going green....and tan

this month i took a whole new approach to my "12 new things". i actually did 2 new things!

impressed? i thought you'd be....

for the first, i googled "bucket lists" at the beginning of the month to help me come up with an idea of cool things to do...i ran across the following:

skydiving (yeah right, i'd never make it out of the plane)

learning a new language (that would take me years...not a month)

going to see the 7 wonders of the world (love the idea, but explaining to my new boss i've got to take time off to go see the 7 wonders of the world for my all important blog may not go over too well)

and then i saw it....go green....perfect.

and this month it definitely made sense...since the gulf is now covered in oil, (thanks bp) this would be my very small way of giving back.

so i challenged myself for 5 days out of may, to follow a few suggestions i found online.

1. use warm or cold setting on the washer. rather than hot water. this will save energy.

the last time i used hot water in the washing machine was on a brand new pair of banana republic seersucker shorts; they were never the same after that. so from that point on, i've never used hot water.

plus, i should get a bonus on this one...our washing machine is a high efficiency washer, so it uses less water than the average washers.

2. shorten your showers. every mintute you shorten your shower you save approximately 5 gallons of water.

this is probably one of the toughest things i had to do. as my roommates can attest to, i take long showers. i attribute this to the fact i have long legs and it takes me much longer to shave them than someone a few inches shorter than me. seriously anything less than an 8 minute shower won't cut it for me. but for these 5 days i wanted to give it a try, so i gave myself 5 minutes each morning. i've never hurried so much...however, there were some benefits to my new routine...

1. usually i'm still half asleep in the shower, but this week it woke me up quicker because i knew my time was short and i had to move it.

2. i ended up showing up to work much earlier than usual. nice.

3. turn down your thermostat. every degree lower in the winter and higher in the summer you put it is a 10% decrease on your energy bill.

i tried this one time...and failed miserably. for people who live in san diego, this may be easy; but for those of us that live in the south during the summer months, this is close to impossible. right before going to bed i slightly turned up the ac (maybe 2 or 3 degrees), at 3 am i woke up sweating and feeling miserable. at that point, i could have cared less about "going green," i just wanted to go back to sleep...and sleep well. so the ac was turned back to the normal temperature and remains at it.

4. buy local produce.

i love whole foods and decided this would be the place to go for local produce; $50 later i was set with my local produce...

5. stop paper bank statements. if we all paid our bills online then we 18 million trees per year.

done. i love this idea; paying online is so much easier anyway. i can save money on stamps and my bills don't get lost in the mail pile that normally accumulates on our dining room table.

5. hang clothes outside to dry.

i'm still laughing about this one. i did one load of laundry during these 5 days and decided to follow "the rules" and hang clothes to dry. half of the dresses were hung in our media room downstairs; unfortunately, i ran out of room on the line. so, the other half were placed on our back deck outside. the next morning, i checked the clothes outside and they were still damp so i left them out there.

then a thunderstorm came into town.....

needless to say, all the clothes outside were completely soaked. so they had to be rewashed...ugh!

as far as going tan, my roommate, caroline, mentioned that she was going to get a spray tan and asked me to join her. i did a spray tan years ago, but didn't remember much about it except the fact i didn't enjoy it....but i was sure this time would be different this time, right?

"great, count me in," i said.

i've always had fair skin...what else would you expect with red hair? in fact, my family jokes around that my mom drank clorox before having me and my sister. ha!

i really don't mind fair skin, but i'd like some color in the summer....just so i don't blind people in my bathing suit. :)

we showed up at hollywood tan and i asked for the lightest shade...the very tan high schooler behind the counter said i should use"glow".

"ok, let's do this."

i mentioned to caroline that i was a little nervous about this...i'm not a fan of confined spaces. plus after being a loyal "friends" watcher, i certainly didn't want this to happen....(see clip...just click play and it will say embedding disabled and click to go to YouTube)

before going into the sprayer, caroline said, "just hold your breath, shut your mouth, close your eyes and you'll be fine."

as soon as i got into the machine, my stomach dropped.

just be brave....just be brave....i kept telling myself.

then the automated voice came on and told me where to stand. all of a sudden the sprayer began spraying my feet and was slowly working it's way up my legs to my stomach.

i had been holding my breath for all that time, when i realized....i NEED to breathe. right as the sprayer was at my neck i opened my mouth to take a deep breath in and the liquid went straight into my mouth!

so i ducked...

yes, you read that right...i ducked. that was the only thing that popped into my head at that minute, so i went with it.

it was horrible...i felt like i was in a gas chamber.

when the sprayer started again, i took a breath and stood back up knowing i didn't want a "ross tan".

as soon as i got out of the machine, caroline was waiting for me and we laughed about what had happened.

oddly enough, the tan came out pretty decent.

so may was definitely an interesting month full of trying new things. i'm so glad it's finally summer; get ready for some good stories!

love,

alison