Seiri and Seiton applied to books

Inspired by Kathleen's How to organize books, I signed up for LibaryThing. I started with the books in the sewing and craft room. I also cataloged just one bookshelf in the family room/library/upstairs hallway. Amazingly, that's already 274 books. See my current catalog. There is also a fun thing in the right sidebar that shows a random selection of covers from my library.

Now, on with the books in the home office and the cookbooks in the dining room before I tackle the main household library. There are 3 full height IKEA Billy bookshelves in the library, one more in Iris' room, and 2 full-height bookshelves in my office.

We really have to be more selective about the stuff we keep. I have no interest in the books about window treatments; Iris and I are allergic to dust. Iris also said she is bored with most of her books; they are for babies. Maybe we can purge books together as a mommy and me activity.

Today, she is a 7 year old. She acts like she is 14. I can't wait for adolescence. ;-P

Tomorrow, Iris and Mark (and 3 of her friends and her Aunt and cousin) are going to Disneyland. I developed a secondary infection following a cold. I will be staying home with hot fluids, antibiotics and rest tomorrow. Maybe I will post about some of the books I have read while on home confinement.

Ahead of the (energy) curve

Mark has this annoying habit of taking the food out of the microwave when there is 1 second left on the timer. Because the microwave faces a window, it is hard to see the display. Thus, the next person who uses the microwave oven will enter in the time, wonder why it isn't working, realize why, then hit clear and reenter the time. This makes that person (usually me) very cranky. He couldn't wait one more second?

It turns out that there is method in his madness; even he was not aware of his brilliance. According to Action Earth, "The average microwave oven uses more energy powering its digital clock than it does cooking food."

When Mark leaves the oven at 1 second left on the timer, he is leaving it in the most energy conserving state, short of unplugging it. Think about it. 3 or 4 numerals to display the time or a single digit? And it's the one formed out of the fewest light bars!

Thanks to Bek's Friday enviropostings for the heads up. See more tips at Action Earth.

I have one more tip that Action Earth omitted. The energy usage on refrigerators is just an estimate, based upon typical usage. You can improve the energy efficiency of any refrigerator by keeping it full.

Why? Because, when you open the door, the cold air spills out and warmer air from the kitchen flows in. After you close the door, the refrigerator has to cool all that air down. Empty refrigerators use more energy than full ones. (Unless you keep nothing in your fridge and never open it. In that case, maybe you should unplug it altogether.)

As you use up the food in your refrigerator, put bottles of water to displace air. This is akin to placing a brick in your toilet tank to conserve water when you flush. While you are at it, fill your freezer with containers of water, too. As a bonus, all that ice and cold water will minimize food spoilage during power outages.

While I am enviroblogging, I might as well add a link to the story about the Great Plastic Garbage Patch aka the North Pacific Gyre.

Charles Moore, the marine researcher at the Algalita Marina Research Foundation in Long Beach who has been studying and publicizing the patch for the past 10 years, said the debris - which he estimates weighs 3 million tons and covers an area twice the size of Texas - is made up mostly of fine plastic chips and is impossible to skim out of the ocean.

Thanks to Here in Malibu for the heads up. Also, read more about the Great Plastic Garbage Patch in the Synthetic Sea. They find 6 pounds of plastic for each pound of zooplankton in the North Pacific Gyre. See the pictures of the junk on the Algalita website.

Aside: They do the analysis in Redondo Beach's very own SEA Lab (a good place to tour with your kids).

Deadly Fashion

Wow, death by high heels.

Two women who escaped from their car when it became stuck on train tracks in Riverside overnight were killed when the train hit the vehicle and dragged it over them as they walked away, apparently struggling in their high heels, authorities said today.

Gee, I previously blamed high heels for traffic congestion, injuries and climate change. I never expected them to be immediately deadly. I would have expected people to take off their shoes and make a run for it. What an awful way to go.

I can't help wondering if there is more to this story and that the police find it easier to blame the shoes than go into the details of the accident.