New Duds for Abby

Abby has now grown out of most of the used clothes we've gotten from friends. We know reusing is best, and consignment shops have tons of onesies in her size. But with her big cloth diaper butt, we can rarely snap them at the bottom. So we've been looking for some cute baby t-shirts.

An artist named Will Heron has a booth at the Austin Farmer's Market where he sells t-shirts with his designs—like the one on the right. He has a great collection of baby clothes, but in Abby's size, they're all onesies.

The last time we were at the farmer's market, I noticed that he uses American Apparel shirts. This weekend, I went to their site and saw that they make a t-shirt in Abby's size too. So I emailed Will Heron and asked if he'd be willing to order those shirts from American Apparel and put a few of his designs on them for us.

He wrote back yesterday to say he included the shirts in his weekly order from American Apparel, and we should be getting everything in about 3-4 weeks. So very soon, Abby will be sporting American-made baby t-shirts with a local artist's designs. Woohoo!

Perspective

So last week at Whole Foods I picked up the most recent copy of Delicious Living. We like this magazine because it has some good articles. In this particular edition there was a picture on the back cover from an artist that does a great job of putting things into perspective. For example, ever want to see what 2 million plastic bottles looks like from a distance then up close?

A couple days later, I was reading the blog of a brewer who is opening up a new brewery here in Austin called 512 Brewing Company and I saw he mentioned the same artist.

It's good stuff. I can only imagine what these images must be like in person when viewing them in their original size.

Power Savers Unite!

In January, I signed us up for the Austin Energy Power Saver Program, and then I promptly forgot all about it. But this week, we got a box of goodies for signing up—two compact fluorescent bulbs, an energy-saving night light, outlet sealers, and weather stripping. (As nice as that all sounds, I would much rather have gotten a snazzy cape to show off my Power Saver status.)

Austin Energy started the program because most people use most of their energy in the early evening—to cook dinner, wash clothes, wash dishes, cool down a hot house. During a sweltering Austin summer, all this heavy use at the same time can cause a peak demand for energy, resulting in Austin having to generate more electricity or buy it during the most expensive hours of the day.

So when you sign up as a Power Saver Volunteer, Austin Energy contacts you up to 10 times during the summer and asks you to take four simple actions to use less electricity between 4:00 pm and 8:00 pm:

• Switch off unnecessary lights
  
• Delay washing and drying dishes and clothes
  
• Cook dinner in your microwave, rather than with an electric range
  
• Turn up the thermostat by three to four degrees

But remember how I said I signed us up in January? Nice and chilly outside. It's not even June yet and we're already hitting the 90s just about every day, so that last request is starting to look a little harder to swallow. We keep our AC at 78-80 during the day, so that would mean bumping it up to 81-84. Dang.

Who knows? Maybe we'll discover that with our fans on and after changing into light clothes, 81-84 can be bearable. But even if not, it's only 10 days out of the year, so we'll survive.

If you're an Austin Energy customer, why don't you join us this summer and we can lament our sweaty situations together? If you're not in Austin, don't feel left out—your electric company might have a similar program. But if you get a cape, I'm gonna be jealous.

A Gift Card Collage?

Last week, I used up all the money on an HEB gift card I had. So I asked the cashier if they take the empty cards back to reuse:

Cashier: "No. And you can't put more money on them after they're used up."

Me: Holding up now-useless gift card. "So what am I supposed to do with this?"

Cashier: Shrug. "You could make a collage out of them." Laugh.

Ah yes, a gift card collage. What a clever idea. I'll get right on that.

I happen to know that some gift card technology out there does allow you to recharge an empty card because I've done it at Whole Foods. And if that's possible, how hard would it be to take back empty cards and reuse them?

According to the HEB gift card FAQ, I can contact HEB at 1-800-987-4438, Monday through Friday between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., with my questions or issues about the HEB gift card. Oh, my sweet HEB, you are going to rue the day you hired that snarky cashier with an affinity for arts and crafts!

I called, and the nice lady on the gift card hotline said that they don't have the capacity to recharge used gift cards, although they've talked about the possibility for the future. I registered my frustration with having to throw away a perfectly good gift card, but I'm just one little person.

So my fellow HEB customers—will you call too? I promise it'll just take a couple minutes out of your day. Or if you prefer, you can fill out an online contact form. And let me know what you hear back!

Baby's First Farmer's Market

Every New Year's Eve, Erik and I cook a nice early dinner (because we're lame and never have exciting NYE plans), and we sit down to eat with two sheets of paper. On the first sheet, we list all our accomplishments from that year. Everything from "We switched to cloth produce bags" to "Erik brewed 31 beers" to "Mae won the dog division of Run for the Rovers for the second year in a row." Okay, technically that accomplishment belongs to one of our dogs, not us, but it's not like she's going to make her own list of accomplishments—so we get bragging rights.

On the second sheet of paper, we write down our goals for the next year. Not resolutions. These are goals, which we can start any time during the year. As opposed to resolutions, which if you don't do them every day of the year starting with the first day, you are A Big Fat Failure. So one of our goals for 2008 was to start going to a farmer's market at least once a month. Because even besides the fact that local food has to travel less distance to get to you so you're helping to save a bunch of fuel or even the fact that shopping there supports small family farms, The Sticky Toffee Pudding Company has a booth at the main Austin Farmer's Market, and in said booth they sell scones and other amazing deliciousness.

So yesterday, we made our first trip of 2008 to the farmer's market, which also happened to be Abby's first farmer's market trip ever. She did great in her Zolowear sling until she puked all over herself. But then she was happy to be out of the sling and taking it all in. There was another baby there her age—a little boy—but Abby was way cuter. Even his mom said that girls are so much cuter than boys.

The farmer who sold us some eggs even helped us fully immerse Abby in her farmer's market experience:

 

Flowers Purty

Erik and I have both lived in Austin over 10 years, but neither of us had ever been to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Abby turned 9 weeks old today, so we thought we'd celebrate by taking her to see the pretty flowers. And of course, we had to dress her up in her Under the Nile dress (thanks Doug and Deb!) and matching sun bonnet (thanks Grandma Linda!):

She slept most of the time and didn't really get to see the flowers, but we're going to let it slide since she was dressed head to toe in flowers herself. I can't believe it took us this long to go to the Wildflower Center. But from now on, it'll be a yearly tradition in the M-H-M family.