. The one frugal thing that might come out of this, however, is that Eric commented yesterday that we should carefully consider everything we unpack to see whether we really need to keep it. We’ll be living without the things in the storage unit for the next 6-8 weeks. Maybe we can live without them longer.
We don’t want to live without all of them. For instance, 4 or 5 boxes are clothes for Maggie to grow in. A few more are out of season clothes. But there are definitely things I packed rather than sent to Goodwill simply because I couldn’t take the time to make thoughtful decisions. We are both very aware that the much larger house, combined with such ample storage (full attic + a decent basement) could be very, very dangerous to keeping out possessions simplified.
Our house feels pretty empty already. The completely bare walls (except 2 paintings in the dining room) help (not that we had all that much up before either). Maybe it’s more the clean, blank, freshly painted walls instead of the color wash (living room) and mess (stairwell–three different colors, cracks, etc.). There’s more to do, such as the bits and pieces in the kitchen, extras in Maggie’s closet, things in the basement….I don’t intend to keep pushing myself as hard as I did the past two weeks however! Tomorrow is my day off and I’m taking it! I haven’t had one since we were in New Jersey. Not sure what I’ll do. Maybe read all day….