Going Green

We are all about going green at my house. We use florescent bulbs in every lamp. Since Caitlyn has been potty trained, I don't flush for number 1 only number 2 to try to even out the flushing of a 4 year old (who I have to admit is actually not flush happy or abusive of water--I even have her trained so that when she brushes her teeth, the water isn't running). We do have a freezer because, well there are four adults and three small children living in the house, but our refrigerator is relatively new and energy star approved (whatever that means). We run the dishwasher in the middle of the night (I think, since I never hear it going) and we only water the lawn three days a week. We don't have air conditioning, except in one room and I rarely turn it on (although occasionally that room is nicely cooled when I get home from work, so someone may turn it on when I'm not home, but surreptitiously, so it is still not too much). We recycle a lot and we are aware.

So when our power company did an energy survey and sent me a letter that said I was using too much energy, I was very concerned. They showed my household energy use compared to our neighbors and we use a lot more. Then I turned it over and on the back it said that our energy use had DECREASED by 23% since last year. We have seven people in our house--of course we use more than our neighbor who has one person living in her house.

It is nice that they can give us statistics to help us attain goals, but meaningless information is just mean. Ugh.