Trash on my mind

I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween weekend! I got bit by the baking bug on Halloween day and decided to bake a batch of brownies AND a batch of doggie biscuits for Pixel. The brownies turned out nicely. I was so excited about making them from scratch. The dog biscuits were from scratch, too! Pixel absolutely loves them, so I'm thinking they might be a good Christmas gift for all of our friends' dogs!

Zack and I aren't what you call a "carbon-neutral" couple. We see all the documentaries. We know how horrible it is for the environment when we leave the water running. And we realize that the amount of trash we produce is average, but ridiculous. I suppose we are just like your average American family. We know we've got problems, yet we are far too lazy to take action to remedy them.

I wish we recycled and composted! But even these things seem like huge steps to me and my husband. Maybe you're like us, wondering how you can change when every change you can think of seems so daunting.

To find out where to start, I went to one of my favorite sites, Lifehacker.com and they led me to an article by Lighter Footstep. The article had some options that did not seem very fitting for me and my husband (for example: Go Meatless for a week. Husband is a meateater, no questions).

The suggestions from the article that I do plan to put into practice are small things like switching from incandescent to CFL. This will even seem difficult at first, since CFLs are kind of expensive.

Another suggestion that I like is switching the AC filter. That's something as simple as calling our apartment office and requesting a filter change.

Lastly, I can maximize the efficiency of our fridge by keeping it at 37 degrees and the freezer at 0 degrees. That's something I can do right when I get home!

I guess you gotta start somewhere! And we're starting small!

Getting started

Having only begun to recover from the wedding/honeymoon/thank-you-notes, I've started to look at the way things are done in our new home with a critical eye. How can we keep the apartment cleaner with fewer designated "cleaning days". How can I keep the place looking fresh style-wise while still being monetarily responsible? I always have so many questions that need answering (or maybe just a little rant to be had).