LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

Eco-Freaky

Dinner and earth saving

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Beth came over tonight to feed me. Remember her oven died on Sunday? Well, she set out some chicken to thaw and forgot she couldn’t cook it. That might just be the story she told me because she pities me, but I’ll take it. It was delicious. I did wonder about the jeans she served, though……

Just kidding. She said we needed to Google ‘jeans into garden apron’ and no joke – it is a thing of brilliance.

She got right to work:

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snip snip snip

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Boom. Done.

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Isn’t that clever? They fit perfectly because they’re your pants! There are two pockets for whatever garden stuff you need to have handy, and if you put a carabiner on one of the surviving belt loops, you could carry something that way, too.

After she left, I used the leftover denimn to make a rice warmer (the heat isn’t on here yet) and a fake Tom Bihn travel tray. (It was a suggested link after the apron video. I just added a shoelace drawstring.)

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Earth, consider yourself….. saved.

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Better Butter… wait, I already used that title.

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A couple of weeks ago, the ‘lid’ to my ‘new’ butter system slipped out of my hand and chipped. Surprise, surprise. What did I expect from buttery glass?

I spent a good long time thinking about how to replace it. At various stores, I looked at containers for holding pencils, toothbrushes, sewing goods, fishing tackle – nothing was right. But then ShopKo had this Snapware thing in the lunchbox section.

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Perfect. It’s unbreakable, secures my butter with four, count ’em – four locks, and the best part? When I’m running low on butter, there’s room for another stick to get cozy and start a-softening for next time.

I think I might spend too much time thinking about butter.

Light Log Stardate 92351.67 (Supplemental)

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Last week we had 5 major lighting technologies represented in our house: incandescent, florescent, halogen, compact florescent and fire. Today I’m proud to announce the addition of LED lighting.

I tricked Lauren into doing most of the shopping on Sunday by standing in front of the light bulb display and pretending to carefully read labels. As a result, roughly half of our grocery bill was for light bulbs. I’m sure I could have bought them online for cheaper, but I wanted to buy them somewhere where I could take them back and indignantly demand my money back when they don’t last as long as they said they would.

Since this is a serious science program, we will be using two different types of bulbs. The “cheap” $7.94 (11 watts 800 lumens) Wal*mart brand Soft White General Purpose LED (non dimmable) bulb with the 3 year warranty and the $12.94 (11 watts 800 lumens) G.E. Soft White Dimmable* bulb with the 10 year warranty. AND, now that I take a closer look at the packaging and receipt, also the G.E. $9.94 (10.5 Watts, 800 lumens) Soft White Dimmable* bulb with the 5 year warranty.

To ensure that this a fair test of the bulb’s ability to fail exactly one day after their respective warranties expire, I will be mixing the bulbs in our (convenient for testing) 3 bulb lights.

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Lauren has written the purchased date on each of the bulbs (a step that has no doubt voided their warranty already) and the plan is to use a combination of cell phone, manila folder and blog post to try to save the receipt for when the bulbs break.

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As Wal*mart requires the original package for a return, we will be saving those as well. G.E. graciously only requires the Proof of Purchase (and the bulb). Wish us luck as we boldly light where no man has lit before. Was I trying too hard to tie everything back into that star date reference in the title? It felt like I was trying too hard. I’m just going to leave it.

 

*Dimming performance may vary. Go to: gelighting.com/dimming for more information.

It’s not white… it’s pearl!

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14 years of waiting is finally over. I bought a used Prius yesterday. I also bought Lauren a tablecloth. 13 years ago I was deciding between buying a $24,000 Prius and a $14,000 Civic. The Honda won and has served in good stead for well over a decade. We purchased it the weekend after 9/11 because otherwise the terrorists would have won.

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I only have one, well, make that two regrets. The first is that I didn’t make it to 300,000 miles. How many times in your life are you going to have a chance to put all 300,000 miles on a vehicle? The second is that we just sunk a fair amount of money into the Honda. Oh well. Anyone want a 13 year old vehicle with 296,000 miles on it?

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I’m not exactly sure what is going on in this picture.

Experimenting with a cooler

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Ever since we killed the little refrigerator in the basement, we haven’t had a place to put drinks to keep cold. It is absolutely not a problem since I am exclusively drinking Tang and instant coffee, but since people are coming over, I thought it might be nice to offer them a beverage that didn’t need to be reconstituted.

The solution? A cooler. The problem? Ice is messy. I am testing a system that will enable me to just switch out a frozen gallon of water without disturbing the contents. So far, so good. (Meaning that I assembled this an hour ago and have no idea how well it will work.)

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Hmmmm. I see the problem. Needs more Tang.

Dream dream dream

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I had to go to Orsheln’s to buy some dowels and overpriced masking tape (fist shake). while there, I …..

Wait. Let’s step back in time to remember that I am a crazy reason in winter when it comes to managing heat. I also have a great love of fire. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it, but I have always wanted to have a fireplace or wood stove. When I was a little girl, our alley neighbor had a tiny little cast iron wood stove and I seriously coveted it.

I have looked at small wood stoves, small pellet stoves, camping wood stoves and was thrilled to have found a portable, non-electric pellet stove online (click here).

The problem with a wood stove in this house, though, is that there’s no place to put it. It’s a big commitment to put it in our small rooms that are overcrowded with Lloyd’s stupid stationary bike that he never rides furniture.

But! At Orsheln’s they are selling a window pellet stove! A window model! Like an air conditioner! This solves all the problems of permanent installation and gives me the joy of cheap heat and fire! And – bonus – it gets terrible, terrible reviews on every site where it is listed!