Condo Blues

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

12 Ways to Reuse Plastic Bottles

Have a few empty plastic bottles lying around and don't have a recycling bin? That's OK because there are many ways that you can creatively recycle a plastic soda bottle if you don't want to throw it into the recycling bin. Here are 12 of my favorite ideas from around the Web.



1. I'm a coffe junkie. If I ever find myself in a coffee-free situation, this Emergency coffee maker may just do the trick.



Friday, May 2, 2008

Haiku Friday: Celebrate May Day and Beltane!

Haiku Friday


Beltane marks spring
jesters dance round May Pole ribbons
flower baskets bloom

May Day makes me feel nostalgic. Not for the coffee filter flowers I made for May Day baskets when I was a child but for the May Pole dances and brightly colored clothes of Beltane. My inner child loves Beltane. Why? Because once upon a time I was a professional jester.

Need Proof?

I designed and drafted the pattern for my favorite jester costume, hat, and props. I appliqued blue ribbon in a Celtic knot pattern at the bottom of the top skirt. The top skirt are overlapping panels that fly straight out when I turn.


Thursday, May 1, 2008

5 Easy Ways to Lower Your Electric Bill

Trying to reduce our electricity usage by 20% this year, without replacing everything we own, had me singing The Condo Blues. (Condo Blues. What a great name for a blog, ya think?) After a couple of months into the New Year, I checked our electric bills. Our electricity usage didn’t go down from the previous month, it actually went up!


This is after I:

1. Switched my remaining incandescent light bulbs to CFLs

2. Switched to the Short Wash cycle on my dishwasher and continued to do only full loads in the dishwasher and air dry the dishes

Monday, April 28, 2008

Grub Resistant Gardening

I am allergic to anything green. Spending a lot of time digging in a garden guarantees me a welt-covered body. So when we found out that The Condo came with “low maintenance landscaping” I was all for condo living!

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Unfortunately, within two years of owning The Condo three of the seven low maintenance bushes that came new with The Condo were dead.

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