Conserving water helps protect this precious resource. I will shorten my showers to 5 minutes to save water and reduce energy use - each time saving up to 20 gallons (75 L) of water!
COMPLETED 13
DAILY ACTIONS
Land, Water, and Air
Attend Recycling & Waste Reduction Lunch & Learn
April 25
UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Land, Water, and Air
Save Water When Washing Dishes
Dishwashers can save water — if used wisely. I will only run the dishwasher when it’s full and skip the pre-rinse to reduce water and energy use. If I don't have a dishwasher, I will turn off the tap as often as possible while washing dishes.
COMPLETED 13
DAILY ACTIONS
Health and Well-Being
Go Get a Check Up
Regular health check-ups help prevent problems before they start. I will schedule or attend a medical, dental, or mental health check-up to take care of my well-being.
UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Health and Well-Being
Meditate
Meditation helps build resilience and clarity. I will spend 15 minutes each day to meditate or create a moment of silence each day to reflect on things important to me.
COMPLETED 10
DAILY ACTIONS
Participant Feed
Reflection, encouragement, and relationship building are all important aspects of getting a new habit to stick.
Share thoughts, encourage others, and reinforce positive new habits on the Feed.
To get started, share “your why.” Why did you join the challenge and choose the actions you did?
It was an interesting month. Using a dishwasher is somewhat new to me. I've had a dishwasher before, but I haven't used one in almost 20 years (last time I had one was in 2006). Relearning how to efficiently load it and not block the cleaning bits has been trial and error at times. Shortening my showers have been hard in the past few days (sunscreen has been added to the things to wash off), but I've been squeezing in more time to center myself.
Still super surprised at the plants that are growing on my porch. The scarecrow, StickTot, is going strong. We're cleaning up all the debris from the storms that hit our porch today, hopefully before the next round of storms hit. The parking lot/driveway can wait til next weekend (non stop rain through the weekend into next week.
Downside to all of this outside time is that I need to be more vigilant about sunscreen. It is May 1st, and my back, neck, chest, and face are visibly burnt. Never fear: I bought spray SPF 100 sunscreen. I have no excuse now. I also have a bottle of aloe in my purse.
Mom moved the patio furniture around the green house to keep it from flying, and moved stick tot to one side so she'd be buffered from the worst of the wind. She's still standing. Looks a bit drunk, but she's up on her feet.
A tree on the hillside fell just as I was reaching my steps last night, about gave me a heart attack. Luckily, it fell short of the buildings, and I was the only human in the area outside when it fell, and I'm totally fine.
I'm one of the few people at my office who has power at home. There are major streets in my neighborhood that are closed due to down trees. And one of the shops near my office had to pitch all of their frozen and refrigerated things, so they were giving away boxes of ice cream cones and popsicles. Yay free ice cream!
Glad you are alright-- that storm was wildly powerful. Clean up will definitely take a while for the whole area, but it is good to hear the tree missed buildings and yourself!
The squirrels or what have you that dug up some of my potato and onion starters did NOT get as many as initially hoped!!!! Micro greens are going strong, and the bell pepper and tomato seedlings are at it. The radishes, sadly, do not seem to be taking off.
Tackled the other big stick and leaf pile. I need to get the hack saw out to break down some of the branches. Once we get them bundled, I'll probably post them on NextDoor for those who have wood stoves.
Stick Tot (as Mom and Bro have dubbed the tiny scarecrow) is going strong. The robins do not give any mind to her or us actual humans.
I have ranked my choices from our prize pool for the new addition to the garden/yard. I need to get a large planter for it (Apartment living for the win, am I right?) until we buy a place.
How did changing your dishwashing habits make you more mindful of water use? What other small changes can you make to conserve water in your household?
My landlord installed a new eco friendly model of dishwasher in our apartment. There's no pre-rinse cycle, you can turn off the heat dry setting, and you can kickstart the hot water for the machine by running the tap for a little bit, which I use for washing my items that are not dishwasher safe.
We have a magnet on the door of the dishwasher to signify if they are clean or dirty. I'll get a partial load in there, flip the magnet to dirty, and just wait until I can fill it up the rest of the way.
The squirrels attacked my garden. It might have been the chipmunks, but they're too skittish. The squirrels are more daring.
Stole most of my potato starters, some of my onions, and tried to find treasures in the long boxes I'm growing things for salads in. Thankfully, I had purchased a small greenhouse shelving system, I just hadn't assembled it. There's mats down on the bottom shelf to help block them from entering from below.
Then I hit the thrift store, bought a long sleeved shirt (for the floppy arms), a pair of tiny pants, and boots from the clearance rack, and rigged up my mini scarecrow to try to keep the critters away (picture below). The head is in progress. I reused some of my collection of plastic bags from stores (we always reuse them, but the ones with holes are slightly harder to reuse on the regular) to stuff the pants and shirt torso to give some shape and also make rustling noises. Skeleton is a few branches that fell last fall and didn't break down in my compost pile, and some rocks in the boots to act as weight and support for the leg branches, and a couple of zip ties for the "head stick".
If you look closely, you can see that there's stuff growing in there! Thanks to whatever critter was acting up, I do not know what is sprouting. I know one box is a mixture of micro greens. The other long box is bell peppers, radishes, and tomatoes.
We had rice as a part of our dinner last night, so the water from washing my rice went straight into my watering can to give all the plants a nutrient rich watering. This week I'm getting some more planters to get more plants started. We've got lettuce, spinach, carrots, beans and peas, and more to get started. I will fit what I can inside the greenhouse and pray for what won't fit.
Saw my first bumbles of the season over the weekend, but especially last night when it was so warm out, and these little purple wildflowers are peeking out among the ivy on my hillside.
My garden has been started. Picked up a tiny greenhouse from QVC on the TT shop, and large reusable planters (with wheels) at the store next to my office. Hopefully the bees love it and I'm able to keep the birds and squirrels from eating all the produce before I get a chance. We made compost piles of some of the leaves that fell last year (we didn't rake off of the grass/ivy covered areas, just what landed on my porch and steps), so the broken up sticks and leaf litter from those piles filled most of the pots, so I only needed a little bit of top soil for each planter. Fingers crossed that I get actual plants that produce things.
