It seems that we put up our Holiday decorations earlier each year. About five B.C. (before kids), I was just happy to get a small potted Norfolk Pine tree with a couple of ribbons. My wife kindly reminded me that it looked like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, but what would a 22 year old have in terms of lights and decorations anyway? Definitely not all the stuff that we put out this year.
We also have a lot of those things that when you squeeze their hand, they do a little dance or song. It is pretty annoying when the girls go around and set them all off at the same time, but they genuinely love it and dance around. I can put up with it for a couple of months.
After sitting in the attic for 10 months, we often times need to change the batteries in the toy. I am still in the process of changing everything to rechargeable batteries and still have some of the non rechargeable ones that need to be used. Instead of replacing all the batteries, I use a battery tester to see how much energy is left in each one.
I am pretty shocked to see that two batteries may be dead or very low, but usually one of them is still pretty much full. When they are completely dead, I put them in a small shoe box to be brought up to the local recycling center. But, if they still have some power left, I classify my used batteries by percentage that they are full. It is not too sophisticated, I just classify them in small boxes of “full”, “about half” and “dead”. That is one less wasted battery that goes in the singing snowman.
It is a good idea to use batteries that have approximately the same power left. You don’t want to mix a new battery in with old ones. It is not dangerous, but it can impact the performance of your electronic equipment.
I never knew that there were so many ways that you can recycle shoes. I’m not really a shoe person to begin with, so maybe that’s why I never looked into it before now. 



























Day 135- Thank You
It is Thanksgiving here in the United States today. It is one of the last holidays out there that you virtually can’t commercialize. As I get older, I appreciate all the things that I have in life and I am even thankful for all the ups and downs of my life. Without them, I would not be the person that I am today.
Don’t let Thanksgiving be the only time of year that you say thank you to someone. All too often we focus on the things that go wrong or things that are bad in our society. If you see someone doing a good job, thank them. It may seem a bit weird at first, but after a while you will get the hang of it.
Although my main focus here is to promote and learn about simple steps to a greener lifestyle, don’t just limit your thanks to green topics. Thank a veteran or current member of the military. Thank your neighbor for recycling. Thank the lady that brought her own bags to the store.
You get the idea.
A simple thank you goes a long way and is very contagious. I would love to know who you would like to thank and why. Please feel free to leave a comment or go to the main page here and send me a message directly.
Let me start the ball rolling with a big thank you to you, my readers for taking the time to visit my site. I hope that you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy sharing my life with you.