Three thoughts on . . . water usage

Thought 1.

Back in December, I paid my usual quarterly water bill.  In 2020, over the course of that crazy year, our household used about 22,000 gallons of water.  That translates to 60 gallons/day, or 30 gallons per person per day.  We don't take conscious, drastic steps to reduce our water usage ("conscious drastic" is mostly aimed at plastic and landfill-bound garbage in the Chez Miser), and yet we're way lower than the 300-gallon-per-household estimates of the EPA, or the 100-gallon-per-person-per day estimates I've seen elsewhere for US water usage.   I'm not really sure what we do (or don't do) to make this big a difference.

Thought 2.  

About the time that I was paying that bill, we got a letter from Zimbabwe, from the father of one of the children we sponsor through World Vision.  He says, in part

We live in a village which is about 420 km away from the capital city of Harare.  Our homestead comprises of four huts of bricks and thatched with local grass. Cattle, sheep, and goats. We also keep maize, ground nuts, sorghum and cotton.

Our school is 5 km away from our home. We fetch water from a borehole which is 2 km away from our home. Our area is partly hilly and mountainous. It is infested with mosquitoes and tsetse flies.

Whatever I think about our 60 gallons/day water habit here in our own home, I'm darned sure we'd be using a heck of a lot less if I had to haul it over the hills from a hole in the ground a mile or more away while flies were biting me.   I have so, so many reasons to be glad for faucets and water treatment plants.  So, so many.

Thought 3.  
My Christmas gifts this year were basically soap and water.  I bought soap for my family from a friend of mine who runs her own soap-making company out of a shed behind her house.  And I sent money to DigDeep, a project to get running water and sinks in the homes of Navajo families.   (Thanks, Revanche, for pointing me to that!).  Because, really, what the frigg is up with people in our country not having access to clean water?  Sheesh!  

I was a bit worried that my dad's wife would be a bit tetchy about that being my "gift" to her, but I got a really lovely thank you note back.   She loved the soap, and she talked about how when she and my dad combined households, she gave one of her extra desks to "Waterboys for Jesus" (who had posted an ad, requesting items for a yard sale).  They sold it for $150, and used that money with other yard sale proceeds to help build a well in India.  She concluded, "A different location than our American Indians, but just as in need of clean water".  So, yay for that, too.

Miser family update: we are artists; behold!

 Life continues to be rich and full in the Miser Family household.  This week, we are particularly full of art, and artistic-ness, and general art-i-tude.  Behold!

The theme ("I am an artist; behold!") was suggested by I-daughter to me so long ago, that she forgot she'd been the one to come up with it.  But the name of the theme was barely off my lips before my husband, the pun artist, shot back, "I know exactly what I'm going to do".  Hence, bee holding art. supplies.  Yes.

My sister-in-law was only milliseconds slower in responding; she says, "One of my best friends turned 65 a couple of years ago and rented a house out in the Berkshires for all the girlfriends. On Thursday night she had a woman who owned the local “Sip and Paint” make a house call. It was so much fun."   

This kicked us into a spate of wall art; a painting of a fish that L1 gifted to N-son, a painting of bottles that L1 painted long ago and gifted to me, a scenic painting that L1's father-in-law did, a commissioned painting of a tiger that K-daughter did a few years ago.  They are artists!  Behold!

The grandkids get in on the action; A-child has a blown-glass ornament she made (with a little help), and B-child artistically arranges a "rock formation mess".  I-daughter is a sock artist; behold!  K-daughter carved a wooden cow that likes to sit under its favorite tree in the living room, smelling the flowers just quietly . . . (just like Ferdinand!).  N-son is a much louder artist, but in a rockin' good way.  Y creates edible art; she says, "Mostly doing food art this past week- a surprisingly good first attempt at yakisoba!".  As for me, admitted to scrambling to contribute, and I-daughter chipped in a familiar photo with pies and the pair of us:  "You made me, and I'm a work of art!".  'K.  I'll take that!

We haven't had any exciting glucose monitor adventures this week, and my guy returned his trial hearing aids, so that wipes out any fun medical stories I might have had.  Teaching J-term is eating up pretty much all of my days, so I don't have any personally fun stories to tell you (oooh . . . except . . . I just signed a contract for a something-something-something, which will be officially announced Monday.  So I guess next week, I'll have a story to share then.  Cliff hanger, anyone?)

And that's the news from our family, which continues to be wealthy in our art-ventures.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous.  

Talking Trash, 2020

So, the bad news for the 2020 Trash Tally in Maison du Miser is that we forked over $80 per trash can this year.  Our next door neighbors, in contrast, paid a much more reasonable $2-$3 per can.  

Which leads to the braggy part of the post: the reason we paid so much per can is because we pay a flat rate ($240/year) and because we put out exactly three trash cans at the curb this year.  That's "three" like magic wishes or Goldilocks's bears or like Dale Earnhadrt Sr.'s car number.   Or like our trashcan count this year!  This is our lowest volume of landfill-bound garbage ever, and I am happy to sit and bask in the accomplishment for a few moments.   Indeed, I'll offer up a graph just to show how far we've come, or just how low we'll go, as you will.

{here's me basking . . .  contented sighs of accomplishment . . . okay, I'm done.}

Most of my trash avoidance is passive: I just don't buy a lot of stuff that comes wrapped in garbage.  It gets easier and easier to figure out how to do this the more I do it, and I honestly don't spend a bunch of time or effort in this passive avoidance; nowadays it just happens.

But trash still does come into the house, and so every once in a while I have to get off my duff and do stuff to avoid stuffing the garbage can.   This past weekend, for example, I snapped photos and dusted off my Freecycle password, and posted the offer of about 6 months or so of padded mailing bags.  (And they were snapped up within 24 hours.  yay!)  A couple of other things went out via Freecycle this weekend, while I was on a roll.

In order to be able to do this Freecycle offer, we'd done the work when we moved into the house of setting up a sorting station for outbound materials.   The "Packing Materials" box is one bin.   We also have bins for things that are headed for so-called Thrift shops, construction stuff that will go to Habitat Restore, a HazMat box, several boxes for stuff that's recyclable at a nearby drop-off center but not accepted in our curbside bins, a bag of rags for a nearby thrift shop that recycles fabric scraps, a scrap-metal bin, etc.  So, that was a once-and-done chunk of time, and also a permanent chunk of sizable floor/shelf space in our basement  (our basement has an external door; it's kind of like other people's garages). 

I scored another win through sheer persistence.   First at my old house, and then at my new house, I made a point of asking our newspaper carriers to deliver the paper naked, with no plastic bag, and every Christmas I make a point of giving them a big tip and a thank you note for the naked delivery.  Today my carrier (and the carrier's dog) stopped by while walking past my house so that our dogs could say hello.  And my carrier told me that he's planning to write notes to his other customers asking if they, too would like a plastic-free delivery.  He says he's had a couple more already start returning their plastic bags to him, and he'd love to just reduce the number of bags he delivers.  So maybe I'm part of a small neighborhood movement heading in the less-waste direction.  That'd be really nice.