Green

   There is no green yet outdoors, but indoors, I'm working on being green.  Greener. I already do all the common stuff, but this winter has inspired me to try even harder.  So far, my heating bill for this winter is double what it was last winter.  There are a couple reasons.  The number of cold and below zero days set a record, and I'm home more now that I've retired, which means the heat doesn't stay set at 55 degrees all day.

Say hi to Her Majesty.  Her hand is solar powered to give a queenly wave and the solar collector is in her purse.  Since I used to teach British Lit, I often got amazing gifts like this one.  Anyway, she is flanked by two solar powered lights I picked up at the Dollar Store.  Free electricity!  They each have three bulbs and a AA rechargeable battery and do light up a room enough to walk through and find what you're looking for.  I went back for more after I determined they were worth a dollar, but they were all gone.

Here's another project.  When my kids were little, it was very economical to sew most of their clothes, and I enjoyed the creativity of it.  Now the price of fabric and patterns has gone up so much, it's cheaper to buy clothes for my grandsons (although I do have a tradition of making them pajamas for Christmas.).  The baby bibs from the store just weren't doing the job for baby Mason, though, and he needed some bigger thicker ones to keep up with the drool and the baby food sliding down his chin.  I sewed the ones above in a half an hour and they cost a total of 60 cents.  The owl one was made from the sleeves of a pajama top and the green one (says "hug me"!) from a baby blanket from the charity shop.  The snaps on the back came from my grandma's sewing box that I inherited.   

That's our delicate, refined little boy there, chewing on his toes.

So those are my attempts to bring more green into my life.  The green dollars saved all go straight into my travel fund.  That's a good incentive.