We have slowly been adult-izing our furniture. We bought a couch shortly before we got married. The latest addition is a new bookshelf/desk combo.

The old bookshelf I had made back in college to be a huge bookshelf 4'x6'. It was pine stained “golden oak” it was functional, but not pretty. It had the metal strips to adjust the shelf height and it contained a ton of books. We decided that we didn't need most every book we own in the living room. The desk was maple top and a nice small size 2'x3' and had steel pipe legs. It was pretty beat up because it lived in my folks garage for a while while I lived there after college.

The new shelf is from Ikea (EXPEDIT) and we were able get setup with two units that pretty much fit. We still need to add another door unit in one cube and drawer unit in another.

I got home tonight and though “Apple is supposed to release new iPhones!” So I was excited to learn that the price had dropped in half to $199. Then I saw that ATT was upping the data charge from $20/month to $30/month. So your phone that is $200 cheaper all of a sudden gets $240 more over the course of the 2 year contract. Good marketing, but still more expensive. I reckon I still won't get one.

Last Friday-Monday I had a fever, allergies flaring, and soreness/acheing. Tylenol and claritin were able to get it at least partially under control. Towards the end I threw Belladonna into the mix for some hippie-opathic/real medicine double attack action.

Yesterday I felt better and that is great. I managed to get the lawn mowed for the first time in two weeks. Today our midwife is coming over for a prenatal, but I was hoping to do oil changes tonight.

It is nice that I will be better for the weekend. Abe is coming into town briefly, we haven't seen him since the holidays. I also aim to get some paddling in and we are doing my birthday stuff with my family since they will be in Pittsburgh next weekend for Annie's Law School graduation (Congrats!).

So today is Earth Day, so I thought that I would let everyone know what we have been doing around the house to save the earth.

Our old showerhead was cracked and didn't flow well, so when we decided to replace it we got a super low flow head that only puts out 1.6 gallons/minute. It is made by Delta and was less then $15. It is the only low flow that is available at the big box stores. It has great pressure, but you do notice that less water is coming out. It is also louder then our old head. The 30% less water that this head uses not only saves on the water bill, but also the gas used to heat the water.

We have already converted every light bulb that we can over to CFL already, so not much to toot our horn about there.

Currently we have a compost heap that is just a pile of some yard waste. I am thinking about a more active composter that we can use with kitchen waste.

We try to drive as little as possible, and have both cars average over 30mpg. We are currently facing the idea that our family is growing and we may need something larger like a minivan or crossover, but by doing that we will cut our MPG by a over a third just to have some extra room. Maybe will we just get a roof box instead and not have more then three kids (if we can even fit three in the Vibe).

We try to not use chemicals for cleaning. Vinegar for windows and cleaning the bathroom. Baking soda for scrubbing. There are some good recipes here.

We try to eat local/organic. Almost all of our bread comes from the River Street Bakery here in town which gets the flour from a place about 50 miles away. We make our own yogurt, granola, and sometimes granola bars (we need to make more).

Cloth diapers have worked well for us. We try to use ones that require as little dry time as possible. We also use gDiapers with cloth insides instead of the biodegradable insides. When possible we line dry (all laundry)

It is kinda weird. I left for a few years, but for some strange reason came back to Ypsi. Now that we are planted it is nice to hear that things are getting better. Ypsi has always had a bad rap, but some of it is where in Ypsi you are. There is a strange blend of all sorts of socio/racial/economic backgrounds.

Don't forget that we have a kick ass radio station WEMU, which is where I heard about the meetings results.

I totally agree about the RAC. I have only been there once to see a MCRT play there.

I have already ranted about a commuter rail .

Mark Maynard had really good point about the lack of comment on Wireless Ypsi, Shadow Art Fair, and the Farmers Markets.

Ann Arbor News has a wrapup and the DDA has the report.

So we have had a nice number of snow days this year that have been spread out. The nice thing is that it gives me a chance to shovel the driveway.

The most important thing about a snow day is to start out with a great breakfast. The last snow day we made blueberry muffins. This morning I made myself a Triple shot of expresso with some vaguely frothed chocolate soy-milk while Bridgit and Eli were still sleeping. By the time they got up around 7:45am I had cherry almond pancakes going. Diagnosis: delicious.

I try to blend to goals on a snowday: get caught up on stuff and do fun stuff. I don't want to offend the snowy part of God by wasting a snow day exclusively on one or the other. I feel that it is a chance to get caught up on household chores, but that we also need to do something fun that we wouldn't have done if it wasn't a snow day. XC Skiing is one of our favorites.

I heard about this on NPR.

But when I did the math I am only at 44 out of 76….

So, we try to keep a healthy diet: whole grains, low sugar, lots of fruits and veggies, but then comes the holidays. Not so bad when you're a grown-up: have a cup cake or a few pieces of chocolate and call it good, but when you're a kid there are treats galore!!! Eli's daycare is having a Valentine's Day party. On the food sign up list there's cookies, cupcakes, brownies & candy, plus punch (read: Hawaiian Punch and 7-up. Very healthy.) Now I'm all about Valentine's Day: pink and red hearts, making special cards, I can't get enough! But do I want my kids full of food coloring, refined sugar and white flour? Not really. So I started looking for fun, healthy-ish treats for my kid and his daycare friends. Some I found included strawberry yogurt (have you ever looked at the sugar content of strawberry yogurt?) mixed with strawberry cool whip (yummy red dye #479) as a dip for graham crackers, pretzels & fruit. Might as wall give them another cupcake!
Some I thought of included Strawberry “Mousse:” Cream cheese, thawed strawberries (no sugar added), a little honey blended with enough milk or or yogurt to make i dippable. Yes, cream cheese has fat, but for the average active kid, no big deal. Find some whole grain graham crackers, fresh fruit, etc, and you've got a special (pink!) treat, that won't send them bouncing off the walls. Plus, they get to DIP. What kids doesn't like food that involves dip. Or use it as a filling for mini-cream puffs.
Strawberry smoothies seems like another fun V-Day treat, but I can't quite figure out how to make them in advance. Ooooo. Maybe freeze them into and ice cube tray with a little red popsicle stick… VDay popsicles!
Or what about pretzels, raisins, nuts and a FEW m-n-m's, in a little Valentine's dixie cup. What kid wouldn't love that?
Heart shaped cheese slices seems perfectly, well, cheezy. And kids like cheezy.
Rice crispy treats cut out with a SMALL heart shaped cookie cutter seems reasonable, too.
100% juice w/ sparkling water… now that I can get behind (even 100% juice w/ “pop”).
In the end, I guess I just can't imagine being 2 years old and being offered a full size cup-cake, a brownie, psycho-sugar punch, candy and heaven knows what else, and feeling good at the end of the day. Bring on the treats, but only a few, and make 'em small. Just enough to make the day celebrating love and friendship a little bit special.

All of us have been sick over the past couple weeks. Bridgit started us out with getting sick and then later that week Eli had a cold and then fever. Friday I got a pounding headache and fever and now I just have a massive head cold.

I guess that is what we get having a kid in child care and both of us working in schools. More sleep, acetaminophen, vitamins, and grapefruit seed extract.