Extreme Green Couponing?

On Lazy Budget Chef (You didn’t know I have a food blog?!) I wrote about the show Extreme Couponing  and how I once was a couponer but stopped. Between careful shopping and cooking more from scratch the quality of food we eat went up, the price went down, our heath improved, and our lifestyle turned a deep dark shade of green.

I don’t generally take those “How Green Are You?” quizzes because they are very subjective based on the entity that creates them. Nevertheless, through One Million Acts of Green and helping out Practically Green, I took their quizzes and scored extremely green. I am Superbly Green (the highest rank) on Practically Green and been in their top 10 for almost a year.

Oopsie.

Pretty good for a gal who doesn’t have solar panels, a Pruis, or eats solely certified organic food, eh?

Accidental Anthropolgie Table Cloth Skirt

My sewing machine was deader than a doornail. My new to me serger never worked properly either (possibly why it was handed over to me.) I thought both were goners because my repair guy closed his shop. Fortunately, husband’s aunt hooked me up with her repair guy (thanks Aunt Judy!) Now both machines sew like a dream.

Whew!

Good thing because I couldn’t find a pencil skirt to save my life to wear to Blissdom last January. All I found where bathing suits when I schlepped from store to store in the snow. Silly me, wanting a skirt in December. I should have known better.

Well, if I can’t buy, I’ll DIY!

Does Your Dog Shred Paper?

Blitzkrieg is feeling much better after his knee surgery. I can tell he’s feeling much better because he was a bit stand offish before and obviously after his surgery. Recently he’s super cuddly. If anyone sits in Blitzkrieg’s favorite armchair, be prepared to have a dog on your lap.

Blitzkrieg wasn’t always Mr. Mellow Cuddle Buddy. Once upon a time, he was a scared abused dog. Once he started to come out of his shell, all of the energy Blitzkrieg spent worrying about being hit needed to go somewhere. That somewhere was my bathroom, where Blitzkrieg grabbed toilet tissue from the roll and shredded it.

A little privacy please? I have a roll to decimate.

Garage Workshop Transformation Part 1: Paint Walls

Husband and I are going forward with turning part of our garage into a wood workshop for me. We adjusted the budget a bit due to Blitzkrieg’s knee surgery. We still plan to buy as many materials as we can for the project from the Restore.

Some of the storage and insulation extras may wait unless a good sale comes our way. This will be a cash only project.

Here’s the before.

The beer sign is how dudes decorate. That is what Husband told me as he hung it up after I banished it to felt it worked better in the garage.

One Small Change: Buy a Bagless Vacuum Cleaner

March’s One Small Change is something I avoided forever – getting rid of my 14-year-old sweeper for a bagless HEPA filter model because the greenest and cheapest thing is to use what you already own, right?

My old Hoover upright uses bags. I can buy them for a dollar a package at Dollar Tree so the price of bags isn’t an issue. In a pinch, I can always open the top of the bag, dump the contents in the trash or compost bin, and staple the top of the bag closed so I can reuse it again. I learned this trick from the Tightwad Gazette. The Condo Blues whammy dictates that if I run out of vacuum cleaner bags it is going to be when I am in the middle of cleaning the house. 

With a Pekingese whose hobby is shedding, my trusty Roomba Red got the daily dog fur tumbleweeds and the upright came out every other day for the heavy cleaning. Roomba doesn’t use bags so I figure the waste thing was 50/50.

Not long ago, Roomba’s rechargeable battery heaved its last breath. Being one of the first Roombas, it is not as powerful as the current models but it did the job. (I like a clean house because I am my mother’s daughter. I like gadgets and tech because I am my father’s daughter. Super early adopter robot owner me.Yay robots who do your bidding!)

Wood Pallet Wall Treatment

Some people call my home the House of Wacky Wall Treatments because I like to use more than just plain paint on our walls for stylish effects. I can appreciate a wall treatment that colors outside the lines like Mom and Her Drill’s wood pallet living room accent wall.

 Photo courtesy of Mom and Her Drill