Very interesting idea for “free” lighting. The narration is in Portuguese (i think), but there is closed captioning. This might work in the storage building in my backyard.
I first found this YouTube video over at Homegrown Evolution and was excited to share it with you.
Posting on my blogs has been very sporatic lately, however I occasionally surf around to other blogs in an attempt to keep up with everyone. Today I came across the cutest blogger “award” over at I am Harriet…actually it is not an award at all…just a gesture to let your blogger friends know you are a fan.
Harriet has proclaimed April as “Tell ’em You’re a Fan Month” with this cute li’l widget to share.
There are so many blogs that I just love…I want to send the love out to everyone….but I am starting with:
(in no certain order)
…and of course back to HARRIET also!
The guidelines are very simple…
For April:
Tell your favorite blog sites that you’re a fan.
1. Leave a comment or an email for your favorite blogger telling them that you are a fan of the site.
2. Feel free to snag the image to present to your blog friend or post on your sitewhen it is awarded to you.
3. When you receive more than one fan, put the number of fans you have received under the image.
4. The more fans you receive=the better!
HAVE FUN!
You know how I love a great contest or giveaway, right? Well I stumbled across this lovely new website, $5 Dinners.com, and Erin is offering a yummy Sister Schuberts Giveaway of a basket filled with some scrumptuous goodies.
A ~snip~ from $5 Dinners.com….“Valued at $49, the hand-painted gift basket comes with two pans of Sister Schubert’s rolls, a choice of Sister Schubert’s specialty gift products, a package of Mook’s Cheese Straws, two packs of Red Diamond Estate coffee and a hand-decorated, seasonal cookie.”
Erin’s goal is to make $5 Dinners for my family every night of the week and she generously shares tips, ideas, menus, and coupon sources to help us tighten the belt at our homes.
The contest ends on Thursday, March 26th, so RUN~~don’t walk~~over to $5Dinners.com.
In celebration of great weather and being able to hang my freshly washed blankets and sheets on my laundry line, I am posting this article submission from Jill Cooper at
Air Drying Clothes Without A Clothesline
By Jill Cooper
We all know that if we don’t dry our clothes in the dryer we save on electricity, but many of us don’t think about how the dryer reduces the life of our clothes. For a long time I couldn’t understand why so many people were buying scads of socks and underwear for their families every few months. When my children were growing up, they almost never wore out their underwear and socks and we owned only about a quarter as many pair as most people. No I didn’t buy some name brand known for its child proof quality. I usually bought the least expensive ones I could find.
Fast forward a couple decades. One day after folding my grandson’s new underwear, I noticed that the waistband was terribly rippled. After doing some research, I discovered the answer: The dryer was destroying the rubber elastic in the socks and underwear. I rarely dried my family’s clothes in the dryer, so the elastic never broke down. It doesn’t just happen with underwear - Have you ever noticed pilling (those little fabric balls) on your clothes and linens and the resulting lint in the dryer? That is the result of the fibers being rubbed thin. The dryer also shrinks clothes and sets in stains.
The two reasons I think most people don’t line dry their clothes are that they think it is inconvenient or they’re just not sure how to do it. Here are some of the best tips I have found to air dry clothes without a clothes line.
Though I don’t use the dryer to dry my clothes, I do use it for five minutes or so with some loads (just long enough to fluff the clothes). I put one load in the dryer and only leave then there as long as it takes me to load the washer with the next load.
If you have no clothesline, you live in an apartment or your homeowners association won’t allow clotheslines, here are a few ways to dry without a clothesline.
Using a clothesline to dry your clothes can save lots of money!
You need at least one drying rack and some type of clothes rod. You can buy drying racks at most discount stores or hardware stores. You might locate a clothes rod in your laundry room above the dryer, use a sturdy shower curtain rod in the bathroom or get a metal clothes racks that hooks over the back of a door. You don’t need much. I can hang two loads of laundry on one drying rack and 2 feet of clothes rod.
Hanging on a Clothes Rod
Hang as many items as you can on clothes hangers, beginning with the obvious things like dresses, dress shirts and blouses and hang the hangers on a clothes rod to dry. Be sure not to put the hangers too close together or the clothes will not dry. You can also hang things like pajama tops, t-shirts, small kids shirts and one piece outfits. Lightweight pants, pajama bottoms, skirts and sweats can be pinned on clothes hangers and even sheets can be folded and hung on them. If you are really short of drying rack space, you can hang socks, underwear, wash rags, hand towels and towels on hangers and add them to your clothes rod, too.
Hanging on a Clothes Rack
When hanging clothes on a drying rack, I start at the bottom with socks and underwear, wash rags and baby clothes. Young children’s clothes and hand towels go on the middle layer and the top rack is for towels, jeans, pillow cases, sweaters, sweats, pajama bottoms and t-shirts. I try to use every inch of space, so if I put a pillow case on the rack and there are a couple of inches left next to it I put a sock there. I even hook bras on the corners of the rack.
Drying racks are handy because they can be moved to speed up the drying process. Place them outside on a sunny (but not windy) day. Inside the house, try putting them over a vent and the heat or air conditioner will dry them faster. If you don’t have central heat or air then you can place them in front of your heater or a fan. Don’t place clothes close enough to heaters to be a fire hazard.
If you are short on space and don’t want to look at a drying rack in the middle of the room, do the laundry before bed, hang it and in most cases it will be dry by morning (especially if you set it above an air vent).
Try hanging large king sized sheets or blankets over your shower rod, over the rail of your deck, between two lawn chairs or folded in half or quarters over your clothes rack. When you fold large items, you must flip and turn them every 5-10 hours so that each side gets dry.
Sometimes it is useful to hang a clothesline in the basement or attic. Be sure to check out your department stores and hardware stores for other ideas. They have many clever items like retractable clotheslines, things to hang over doors and some not so new ideas like extra large drying racks that can hold two loads of laundry each.
Even though this may sound complicated at first, once you do it a few times it becomes second nature to you. Pretty quickly, you will discover the most efficient way to hang your clothes on the rack. I know automatically that three wash rags fit across the bottom bar of my rack and the two socks will fit next the that particular t-shirt. It’s like putting a puzzle together- the first time takes you longer than the times after that because you know where the pieces fit.
Jill Cooper and Tawra Kellam are frugal living experts and the editors of
As a single mother of two, Jill Cooper started her own business without any capital and paid off $35,000 debt in 5 years on $1,000 a month income. Tawra and her husband paid off $20,000 debt in 5 years on $22,000 a year income.
I just came across White House Farmer…
The site was developed soon after Michael Pollan (one of my favorite authors) of
The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
suggested the White House develop five south acres for growing fruits and vegetables for the First Family and staff. Farmer in Chief was an open letter to the then President-Elect, published in the New York Times Magazine.
There is no way that I can do justice to the article by writing a synopsis, so I will include a very small exerpt…..
“After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy — 19 percent. And while the experts disagree about the exact amount, the way we feed ourselves contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than anything else we do — as much as 37 percent, according to one study. Whenever farmers clear land for crops and till the soil, large quantities of carbon are released into the air. But the 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. Put another way, when we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases. This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when you recall that every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosynthesis — a process based on making food energy from sunshine. There is hope and possibility in that simple fact.”
