Going Green in Comfort

(Photo by Chance Agrella / Freerangestock.com ) Do you ever have a much larger than normal electric bill but have no idea why? That's happened to us a time or two, but it's been a long while. Until last month, that is. My electricity usage for February was a little more than 300 kilowatts higher what it was in February 2017. That's a nearly 50 percent increase from what my household typically uses this time of year, and I have no clue what caused the surge. We had a cold spell, but that's typical. I worked from home a couple of days when my daughter was  sick, but I doubt the 16 hours I spent on my computer used 300 kilowatts. The last time we had an unexpectedly high usage month, the element that heats the water in our water heater had malfunctioned, and the water heater was running constantly in a futile attempt to get the water to the desired temperature. Perhaps something like that is occurring again, but I don’t know what it could be. Hopefully, our Ma...

(Photo by Chance Agrella / FreeRangeStock.com ) For one of my first posts, I wrote about changing how I washed my hair, ditching the store-bought shampoo for baking soda and apple cider vinegar . Recently, I decided to go one step further. What if all I used was water? The hope was that doing so would be healthier for my scalp and possibly reduce the amount of hair I shed on any given day. (Seriously, it comes out in tuff sometimes when I just run my fingers through it. I am often amazed I have any hair left.) The added benefit for the planet would be less trash going into the landfill. So I rinsed my hair every day, going through all of the motions of washing it. For a few days, it felt fine. After that, it started to feel a little greasy to the touch at the top of my head. Figuring I hadn't been the only person to try going water-only on her hair, I googled for tips. I came across an article, " The Ultimate Water-Only Hair Washing Routine," written by a woma...