you know you are officially an adult when. . .

you ask for a thermostat for Christmas and are so excited when you actually get it.
Yes a thermostat.  I am not officially a hippie geek.
Before December 25th, we had a programmable thermostat that was never really worked.  We should earn an A for effort, but the programming was hard to set up and once the batteries quit so did we.  For the last several years we just would turn it up or down when necessary, so basically our house stayed the same temperature, not good for energy efficiency.
Now we have a Nest and we are very aware of our energy usage, the temperature in the house, the humidity in the house, and how to be the most efficient. 
I LOVE IT!  I honestly never thought I could get excited over a thermostat, but I am.
Our nest tracks our energy usage and we try and earn leaves:

 As you can see we didn't do so good Tuesday, but it was REALLY cold.  We did earn a leaf Sunday since we were out-of-town.  The leaf indicates energy efficiency and hopefully will teach us to lower the thermostat more to save energy and money.  It is too early to tell yet whether we have actually saved any money, but we are much more aware of the heat and when it is on and only using it when we are home and awake which hopefully will pay off in the end.  Even the kids have gotten in the game, they are curious if the temperature will earn us a leaf or not.  I love that it is more than just a programmable thermostat, it learns our patterns and adjusts accordingly, after a week of turning the thermostat up to 70 at 7am, it now has the house at 70 degrees at 7am, it is so nice not waking up to freezing cold temperatures.
So last year's experiment was homemade laundry detergent, this year, energy efficiency in heating and cooling.   Yes, I am yet one more step closer to becoming a hippie or maybe an just an energy nazi.

homemade laundry detergent revisisted

So one year ago and 17 days ago I made my first batch of homemade laundry detergent. 
I wanted to try it after seeing it on Pinterest and wanting an alternative to the expensive detergents at the store and to find something that would stop ruining my clothing.  All of my shirts were getting holes in them and after a google search I suspected that it was an anti-pilling agent in the detergent that was causing the holes in my clothes so I decided to try homemade, it was safer and maybe less holey.
A year later. . .
I am still making it and using it and LOVE IT!
I went from having at least 8 shirts with holes with no holes, or I should say no new holes.
It is so easy to make and so much cheaper.  I also don't like a lot of smells so this is perfect for me.
I even made a liquid detergent to use when I wash cold because a few times I had problems with the powder not dissolving.
It also gets out stains better than I expected.  It was and still is hard to get use to the fact that you only need 1 Tablespoon of detergent.  I know that most people use way more detergent than they need, but 1 Tablespoon seems like nothing.
So I am officially a convert!
I have also quit using dryer sheets because of the waste and thankfully Method came out with a fabric softener for when I want a little sent and softness though I don't need it.  I also use a lightly balled up piece of aluminum foil to prevent static.
So I have made the switch and haven't looked back since.
I am turning into a hippie one day at a time.

so little time

I have had so many posts sitting in my head, but never the time to stop and type them out.
Life is very busy, I keep thinking it will slow down and instead it speeds up.
I went from one class last year, to two classes this fall, and now I am teaching three classes, one class less than full time.  I had my night class routine down, and now I have day and night classes with everyday different, it is a little maddening trying to keep up.
So on days I don't have day classes I have to do laundry, go to the grocery, hang out with Lil', and work on school work.  I have also been looking for a full time teaching job since Lily will be going to Kindergarten in the fall and having a job with benefits would be amazing. 
The future is all up in the air, my babies are growing up, life which is thought was at warp speed is now moving even faster and I haven't had the chance to stop and pause, hopefully I can be more intentional, probably not, but it is worth a try.