Hippydippy

This photo sums up my week.  Oh wait, is it only Wednesday?  Weird.  I've been more productive this week than in the recent past, which I am so happy about.  The indicator I use for my productivity is the number of total emails in my combined inboxes.  I keep email in my inbox until I've dealt with them.  I won't tell you how old some of the email is, but it's always my goal to have no more than 30 email between my personal and work accounts.  Last week was a bad week on that front, but now I've got things under control.  I usually just have to stay late at work one night a week to just get it all done, but it's worth it.  Now if only I could get the podcasts I need to listen to under 80.

And...I'm back on the bike!  February (and I guess half of March now) was a four-wheel month.  I'm not proud of it at all.  Why was I such a baby about the rain?  I don't know.  Well, now I'm back, and other than a sore rear, my bike makes me a happier person...and teacher (which is really important when you teach kids).  Although, I am sweatier.  My students either do not mind or are too nice to say anything.

In other hippie news, I am now collecting graywater.  Graywater (or greywater...depending on how you like to spell it) is defined as wastewater generated from things like laundry, bathing, and dish washing.  Each morning, I put a bucket in the shower and collect some water.  Then I use it to flush the toilet and soak dishes.  I decided to do this after a) reading this blog post by Senor Dirtbag, Fitz Cahall and b) reading a letter to the editor in the SF Chronicle about someone doing the same thing.  I'll post more updates as I keep trying this experiment, but here are some highlights so far: 1) I used minimal new toilet water in the past few days 2) I realized that I can soak my Almond Butter jars with graywater 3) I am going to figure out how to collect my washing machine water (very easy for me, as it all goes into a sink in the laundry room before going down the drain) that I hope to use for watering the lawn and 4) I can't wait to see next month's water bill!  I do need to read a lot more about this...first to figure out if I'm actually allowed to do this, as it's prohibited in some parts of this country.  But then again, I do live in Hippydippy California.  And I just found a whole website run by my county encouraging graywater use.  I love it!

Oh, and don't confuse hippie dippie (which means uncool) with hippydippy (which refers to pseudo-hippie b.s. practices) according to urbandictionary.com.  Their full definition of the latter is priceless.  My friends and I think hippydippy just means that you're doing hippie-like stuff and you're probably a bit off your rocker or turbo about these things.  Nothing negative about it, in my opinion.