fitness, laundry, utilities
Jan. 20th, 2007 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
helwenWe walked to S&S again yesterday, wearing our daypacks (reg. size backpack) and did some grocery shopping. I was probably carrying about 12 lbs. coming home, and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fitzw had 15-18 lbs. in his pack. It's .9 miles each way, plus walking in the store (altho' that part's kind of a break). Not a bad walk, and more gas saved of course.
Did two loads of laundry yesterday and combined things from both loads that most needed a dryer. The rest was hung to dry in either the living room or the bedroom (drying rack, two portable/expandable window screens on chairs, and the 4-poster canopy-style bed frame) -- dryers are one of the biggest electricity users in a typical house, plus this way I get to humidify the house :D I might go for three loads next time, as I could have put more things in the dryer quite comfortably. Altho' maybe one of the reasons the load didn't take long to dry was not only because it was a light-medium load but also because some of the items were let to dry a bit from the first load... hmm
Anyway,ellid and I went for a walk at the mall this morning, making two complete circuits at Ingleside, one on the upper level and one on the lower level. Quite a few people go walking there, so the mall leaves some of the outer doors open all the time, as a community service.
Then we came back to the house and had the lovely bagels and cream cheese she got from Bruegger's, with grapefruit juice. After she left,fitzw and I went to S&S again, this time to get water, plus we got a couple of quarts yogurt. There're high wind warnings for today, and a lot of trees have been going down all over the valley. It's not likely we'd lose water here, but since I haven't re-stocked since last camping season, we were a little low anyway. California safety recommendations (and I imagine national and other places) are to have either 2 or 4 gallons of water in the house per person. I couldn't remember which, so we got 3 each. We used the new backpacks for this trip since we knew we were getting a lot of water and I wanted to try it out over a short distance. A gallon of water is 8 lbs., my pack is 7 lbs. 2 oz. in total, a bit less without the daypack. So, I carried 30+ lbs. coming home. fitzw's pack is a little larger, and he had the yogurt, so he carried 35-37 lbs. My right knee's been bugging me for a while, but aside from one stop to stretch it, the trip home wasn't bad. And yes, I'm having my ginger and licorice tea and have been icing my knees now that I'm back home.
It did give me a good idea of how much I have to do to get into better shape -- a lot! Upward slopes aren't bad, but going up stairs is hard. OTOH, it was undoubtedly better than I would have done a few weeks ago.
Oh, and apparently apparently hanging things up to dry a bit more often, turning off the tv (completely), and some of the computers and printers when they aren't use, plus turning the heat down an hour or so before we go to bed, is making a difference. Our electric bill for the last month was under $60. For those who don't know, we live in a turn of the century house with basement, two full floors and a partially finished attic level. With 22 windows. Down 4.51 KWH per day from a year ago; not bad, eh? Can't wait to see what next month looks like... our Gevalia coffee pot died so we're alternating between the old blue pot and the tea kettle, and no longer leaving the power on most of the day for it. And we got a good windup timer so that we won't have to use the microwave oven to time the tea, so that'll be going on a powerstrip so that we can turn that off when it isn't in use. Should be interesting!
Meantime, we printed copies of period appropriate plates last night, so I'll be painting this afternoon.
fitzw had 15-18 lbs. in his pack. It's .9 miles each way, plus walking in the store (altho' that part's kind of a break). Not a bad walk, and more gas saved of course. Did two loads of laundry yesterday and combined things from both loads that most needed a dryer. The rest was hung to dry in either the living room or the bedroom (drying rack, two portable/expandable window screens on chairs, and the 4-poster canopy-style bed frame) -- dryers are one of the biggest electricity users in a typical house, plus this way I get to humidify the house :D I might go for three loads next time, as I could have put more things in the dryer quite comfortably. Altho' maybe one of the reasons the load didn't take long to dry was not only because it was a light-medium load but also because some of the items were let to dry a bit from the first load... hmm
Anyway,
ellid and I went for a walk at the mall this morning, making two complete circuits at Ingleside, one on the upper level and one on the lower level. Quite a few people go walking there, so the mall leaves some of the outer doors open all the time, as a community service.Then we came back to the house and had the lovely bagels and cream cheese she got from Bruegger's, with grapefruit juice. After she left,
fitzw and I went to S&S again, this time to get water, plus we got a couple of quarts yogurt. There're high wind warnings for today, and a lot of trees have been going down all over the valley. It's not likely we'd lose water here, but since I haven't re-stocked since last camping season, we were a little low anyway. California safety recommendations (and I imagine national and other places) are to have either 2 or 4 gallons of water in the house per person. I couldn't remember which, so we got 3 each. We used the new backpacks for this trip since we knew we were getting a lot of water and I wanted to try it out over a short distance. A gallon of water is 8 lbs., my pack is 7 lbs. 2 oz. in total, a bit less without the daypack. So, I carried 30+ lbs. coming home. fitzw's pack is a little larger, and he had the yogurt, so he carried 35-37 lbs. My right knee's been bugging me for a while, but aside from one stop to stretch it, the trip home wasn't bad. And yes, I'm having my ginger and licorice tea and have been icing my knees now that I'm back home.It did give me a good idea of how much I have to do to get into better shape -- a lot! Upward slopes aren't bad, but going up stairs is hard. OTOH, it was undoubtedly better than I would have done a few weeks ago.
Oh, and apparently apparently hanging things up to dry a bit more often, turning off the tv (completely), and some of the computers and printers when they aren't use, plus turning the heat down an hour or so before we go to bed, is making a difference. Our electric bill for the last month was under $60. For those who don't know, we live in a turn of the century house with basement, two full floors and a partially finished attic level. With 22 windows. Down 4.51 KWH per day from a year ago; not bad, eh? Can't wait to see what next month looks like... our Gevalia coffee pot died so we're alternating between the old blue pot and the tea kettle, and no longer leaving the power on most of the day for it. And we got a good windup timer so that we won't have to use the microwave oven to time the tea, so that'll be going on a powerstrip so that we can turn that off when it isn't in use. Should be interesting!
Meantime, we printed copies of period appropriate plates last night, so I'll be painting this afternoon.
