Water and More Water

Today I have stepped up the water collection thing to collecting the warm up water from our showers. ( Mr.P keeps giving me that funny look). My shower which I must say is normally short, but Saturdays are shaving days and I collected 4 gallons!! That was just the water in the bucket, not what went down the drain! Mr.P was a little concerned about the soap that was in the bucket, I said I am only using a half of a pump,( have not noticed any difference in the results of how clean my hair and/ or body is), so this is a double win, a win, win I believe what it is called. Well anyway that bucket watered all my outside flower pots, back and front yard. I was gloating. 

Talked with my sister today (one of the M sisters on the east side of the river) and she had an interesting question.  Can llamas be considered a pet in the burbs? This is something I want to pursue( I will not tell Mr.P just yet, don't want to push him over the edge), but I love to knit and I would have my own yarn source. Not that I do not have a yarn source in the basement, enough yarn I am no longer sure I can use up in my lifetime. Good thing DDC loves to knit, yes that it is, I am collecting for her future knitting desires.

Today is suppose to be wickedly hot so I will be spending my day in the basement quilting. Am working on several quilts, yes all at once, just depends on my mood and what is on top of the pile.

Garden

The garden is doing oh so great. I planted, beans, beans and more beans, we love beans. I also put in some lettuce, tomatoes, herbs, cukes, and lots of flowers. Some of the beans are pole beans without the poles. Oops, did not realize they were pole beans, not real sure how they will do, life is an experiment. 

Have been taking some small steps to go GREEN. I have saved the "warm up" water from my showers and used it to water the flower pots on the back porch. Eric just raises his eye brow with my new antics. he can be slow in coming around to my thinking but he does come around eventually. You know boys don't go to kindergarden late for nothing.

Was able to get off work early, yeah, love my job but I prefer to be paid and stay at home. How can I make this work in the real world? I am working on it, will let you know as soon as I get it all worked out.

This last photo I am not sure is legal in my part of the world. Crazy, I say if I can not collect water from my roof, then I want to know who owns it so I can send all bills for any rain damage to my basement, stone walk etc., to them for repairs caused by their rain damage. Sounds reasonable to me. Yeah, now no one wants to own the water off my roof, oh and I only own the one bucket, how illegal can I be?

Eric is out mowing the lawn and the smell of fresh cut grass is a slice of heaven. This truly is one of life's simple pleasures. Today I dead headed some roses and then cleaned and I mean tear apart cleaned the basement. Ellen and Dan will be here at the end of the week so need to get things a little more organized.

Am reading alot on the internet regarding peak oil, living green and simply. I have been trying several of the ideas, like collecting the water in the shower while it is warming up, bailing out the tub water and using this for the garden and flower pots. it is not as much work as I thought, and I am savinf about 2-4 gallons of water each time. We also have not yet turned on the air. This summer has been very pleasantly cool with rain. Yeah for us.

Well we took Caitlin to DIA and off she went to China. OK it was not that easy, we all cried, and it was so hard to say good bye for 2 years. I know we have been waiting for this and it was soo cool when she received her invitation, but oh soo hard to say good bye. She is stopping in Washington D.C. for her "staging" and then on to China the 30th.  

I did well till I came home then I lost it, all day to all I think about is Caitlin!! Who am I going to stop in and see after work, have a beer....

Hopefully 2+ years will go by fast for us. Hope to fly to China next summer to spend a couple of weeks with her at the university she will teaching English. Oh my life is going to get quite. Eric said to me this morning this is what we raised the kids to do, be independent , follow their dreams, live with courage etc, and I replied yes but do they all have to leave their hometown to do these things???

Here are a few things I have been working on, cleaning up the ragged edges of these kitchen rugs. I decided to put binding around them after trimming up the opposite ends. The Santa quilt is off today to Denver for quilting, and I made pies an apple  and lemon meringue. 

Have been looking at houses for my sister, they need to be here in 2 weeks and have no house because theirs has not sold in Chicago. They have to be stressed because I get stressed just thinking about their situation. 

Yesterday I quilted (machine) and I have the Bernina 440 machine. I am soo disappointed with this machine. When it runs it's great, but it is so picky that I spend more time trying to get it to run. It does not like delicate threads, and it is an embroidery machine! I think Bernina is just making cheap machines, not in price but in workmanship. I have several older Berninas that are all metal and I never have trouble with them, this new machine is plastic and runs like a cheap machine one would buy at Sears. No more fancy machines for me. Only the heavy metal tried and true.

Today is Fathers day and we are going to have a small family BBQ, just the girls , Eric and I. 

This is all Eric wanted for Father's day, time to spend with his family. It is hot today so hopefully we can have a comfortable dinner on the porch.

Last night we had Caitlin's going away party, it was allot fun, good food , beverages and of course people. Caitlin has so many friends and such a variety, so many from all sorts of walks of life. It was such an honor to meet all these wonderful people.

Am trying to scale way down on spending by drying clothes outside, using up old fruit in muffins and breads. Eric went through the freezer yesterday, cleaned out and organized. What a relief and now we have a great starting point. We are making a menu for the week, hoping this keeps us home and out of restaurants.

Down to Earth is a wonderful blog for anyone who wants to learn to live a simple life. I want to be the master she is at it, but I know this is a process.