I've discovered that a couple of you were following my adventures in electricity usage, and are disappointed that I've not been updating the meter readings on the side bar. There's a simple answer for that: We've stopped paying for electricity.

We operate everything in this house by bicycle now. I have a blender attached to the bicycle. When somebody wants to use lights in the evening, somebody has to start pedaling to turn the generator. If the dishwasher is running, somebody's getting exercise. We have 16 bicycles stationed throughout the house. Sometimes the pedaling charges a battery and sometimes it directly operates the appliance.

The refrigerator takes constant care, and so we have attached the guinea pigs to a perpetual wheel. There's a reason we have three guinea pigs: Any one piggy is always on duty.

And here is where I hope you know I'm only kidding.

Our bathroom contains 8 light fixtures--eight! Just flipping the switch over the sink area illuminates 200 watts worth of light. The first time we had to replace one of the small bulbs I was not amused, as they are expensive little energy suckers, and so I decided NOT to replace them when they burned out. For awhile we did fine with two of the five bulbs using a total of 80 watts, but when the fourth one died I knew I had to do something.



I have looked high and low for compact fluorescents that would fit into the fixtures over my sink. I had no success until a recent trip to IKEA in Minneapolis, where we found the tiniest bulbs I've ever seen in a compact fluorescent design. They are about 2 1/2 inches long by 1 3/4 inches in diameter at the widest point.

Now we happily use 35 watts of electricity with all bulbs firing in place of the 200 watts. Would you like to see a photo of the IKEA bulbs, including "before" and "after" shots of my sink area, and a peek at how the bathroom looks when I use just two, three, and four fluorescent bulbs? Alas, my camera's battery charger is in Nebraska, where I left it.

Grrrr.