We've been slowly switching every regular incandescent light bulb in our house to CFL as the regular bulbs burn out.

There's one thing that I've found that works really well for keeping your house a little cooler when it starts to get hot and sticky around here.

Hope everyone will get outside tomorrow for Earth Day and do something pro-active!! It's going to be beautiful here is the Hudson Valley - so you'll have no excuse.

While thinking spring - don't forget to place your order for a free tree sapling!

Here's a tip to plan ahead for gardening season. Now is the time to capitalize on the spring rains and save water in the gardening season ahead. Install a rain barrel on one of your home's downspouts and have fresh rainwater for your garden all season. We put 2 barrels on our barn's downspouts a few years ago to service our vegetable garden - which is located near the barn - but not near an outside water source. We could water without dragging 150 ft of hose across the lawn.

I've been watching the news about how cities and countries all over the world are finally getting proactive about cracking down on the plastic bag habit. Here's a recent NY Times article
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/02/world/europe/02bags.html?em&ex=1202187...
that profiles the steps that Ireland just took. San Francisco has banned them and the whole state of California is looking to enact legistlation. Hopefully it's coming our way soon.

I travel with at least 5 cloth bags in my car at all times (collected from various conferences, vacations, book clubs, etc), in addition to a few cooler bags (just got one free from some magazine subscripton) and a HUGE reusable bag that I purchased from IKEA last time I shopped there. Their stores world wide make you either purchase bags or bring your own. Now the hardest part is re-training yourself to take at least one bag in with you to whatever store you go in (not just the grocery store!). Get over feeling self-conscious about it - and feel good about the bag your not taking away with you!