Our lightbulbs are burning out.  Slowly,  over the course of the year, and we haven’t been replacing them.  Why you ask?  Well, because changing lightbulbs takes time, especially when it’s a ceiling light like in the bedroom, and the fixture has to come down to make it happen, or like the big long fluorescent ones in the laundry room and cantina that no longer work and haven’t worked, in fact, for weeks.   Our porch light has been burned out for over a year and since its such a big job to remove the stripped screws from the big heavy fixture to get to the dead bulb, and its debatable whether it will go back together again, I recently bought a string of solar lights to put on our Japanese maple and I am in LOVE with them.  My husband and children keep telling me that they look like Christmas lights, but you know what-my front porch is now illuminated with solar energy at night (ahem-free AND energy efficient), and I just so happen to ADORE Christmas lights.  I go outside at least once a night just to admire them, they are so pretty!

We have bought new energy efficient bulbs to replace the old ones with so we are ready when we get the time.  But to be honest changing bulbs is an extra job, that we just don’t seem to have time for, and really, who needs light anyway?  That’s what windows are for and its definitely cheaper and better for the environment this way.  As long as the tv and the computers work we should be fine, and I do have a big supply of candles that I haven’t used since I began pumping out children. 

We were at my parents’ cottage a couple of years ago when a major tornado hit and we had no electricity for the 4 days we were on vacation.  So, we bbq’d our meals and put the kids to bed early, and my genius of a husband brought in the solar powered moon rays from the deck.  Luckily, we had enough of them to keep one in the bathroom as a nightlight for the kids, and with 3 piled together on the table, we had enough light to read by. 

If we don’t get around to changing some bulbs soon, we may end up with more solar lights in the garden than flowers!!!

I consider myself a small scale environmentalist.  I do everything I can to be ‘green’.  I have never put pesticides on the lawn or garden and I don’t do drive thru’s.  I would never idle my car, let alone with the air conditioning going. I try to buy organic fruit, and milk, and I clean with ‘green’ products.  My most favourite cleaning tool is vinegar, and I spray it to clean the toilet and kill weeds, pour it in the laundry, and mop with it to clean the floor.  At small restaurants like McDonalds and Costco, I always use a packet to clean the table before we begin eating.

The other day, after shopping, I bought the kids ice cream cones at Costco, and as usual, we struck up a conversation with a nice man sitting next to us.  He was eating fries and while we spoke, he opened a vinegar packet and dosed his fries with it.

I didn’t think anything of it until back in the car when Jack’s little voice piped up, “that was so gross, what was that guy doing putting cleaning stuff on his fries?’