Save Energy: Sleep Naked

In my efforts to be creative about saving energy, I have tried to cut down on laundry and especially using the drier. I was noting that I don't have to wash any PJs for my husband because he sleeps au natural. It actually cuts down on a lot of laundry, assuming one would wear sleep wear once and throw it into the wash. That's 365 items! That's got to be a lot of laundry! So, I decided to join him in this conservation effort. After all, less laundry means, less energy used, less water used, and less work for me! Here's a pastel drawing of someone contributing to this cause. If you'd like to see more of my art work you can visit my art blog: Banba's Artful Realm.

Minimal Daily Routine

I just found a great site by a Texan called The Fly Lady. She is really encouraging. She starts from the idea that if you're reading her site, you're probably feeling overwhelmed by all of your obligations, and your house my have become cluttered and dirty. That is not where I am, but I am always looking for new ways to give myself more time. She suggests baby steps that build into a routine over a month. If followed, by the end of the month one's house should have improved dramatically. I 'm not going to go into complete detail because you should really check this lady out, but here's my routine. (Bear in mind I keep house for a 79 lb boxer and fluffy cat as well as for my husband and myself.)
Morning Routine:
Make Bed, Wipe down upstairs sink and toilet
Shower, Get dressed
Take down glasses and one garbage pail
Put in a laundry load and empty either garbage, recycling, or compost bucket
water backyard and scoop poop
Clean Kitchen & Sweep floor

Afternoon Routine:
Wipe down guest bathroom, dust living room, wash hardwood floors
Fold and put away one laundry load
Hit a hot spot for 15 minutes

Possible hot spots: ( Anywhere clutter accumulates or places you rarely get to)
Shower
Downstairs
My closet and chair
Brian’s closet
Bathroom drawers
Bedroom end tables
Hall closets
Bookshelves
Spider webs, vacuuming
washing walls and windows

Minimalist Living: Fifteen Ways I Have Saved Energy

1. By turning off the lights! Sounds simple, but when I really became conscious of it, I realized we left lights on all over the place. Outdoor lights left on during the day were a big offender.

2. I connected surge protectors to both our TVs and now turn them off there. This cuts down on standby energy drain. I do keep my DVR cable box plugged into the wall though because I record only what I want to watch and then watch it when I'm in the mood. This has cut down on my TV watching as well.

3. I plugged in my make up mirror, flat iron and blow dryer into a surge protector. This helped me because I turn them all off at once on the surge protector and I never leave one of them on by mistake any more.

4. Every time a light bulb goes, I replace it with a compact fluorescent bulb. I like to get the longest lasting bulbs possible because that means I won't have to deal with it for a long time. Our house has some tall ceilings and stairwells!

5. I installed floor to ceiling thermal curtains in the hottest parts of our home. They keep it cool in summer and warm in winter.

6. In the winter time when it's cold, instead of cranking up the heat, I fire up the stove and do some batch cooking. It warms up the whole house!

7. I placed umbrella tables on my front and back decks in front of large windows to block some of the sun as a tree would. They also provide shade for my cat and dog.

8. I set my Energy Star washer to the quickest setting - 35 minutes. Everything seems to come out just as clean as they do on a longer cycle.

9. I hang up a lot of the wash. I try to have a hang up load and then a dryer load. I don''t have a clothes line,  just a tension shower rod in my laundry room where I hang things on hangers. (It's mostly shirts and my fluffy skirts.)  Socks, towels and jeans always come out better tumbled I think. I also set throw rugs and comforters outside to dry.

10. The refrigerator is supposed to be the most energy thirsty appliance in a home. They run better when full, so I fill the freezer with bags of home made ice, bread and frozen homemade food. My husband does a pretty good job keeping the fridge filled up with beer! I also vacuum the coils regularly and try to have an awareness about not leaving it ajar!

11. We installed a programable thermostat and turn the air or heat off when we leave the house.

12. I alternate between sweeping and vacuuming the hardwood floors.

13. I bought a Voltair Solar Backpack and keep it on our super hot deck and charge our cell phones, iPods, and rechargable battery charger with solar energy.

14. I set our Energy Star dishwasher to the lowest setting - 35 minutes. The dishes still get clean and I don't have to wait around so long to put them away.

15. We moved into the city. This saves us gas because we walk a lot, and a lot of stove time because we hit every happy hour in our neighborhood!

A Simple Cleaning Solution

Got a messy house? You can painlessly clean it over time by doing it during commercials. Here's how: When you're watching TV in the evening just get up during the commercials and do one thing or part of one thing at a time. Here are some examples: load the dishwasher, wash pots and pans, vacuum a room, dust a room, put in a load of laundry, etc. If you do this every night, you'll see your house start to turn around. While you watch TV you can fold laundry or clean out a drawer. Of course, If you get your family members to help your house will be cleaner sooner!

Minimalist House Cleaning: Company's Coming Triage

When company's coming, it's an emergency clean up you'll need. You may not have time to do the greatest job on the whole house but here are some tricks. First, contain your guests to the main floor of your house. This may not work if they've never been to your house because they may want a tour. If that is the case, they at least won't be looking into your closets. This is triage....ready?
Start at the top of the house with a laundry basket - no you're not going to do laundry because you don't have time. Shove the laundry into the closet and close the door along with any other clutter you find. Then dust, vacuum, put the garbage and snack dishes into the laundry basket and move to the next room. When you reach the kitchen load the dishwasher, wash the floor and take out the trash. Go to the store and get some flowers and easy food. You can get some ideas on my earlier post Minimalist Entertaining: Horsdeorves.

Of course, this sort of clean won't last long so hopefully your guests' visit won't either! My next post will be about painless ways to keep your house together on a daily basis.

The Minimalist's Approach to Laundry

Chances are, ever since you left home to live on your own, laundry has been an issue. I remember an old punk rock song about two people breaking up and the girl was saying " I feel much better when my laundry's done." That's because if you're partying all the time and never home, your laundry's probably piling up all over the floor as a constant reminder that you don't have it together!

So now you're grown up and perhaps have not only your own laundry to do, but other's as well. Here are some ways to keep it from becoming an extra part time job. First take a look at it. Get all the dirty laundry out of everyone's room and look at what it consists of. You are likely to see towels that could have been reused, jeans that could be worn again, pants with belts still on them and change in the pockets, and sadly, sometimes even clothes that are still folded from when you washed them before because they were never put away and got mixed up with the dirty ones!

Here are some ways to avoid this mess:
1. Give each person a set of different colored towels and insist they use one until it doesn't feel fresh any more. That should be at least three days. If you see that anyone has left a towel on the floor, hang it up. People get used to an orderly bathroom and will start hanging towels up themselves. Yes, even kids.

2. Jeans and other clothes that are still wearable get thrown into the laundry because they're on the floor. To combat this waste, designate a place in each bedroom for clothes that could be worn again like a chair or a hook behind a door.

3. Have everyone go through their clothes and get rid of excess. It is said that the average person wears 20% of their clothes 80% of the time! You do this because people are more likely to put their clothes away if there is room in the closet.

4. I bought fabric lined laundry baskets for our closets and thought great, now there's somewhere to put all the dirty laundry. Unfortunately, by the time they were full there were loads of laundry to do! So here's the best solution that I have found : one open laundry basket that holds one load. When it's full I wash it, fold it put it away into our drawers and closets and laundry is no longer an issue. Why does this make a difference? Because it is visible! All of the afore mentioned laundry sins can been seen, and it's obvious who is doing it! So they stop.

Give it a try and you'll be amazed. The laundry doesn't pile up and cause you stress or make you feel like you don't have it together because after all I thinks we all ," feel much better when our laundry's done."

One more thought.....
Laundry is not only harming our self esteem but is actually harming our planet. It wastes energy and water and releases harmful detergents into our water supply. When you do launder, use biodegradable detergents like Shaklee or 7th Generation, wash in cold water on the quickest setting possible, hang up whatever items you can, and use Energy Star appliances. As far as "going green" goes, you can make a huge difference here. Good luck and good laundry!