Friday Update

So, what is a Friday Update? I am so glad you asked. Fridays, I go through the week and summarize various categories. Each category below will offer a more detailed explanation. Some of the stuff comes from looking at society as a whole and realizing how wasteful we are and trying to conserve and reduce our use. Other sections have to do with personal summary in our lives and where we may need more work. From there, I make goals for the week to try to meet. Sometime, I am successful, sometime I am not. But either way, I try to do better as a wife, mother, and person from one week to the next.
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ELECTRICITY: The average American uses 900kwh per household per month. Being an all electric house, we often use more than that. While I can try to justify our usage with the fact that we don’t have natural gas, etc, we still use a LOT of electricity. More in the winter than the rest of the year. I read my meter weekly and report here how much we use and how it compares to the rest of society. The calculator I use is here.
http://calculator.riot4austerity.org/
Some of the other categories come from here: http://www.riot4austerity.org/blog/7-categories/
This week’s reading: 84420
Next week, I will have an actual usage.
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IDC: Independence Day Challenge. Becoming independent in our lives. Here are another seven categories. http://sharonastyk.com/2009/04/28/independence-days-challenge-year-two/ Some are easier to do in the summer than the winter, but each section can still be looked at.
Plant
Harvest
Preserve
Reduce waste/manage preserves
Preparation/storage
Build community food system
Eat the food (Try new recipes)
We will be starting over with this as well. Although I suppose I could mention the harvested eggs we get daily.
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GARBAGE: The reason I have this is I got really bad about recycling. I got out of the habit. Having this here will help hold me responsible and get back into it.
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GASOLINE: Living rural, we go through a lot of gasoline. This helps us keep track and reminds us to combine trips into town.
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MONEY: It comes and goes. In emotional or life crisis situations, it gets spent way too easily. This helps me keep track of anything above and beyond monthly bills. I pick up a soda at a convenience store, it gets written down. I pick up something to help with a recipe, it gets written down. Groceries, feed, etc all get written down.
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HOMESTEAD: This is the up to date happenings of the homestead. Here is where I share what is happening with the animals. Something goes to slaughter, an egg is hatched, a kid born, an animal sick, a goat pregnant, a garden doing well, a garden decimated, etc. It all goes here.
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HOMESCHOOL: This is self-explanatory. I share the success and failures of our home schooling journey. Struggles in math, success in writing, homeschool group activities, all get shared here .
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GOALS:

1. Lose four pounds by Tuesday weigh-in.
2. Get the yard cleaned up.
3. Get cookies made for work.
4. Cut my coffee consumption in half.