The Sacrifice of Sacrifices

By now I'm sure most of you have given up on checking in on this blog to see how our sacrificing is going. We started off the year with high hopes of steering away from the food challenges and on to bigger & better things like exercising and saving the world, but we hit a major road block early on, and we figure you need an explanation! In case you missed it before, John has hives. To be more specific - John has Chronic Idiopathic Urticaria (CIU) and Angioedema. The first long name means that he has an autoimmune problem that causes hives, and nobody has any idea why, and therefor no real idea how to treat it. The second thing means he needs to carry an EPI pen all the time so that his throat doesn't close up. I should also mention that outbreaks can last from 6 months to 30 years. Fun times ahead, folks.

After failing the Exercise challenge miserably (who wants to work out when insanely itchy from head to toe?) John finally got the right combination of medicines from the allergist, and we thought we were good to go on a new challenge. Although the Savings challenge went well, it ended around the same time as the medicine. The hives came back slowly and are now almost as bad as 3 months ago.

After numerous doctor visits, one ER trip, 8 weeks of steroids, and a 57 shot allergy test, he's no better off - unless you count being on a first name basis with the pharmacist and finding out he's allergic to cockroaches (the Americans, not the Germans). On top of this, because his immune system is all wacky, he almost always has some form of a cold.

It's a pretty miserable situation with no end in sight... and needless to say, the gusto for blogging has been lost in the mix.

I suggested evolving the blog into a "John Duffy's Mystery Illness- the search for outbreak triggers!" and each month we could limit the prime trigger suspects (of which there are thousands), but he didn't find that quite as funny as I did... SO, the sacrifices are officially over. For now anyway.

But, just to update our green challenge... here is a list of some of the things we've changed this month:

1. We now recycle our cans (shame on us before).


2. I always use lids on my pots and pans when cooking (and the correct burner size for the pot). Also I have stopped opening the oven to check on food. tsk tsk
   
3. We've changed all the light bulbs that we can to compact fluorescent (just one keeps half a ton of carbon dioxide out of the air over the course of its lifetime!)


4. We don't use the "dry" feature on our dishwasher.


5. We buy in bulk when we can to save on packaging, and we refill things like cleaner, dish soap, hand soap, etc.


6. We've cut out an hour of t.v. each day this month that we would usually watch.
   
7. We unplug things that aren't needed.


8. We've stopped using hot water for laundry except for sheets, and I've cut back on how much detergent I use.


9. We signed up for a Page-A-Day email calendar on tips to go green.


10. I stopped using liquid fabric softener... mainly b/c our dispenser broke, but that counts. I won't start again. :)


11. We've been trying to conserve water use.


12. We've looked into "green funerals". (This was going to be a really great blog, but it didn't happen. This is my favorite.)


13. And my favorite change... thanks to Carrell we now have the coolest reusable shopping bags ever which hold what would be around 10 bags of groceries. And they are much easier to carry up our four flights of stairs. Thanks, Carrell!
    

We have lots left to do, including a tree to plant, but that is a good start for the challenge, and you have to start somewhere.

Baby, it's Cold Outside

As part of the green challenge, Tiff and I are trying to conserve electricity, as power production from coal-burning factories is one of the top greenhouse gas emitters. We had vowed not to turn on our heat or our AC as it's April, the first month of spring. We knew not every day would be 70 degrees and sunny, but we told ourselves we could manage any seasonal fluctuation.

Last week, however, had some cold, cold days, notably Thursday, when it got into the 30s outside and 55 inside. 55 is down right cold. It's also the recommended temperature for night time home heating, according to many power-saving lists on the web. (Daytime temperatures aren't suppose to exceed 68. Tiff and I usually keep it at 70, and that usually feels cold in our drafty apartment.) 55 is also the lowest reading on our thermostat, so I should be saying "I think it was 55."

In any event, now, four days later, we are both very sick, with nasty little colds and my body is counteracting the low temps with some high temps of its own. Despite feeling lousy, I still caught a foul ball at an Orioles game this weekend.

7:00 Hour

More on the 7:00 hour, which I predict will be the topic of several posts. Our sacrificing skills aren't quite top-notch yet as neither of us suggested giving up the 8:00 hour as Sydney did. We wouldn't want to miss American Idol or, hmmm... that's really all we watch.

Yesterday, too, I spent part of the hour on the computer, which I feel guilty about. I understand that we can't turn off the computer for that short time, but I think perhaps we should let the poor machine at least rest for that time.

The second hour is an hour of our choosing, but it has to be during the time that we would normally be using the television, including playing video games like NCAA Football 2005, which I still play all too often. It has been the 6:00 hour both nights so far, but it may change tonight, it being Thursday and there's nothing on TV.

Also, we have turned on the lights as it gets closer to 8:00, but pretty soon the sunlight should allow us not to have to do this.

Exercise Counting

My exercising has all but stopped. This is a problem that I hope I will soon correct, but until then, I've moved the counter to the bottom of the page.

An Hour a Day

The first sacrifice in our Go Green challenge is - drumroll please - the 7:00 hour. That's right, in honor of Earth Hour we are going to turn stuff off for two hours each and every day, with 7pm-8pm being mandatory. Admittedly, this will apply primarily to turning the TV off as we have become regular viewers of the Wheel of Fortune/Jeopardy! hour. Between the two of us we are far superior to the contestants in the former, but we still need to bone up on our random trivia knowledge for the latter.

Some things, however, will not be turned off. The refrigerator for instance, but that's for obvious reasons. Clocks will be left on because that would just be a pain in the ol' keister each and every day. And most notably, our aging and temperamental computer, which with every shutdown, we - meaning usually Tiff - have to take the back off and jiggle a cord while flipping a switch to start it back up... all the while risking electrocution.

We will also be limiting our light usage for these times. I can't say that we won't use the lights ever, because we aren't freaks and if the weather is crummy, I don't want you people out there to think we are sitting around doing nothing. But we will make an effort.

Anyways, while I doubt seriously that this will make a huge splash in our power consumption, let alone the consumption of our community, state, nation, or world, it's more about the principle of the thing. And who knows, maybe we'll find we like the time away from the electric stuff.

Go Green

Last Saturday, many cities around the world turned out their lights. Inspired by the efforts of Sydney, Australia, who sat around in the dark last year, Earth Hour took place at 8pm local time hoping to reduce the amount of energy used.

Hmmm... the Opera House kind of loses it's glory without lights. Anyways, the effect of Sydney's 2007 campaign was a reduction of energy by over 10% for that one hour. This translates into a massive reduction of greenhouse emissions - according to their website it would be equivalent to taking 48,616 cars off the road for a year. That's pretty impressive. So impressive the world took notice and many cities followed suit. Here's the Roman Colosseum last Saturday:

So all this I would normally look at and think "Wow! That's really quite something! It's about time somebody started taking action." And then I would go along my merry way. This year, however, as John Duffy's Sacrifices is limping along, I thought it was the right time that I took action. The world has been sacrificing in the name of John Duffy for too long! It is only right hat I start sacrificing for it!

So, for the entire month of April I will go green in many different ways from recycling to conservation. I hope it works out.