Well I knew that once we got the kids packed off to summer camp that our electric bill would be lighter but I was shocked by how much it went down!
The kids were gone most of a billing cycle(3 weeks for 2 of them, and the 3rd kid is still at camp working).
Our bill decreased by a THIRD! And it wasn't because our rates went down or something cool like that.lol

3 Weeks of not running to turn the A/C unit on as soon as they got up in the a.m......3 weeks of less laundry to wash and not using the dryer when I did wash clothes.....3 weeks of less dishwasher running too....3 weeks of not having the upstairs computer on 24/7 and room lights and the tv when nobody was in the room and their celing fans when no one was in the room, etc. etc. etc.

Being July, we did have the increased usage with the pool filter running. But even that added draw on the grid didn't negate all the other energy NOT wasted by the young'uns.

Ok, so I did keep from using the evil dryer during this time too which added to the decrease in usage.

With #1 son away working at camp, his bedroom became my auxillary laundry drying room. The overhead bunk on his futon bed was just right for hanging wet clothes on hangers so they could dry even if rain kept me from hanging clothes outside.

Pelt me with some Soap Nuts for that.

Sluggy

Let's just say that I am a half-assed gardener. I enjoy it some(I'm not an aficianado) and always have grand plans in my head, but between my brain and the execution, things just don't turn out fully. The fact that I now have a bum arthritic knee just makes my attempts even lamer.

But as I stated before, I DO enjoy piddling in the yard, so I continue to garden.

Three summers ago I became a neighborhood pariah. When we moved into this house in 2000, the yard had NOT been kept up well. There was old landscaping and planting beds and overgrown trees and shrubbery galore. Someone who lived here before us thought it was a good idea to make ginormous steps down the steep hill that is our front yard to the street, out of railroad tie frames and concrete embedded with stones 'tiles'. The thawing and freezing cycle of the seasons had raised and lowered the tiles and ties so that walking on them was a hazardous thing to do. Along the side of the 'steps' that were closest to the asphalt driveway that also ran down the steep hill to the street, they planted prickly shrubs. Not sure, as I don't know the names of alot of greenery, but I think they were low-growing type yew shrubs. They also planted tall profile growing types of the same icky shrubs along the front of the house next to the front porch, as well as a 'scrub' pine tree on the corner of the house.

Of course, when they planted all these shrubs/trees they were tiny small, and they planted them with NO forethought to how BIG these things would get and how much room they would need to spread out. The shrubs and pine were right up against the house siding.

Fastforward umpteen years to when we moved in and you have shrubs growing so high they cover your living room window and a scraggily old scrub pine tree that has dribbled pitch on the house siding, permanently staining it and scratching up the window shutter every time a winter wind blows through the tree.

Simply excellent!

So in 2002, the front shrubs got the axe, and the steps down the hill met the landscaper's bulldozer in 2003. The pine tree got a temporary reprieve.

I made a front flower bed in 2003 where the shrubs had been. We planted 3 new bushes(ones with actual Color besides dark, grey, icky green) and I spent a few years just planting annuals in there each spring.

Sawing down the overgrown shrubs did start a revolution on my street. Our next door neighbors began to work more on their planting beds in their front yard. Even the self-styled 'hermit' family across the street began putting up artificial flowers in hanging baskets on their front porch.

The people who live in the exact same style house as us(only a mirror image), next door to the house across the street from us, had the same hideous overgrown shrubbery in front of their house too. A few months after we chopped down our shrubs, a landscaping crew showed up in their yard and took out their shrubs! A nice planting bed took it's place with a nice low profile fancy-pants tree, a boulder feature and extended the design onto their porch with a colorful wooden chair transformed into a flower pot holder. I wonder if they came up with this all or paid a designer big bucks for the layout?

The scrub pine got the axe too in the spring of 2006.

That year is when I made the transformation into Suburban Pariah. I had the gaul to plant VEGETABLES in my front flower bed among the marigold, petunia, pansy blooms. Vegetable gardens are for backyards. Planting a veggie garden on your front lawns? Well, that's just not done in these parts Missy!

In 2007, I expanded our gardening efforts by making a veggie bed along the back of our deck too. Between the CSA share we paid for that summer and what our 2 beds produced, we had veggies to spare. We gave away some of our harvest and froze more of it for eating later in the year.

This spring, 2008, I continued expanding the gardening and made a 3rd vegetable bed, along the southeast side of our house.

This year our CSA is only doing half shares & we are getting less produce, so having more garden space has been a good move.

We don't use fertilizer or chemicals on our gardens by the way. Soil, compost & mulch only. We also have been lucky this season & haven't had to water either(except for the first week or so), as we have gotten rain at good intervals so far this summer.