Author Archives: thinkofitasanadventure

Unknown's avatar

About thinkofitasanadventure

My husband Peter and I attended a sustainability conference with Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute in 2010. We learned some hard truths about climate change that shook us to our core. We knew we needed to transition away from fossil fuels as soon as possible, for the sake of our children. We initiated a neighborhood Transition group (Transition Longfellow). It became the center of our lives. In 2019, we downsized and moved to a tiny rural village. It's a whole new way of life and we've got a lot more learning to do. We're choosing to continue to "think of it as an adventure."

Airing Dirty Laundry

Leslie previously mentioned the importance of “creating an environment conducive to success.”  That did not describe our laundry room.  The working end was a mess. And for me,  shame about the current state can be a major obstacle to change.  I bet I’m not alone in this. So, I am airing my dirty laundry with before and after pics of the drying area of our laundry room. You can see why we weren’t using it before.

Laundry Before

Laundry After

Now, having looked at it with new eyes and “thinking of it as an adventure, I was able to reclaim the space in under 20 minutes!

Laundry Room Conversations – Space

As the parents of 5 kids, now grown, we understand the vital interplay between how you arrange your space and the activities (or conflicts) that occur within that space. As Leslie puts it: “You have to create the conditions for success”

As we think about the laundry room, we asked ourselves if we had created the physical conditions that made change possible and likely that we would make a significant change in how we do laundry … and our answer was, not yet.

Continue reading

Save Energy and Help the Longfellow Neighborhood Get Extra Grant Money!

Have you already participated in Community Energy Services (CES), the one-stop residential energy program offered to Minneapolis homeowners?  If so – tell a neighbor!  (See our experience at the bottom of this post.) The neighborhoods with the highest participation levels are eligible for extra grant money.

Continue reading

Laundry challenge 4 – Laundry Detergent or Poison?

One of the great things about the environmental mini-challenge is that I now have a reason to look into things that I knew I wanted to research, but never got around to doing. Today’s topic is detergent and when I started nosing around on the Web I found this: The Laundry Alternative. I feel downright giddy!

They had this page on eco-friendly laundry detergents. They had info on the ingredients found in detergents. Hmmm… looks like the site isn’t fully baked – some of the articles are missing. Oh well… it did get me thinking about my dry-clean-only clothes.

Continue reading

Laundry Challenge 1 – How Much Energy Are We Using?

kill a watt

This is what the kill a watt looks like

I was interested in learning how much energy our washer and dryer actually used so I plugged them into the Kill a Watt.

I’m going to date myself here but girls weren’t allowed to take electrical or shop class when I was in junior high so I’m not exactly sure what all the numbers mean on the Kill a Watt measuring instrument, but it seems that the washer used .10 killowats/hr for one load of laundry, cold water delicate, and .16 hot water heavy load. And it appears that the dryer used .26 killowats regardless of whether it was on air, tumble dry or high heat.

(If someone out there wants to explain watts and hz to me, please do. If I’m going to become energy smart, I guess I need to know this.)

So if I’m understanding this right, the dryer is 2x to 2.5x worse in terms of energy use. I’m going to say that’s pretty convenient because it seems like it would be a heck of a lot easier to find alternatives for drying. In fact, I’ll post some soon.

Twin Cities Sustainability Conference April 8 & 9

Rob Hopkins, author of the Transition Handbook, is coming to town!

Yesterday night we attended a planning meeting for the 2011 Sustainable Communities Conference. There were a couple dozen people from neighborhood groups, city and suburban government, congregations and green teams, and, hey, shout out to KBEM radio. The program for this year looks like a lot more inspiration is on the way, especially with guest speaker Rob Hopkins from Transition Totnes in the U.K. Closer to home, Krista Leraas from Backyard Harvest will talk about local food.

Want a sneak peek at the plans?

Continue reading