is droughtish a word?

my blog has gotten boring and neglected and for that i apologize.  i think its writer needs a mental revamping.

in the meantime, while i miss hardwood deciduous trees and the bright greenness of spring and early summer in the midwest, can i just say that there are some pretty huge benefits to living in a slightly-droughtish region?  specifically: water rebates.  awesome!  $150 for an high efficiency washing machine, which we took advantage of; $125/ea for 1.28 gpf (gallons per flush) toilets (the general standard since the late 90's is 1.6 gpf, and from the 80s to that point was 3.5 gpf ... before that i think it was 5, 6, 7 gpf depending on the decade), $50 for a wireless rain sensor for a sprinkler system.  amazon.com happens to have a toro wireless rain sensor for $45, so we'll get it for free after our rebate, and lowe's has qualifying toilets for as little as $4 over the rebate price!  yes, i made a spreadsheet, why do you ask?

two of our toilets have had some running issues (which i discovered via our water bill, when i noticed that we were using about 3-4k more gallons of water per month more than we had been last year this time), so scott took approximately 8 trips to home depot, lowe's, and ace, and spent three afternoons trying to fix the toilets.  one seemed like it was fixed only to start running again as soon as we flushed it, and hasn't stopped since, and the other did well for a week or so before we noticed it.  consumer reports suggests that 1.6 gpf toilets are worth fixing rather than replacing, whereas older 3.5+ gpf toilets should just be replaced ... but if we can get a whole new toilet for $4, why not just replace them both?  (one of the toilets is a 3.5, the other is a 1.6.)  my current pick is actually for a toilet that's $35 over the rebate cost as its flushing is rated better, but still, two new toilets for $70 is not too shabby - we'll see what scott says.  in the month since we turned off the running toilets, our water bill went down by 4k gallons, which saved us about $10, by the way.

in other news, some friends posted this link on facebook earlier today that made me laugh because i am a grammar nerd (even though i never capitalize my blog).  the rest of the site also made me laugh, but has some language going on, so if you're sensitive to that stuff, you might just stick with the alot post.

*** google tells me that "semiarid" is the word for which i'm looking, which is too bad as droughtish is a cool word.  it also informs me that colorado is in an overall wet period currently, with the last real dry spell being in '00-'03.  duly noted.

brown rice

so i was just looking on cooking light's website for recipes to make brown rice fun - i have a bunch of it in my pantry because i was ambitiously healthy mood like a year ago and bought a bunch, but it turns out brown rice just isn't as tasty as white rice and scott isn't a fan.  anyway, i have a bag or two to use up, so i turn to the web for help, and what does the web give me?  brown rice and mushroom pancakes.  um, what?  it could turn out to be really good ... but i doubt it.  plus i think scott would be out the door for taco bell in two seconds flat if i tried to make that for dinner!

granola

i think colorado is making me granola-y.  (or maybe the world is more granola-y and i'm catching the vibe at a point in my life where i happen to live in colorado.)  cases in point:

• i love craigslist not only because it allows me to be more frugal than buying all-new stuff at stores, but also because it keeps some older-but-still-useable stuff out of landfills.
• i'm not pregnant, but have already firmly decided that i will be using cloth diapers, and have contemplated how to let people know that it's okay with me for them to get (nice) second-hand stuff for my future baby showers.
• when our washing machine broke, we got a high efficiency model not only because of the sweet water rebate, but also because we liked the idea of using less water and less electricity to wash our clothes.
• i just spent the past hour researching local grass fed beef ranches, comparing quarter-share prices, looking up chest freezers on consumer reports (to hold the hundred pounds of beef) and debating whether i'd rather spend less on a slightly less energy efficient freezer, or slightly more on a freezer with an "excellent" energy efficiency rating.  then i realized that i might should start out with buying non-bulk grass fed beef that would fit in our current freezer to make sure we like it before dropping that kind of money on meat.  right-o.  i'm smart like that.
• i drive a subaru and own chacos.
• i think it's absurd that people don't recycle solely because it costs $4/month, and made scott take our old gutters to a recycling place rather than tossing them in the dumpster.  i thought they were aluminum, but apparently they weren't, so we only ended up getting about $15 for them ... oh well - still recycled, and still $15 we didn't have before.
• i saw an article on easy composting using a rubbermaid tote and got really excited.  then i realized that i think we already have a little composting area next to our house, behind our little storage shed, and got less excited because there are thistles and spiders back there and as such i have yet to brave it (two years after moving into our house).  but i think i'll have scott go back with me and help me clean it out later this spring, so that we can compost our yard waste and banana peels and whatnot at the very least.

lest you think i'm bragging about my green-ness, i'm not - i happily use paper plates and plastic utensils when we have groups of people over, i eat kraft mac n cheese with hot dogs on a regular basis, i bought the car i like rather than the one with the best gas mileage, and i willfully have trees in my yard chopped down without necessarily having an immediate plan to replace them.  i appreciate that the culture in colorado makes me think about how my actions and food choices impact the environment and my own future, though. 

i want sunshine

in honor of denver's second winter storm warning in a week (5-10 inch forecast this time), i am officially looking forward to summer!  we still haven't made any plans or reservations yet (but it is only march), but i am researching.  the three specific things that have me excited for warmth and sun:

1. my parents got me a subscription to outdoor photographer magazine*, and the april edition has a fabulous article about the national parks.  there are some beautiful pictures, and it reminded me of all the fun we had exploring our lovely state last summer (even though we didn't hit up any national parks).  and, it got me excited to play with my lovely new-to-me nikon d50 this summer.
2. today i was reading an article about the rockslide on i-70 up in the mountains, and it mentioned its proximity to the hanging lake exit, which reminded me that scott and i have wanted to go hike hanging lake for the last four and a half years, which reminded me that we want to get daypacks since both of us are still rocking the jansport college backpack, and then THAT reminded me that i need to figure out the daypack/dslr thing.  the daypack/dslr is slightly challenging only in that i want to have water and normal daypack stuff - layers, food - in my pack in addition to my dslr and maybe an extra lense, but a lot of packs i was initially seeing were these $200 monstrosities with spots for the huge pro-size camera bodies and like 5+ lenses, and that's just not my style.  so i've been shopping around online for packs, and i think i'm coming up with some good options, including getting a neoprene pouch for the camera and just putting that in a normal daypack.  anyway, back to why this gets me excited for summer - bike rides and hikes and camping will all be enjoyed much more with more appropriate gear ... plus i'll get to play with my lovely nikon d50!
3. daydreaming about where we'll go this year - i think i've mentioned before that we've talked about yellowstone, durango, and aspen among others.  i also want to go to the black canyon of the gunnison, and to the grand junction area, and and and ...  i think we've mostly nixed the long distance travel vacations for this year, which i'm fine with - i'm looking forward to road tripping around the region!

* - outdoor photographer also had a neat article in the march issue about shooting abstract bird pictures that looks like a lot of fun to play with.  (btw, parents, i got my first issue of op on my birthday, three days after i got your card mentioning it ... and then got my second issue a week later!)

roof

the house is looking SO GOOD!!!  we woke up saturday, went to look at the trim, liked it, and have liked it more and more the more we see it.  which is good, since we're not re-painting.  :)

turns out the roofers will likely be able to finish the job tonight yet - i am so excited.  (they may still have a bit to finish up in the morning, and the gutters are still going on wednesday.)  even by the time i got home from work tonight, the whole house looked SO different.  it's honestly like a brand new house.  i don't think i realized how dated i thought the house was until i saw it looking so sleek and updated.  yay!!  pictures will be forthcoming.  and, as a side note, now that it's 7:30pm and there's still occasional pounding, i think we might should bake the the neighbors some cookies as an apology for the noise ...