Several years ago we started replacing the light bulbs in our house with LED bulbs. LED technology had been available for at least a few years before that. We delayed in embracing it because the cost was high at first. A package of LED bulbs often cost 10x what a package incandescent bulbs with the same light output cost. When the purchase price ( Read more... )

It's been yet-another take-it-easy weekend. That's both a good thing and a bad thing. Good, because it's enjoyable to relax at home, both alone (just the two of us) and with low-key friends. But also bad, because I've had several low-key weekends in a row. At some the enjoyment of simply relaxing goes flat and I need adventure ( Read more... )

Today's the first day of Fall. How are we celebrating it? Well, we went to the pool this morning.

It looked gloomy outside so we were thinking, "Warm up in the hot tub." It's been weeks since we used our own hot tub, anyway. A gloomy morning seemed like the right time to get back in the groove. But then the sky cleared as we got in the water.


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I've posted plenty of times recently about the weather being hotter than past averages (and getting hotter). It's only fair that I share when the weather's cooler than normal, too. The past week or two we've seen slightly below-average temperatures around the area ( Read more... )

This Fourth of July weekend we stayed home. That's unusual for us.... Almost always we've taken advantage of the day off from work to add an extra day or two along with the weekend and take a 4-5 day trip somewhere. We had travel plans this year, though. Keyword: had. This year we canceled a planned trip to the Shasta-Trinity mountains in northern ( Read more... )

There's been a flurry of discussion in social media lately about how to set your AC. There's consternation that the US Department of Energy recommends you should set your thermostat no lower than 78° F. That already seems kind of hot. What's got people especially lit up is the recommendation the DOE couples with it that you should set your AC to 82 ( Read more... )

Yesterday was an easy day at home. It was a needed rest, and it was part of the plan. After hiking all day Saturday and getting home at 10pm after several hours of driving- a mini-adventure which I haven't finished blogging on yet, yay backlog- oh, and that trip started less than 24 hours after I'd returned home from a business trip- I was spent. ( Read more... )

My blogs this weekend were all about traveling in Alaska- and there are still at least 4 more to come- but that's blog backlog. We got home from Alaska Wednesday night. Thursday and Friday were work days, then the weekend we spent doing almost nothing. Gloriously nothing ( Read more... )

One of the benefits of working remotely, as everyone knows, is having a flexible schedule. We workers can take breaks from our desks throughout the day to start a load of laundry at home, pick up or drop off the kids at school, or just take a break. It's not cheating our employers out of work. At least, it doesn't have to be. In exchange for these ( Read more... )

This has been another taking-it-easy weekend. April and May seemed to have so many busy weekends that it still feels nice not to go anywhere in particular or have to do anything major. This weekend has been even more relaxing than last weekend... because while we didn't travel out of town for the day, we went hiking regionally every day last ( Read more... )