Continuing Progress

We've made some huge strides this week. The most visible change is the new blackout curtains in the large living room window which is blocking out enough of the heat from outside that we've actually been able to turn off the central a/c altogether. We are now able to keep the apartment perfectly comfortable with just a box fan, and occasionally opening windows when it cools off after dark. I suspect that this will dramatically lower our power bill, and we are using less resources.

We're continuing to cook fresh, and from scratch. Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking continues to be an amazing resource. In the past week, we've made our own bbq sauce, a tex-mex inspired taco casserole, some great oriental inspired dishes featuring rice, chicken and steamed veggies, and an amazing baked spaghetti. An experiment with making fruit tarts before the strawberries in the fridge went bad was amazingly successful, and will probably start being a somewhat regular treat.

We attempted to freecycle a chair that we needed to get rid of, but ended up having to just put it out at the curb, unfortunately. The moderator of our local freecycle group apparently only approves new posts something like every 10 days. We're going to have to keep that in mind in the future and only freecycle if we don't mind holding on to whatever we are trying to get rid of for at least a couple of weeks.